Givaros

Givaros (Jivaros, Xivaros), a powerful Indian nation of Ecuador, where they occupy the forests on the eastern slope of the Andes along the banks of the Paute and other northern headwaters of the Amazons. They are a tall, vigorous people, very fierce and warlike, occupied chiefly with fishing and hunting, and also raising large herds of swine. In battle and on festive occasions they wear attached to a long tress of the hair the heads of the enemy slain by their own hands, prepared with much skill and reduced to about the size of a large apple by extracting all the bones from their integument. The usual arms are iron and wooden spears and darts, besides the blow-pipe, with which poisoned arrows are shot to a great distance with surprising accuracy. The dress is reduced to a simple loincloth, dyed a deep yellow, and the whole body is usually painted a yellowish-red and streaked with long black lines. The Givaro language is extremely harsh, and entirely different from the Kicina, which is the current speech of most of the other Indians in the eastern parts of Ecuador.

Hitherto these primitive wild tribes had kept entirely aloof from the whites and other settled populations; but about 1870 some French missionaries penetrated amongst them, and established a central station at Gualaquiza on the Rio Rosario, 95 miles S.E. of Cuenca. (Annates de la Propagation de la Foi, September, 1871.)