The Indian Tribes of Guiana:

first edition tall 8vo. xiv, [2], 500pp., 19 plates (of which 8 are coloured), large folding map, wood-engraved illustrations in text, publisher's green cloth, decorative blind border on sides, spine gilt lettered, neatly recased, new endpapers of old paper, very good.

William Henry Brett (Dover, 1818 - 1886) exhibited religious inclinations from his youth and in 1840 was sent by Society for the Propagation of the Gospel as a missionary to Guiana. He spent almost forty years there as a missionary and travelled widely throughout the region. Besides this book he published several others on the native peoples of the region and on their myths and legends as well as translating the New Testament and the Book of Common Prayer into several of their languages.
Chapters range over the coast and its population, the interior and its inhabitants, on early explorers, on the Essequibo and its tributaries, on the various different native peoples - the Pomeroons, Arawaks, Caribs, Acawoios, Waraus, Waramuri, Mahaiconi, Kapohn, etc., their customs and endemic diseases, their character and habits, mythology and legends, etc. This edition expands greatly on an earlier work of 1851 both in text and illustration. "All we know of the Aborigines who inhabit these deadly climes, is communicated by such fearless missionaries as Brett" [Sabin, 7746]. The illustrations are based upon his drawings.