Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The
Groups Of Alouate Monkeys Howl In The Same Manner, And Among Them The
Indians Distinguish The Leader Of The Band.
It was the practice at
Mexico to castrate the mute dogs in order to fatten them.
This
operation must have contributed to alter the organ of the voice.)
The practice of eating the flesh of dogs is now entirely unknown on
the banks of the Orinoco; but as it is a Tartar custom spread through
all the eastern part of Asia, it appears to me highly interesting for
the history of nations to have ascertained that it existed heretofore
in the hot regions of Guiana and on the table-lands of Mexico. I must
observe, also, that on the confines of the province of Durango, at the
northern extremity of New Spain, the Comanches have preserved the
habit of loading the backs of the great dogs that accompany them in
their migrations with their tents of buffalo-leather. It is well known
that employing dogs as beasts of burthen and of draught is equally
common near the Slave Lake and in Siberia. I dwell on these features
of conformity in the manners of nations, which become of some weight
when they are not solitary, and are connected with the analogies
furnished by the structure of languages, the division of time, and
religious creeds and institutions.
We passed the night at the island of Cucuruparu, called also Playa de
la Tortuga, because the Indians of Uruana go thither to collect the
turtles' eggs.
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