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WARLIKE WOMEN 467
The accounts heard by Raleigh on the Orinoco,
in 1595, of a nation of female warriors existing on
the Amazon, seem to combine both the abovespecified
sites.
"
I made inquiry," says he, "among
the most ancient and travelled of the Orinokoponi
[the Indian inhabitants of the Orinoco] respecting
the warlike women, and will relate what I was informed
of as truth about them, by a Cacique who
said he had been on that river [the Amazon], and
beyond it also. Their is country on the southside
of the river, in the province of Tobago [Topayos],
and their chief places are in the islands on the south
side of it, some 60 leagues from the mouth. They
accompany with men once in a Children
year
which is in April. . . .
for a month,
born of these
alliances, if males, they send them to their fathers ;
if daughters, they take care of them and bring them
up," l
etc. Another report he heard was that " there
is a province in Guyana called Cunun's, which is
governed by a woman
'
-plainly a Cuiia-puyara.
is to be noted that these reports were heard near
the mouth of the Orinoco, or some 2000 miles away
from the supposed country of the Amazons, from
Indians who had them from one another and not
from the Spaniards ;
and
It
that the Cumin's is for
the first time indicated by name in this relation of
Raleigh's. We. have the most complete account
of the river and district of Cunun's, and of the ex-
tant traditions respecting the Amazons, in Acuna's
description of his voyage clown the Amazon in 1639.
He mentions four nations who inhabit on the river
Cunun's, the Cunurfs (Indians) being nearest the
mouth, and the Guacaras the highest up ;
1
Caylcy's Life of K n, '. 1114-195.
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