At the beginning of my stay among the tribes, I thought, as many have asserted, that polygamy was common among the Indians. The reason for this belief is simply the fact that it is extremely hard to distinguish at first between wives, concubines, and attached women—women under the protection of a man, but not necessarily in intimate relation. Inquiries do not immediately assist any conclusion. If, for example, you question one of the attached women she would merely reply, “I am the chief's woman,” which answer would have been equally correct in either case. But on better knowledge of their languages and customs the conviction was forced on me that monogamy and not polygamy is the rule, with the exception of the chiefs north of the Japura, who have, so far as I could make out, more than one wife. Koch-Grünberg affirms, and other tribes told me, that among the tribes on the Tikie a chief may have four wives. This is not the case south of that river, where chiefs, like ordinary members of the tribe, have only one.

But in addition to his wife or wives, all female prisoners and any unattached women belong by right to the chief. He is their father, mother, and husband, in so far that they receive his protection, though the wife would not permit any intimacy, unless it were when she was bearing or nursing a child.