INDIAN TRIBES OJF BRAZIL. 365 



ticcd eye there was no change in the character of the never-ending 

 forest, the settlements of the rubber gatherers became frequent. The 

 rubber station usually consists of a largo building (the barracon) gen- 

 erally built of wood or mud and looted with tile. The lower story 

 serves for a salesroom and for storage, and the upper story for a home 

 for the proprietor (patron) and his family. Around the station are 

 scattered rude palm-thatchcd cabins, the homes of the rubber gatherers. 

 Though most of the settlements are of this kind, at Canutama and 

 Labria towns of several hundred inhabitants have sprung up. 



The rubber gatherers are a mixed population, chiefly Tapuio, 

 gathered from all of the older settlements of the Amazon and led here 

 by the hope of making money easily and quickly in the rubber busi- 

 ness. Of late years large numbers of people have conic up the river 

 from the State of Ceara, on the seacoast, from which they were driven 

 by famine caused by excessive drought. 



Near the mouth of the Ituchy the steamer stopped at the little sta- 

 tion of San Luis de Cassyana, the property of Coronel Gomez, who 

 has made his fortune in rubber and is called the king of the Ituchy. 

 Two steam launches for navigating the Ituchy and numbers of smaller 

 craft anchored in front of his barracon, with $10,000 or $15,000 worth 

 of rubber lying on the bank ready for shipment, were marks of his 

 enterprise and prosperity. Several of the dugout canoes of the Paumari 

 Indians (Arauan family) were drawn up on the bank (Plate 9), the 

 first signs of aborigines we had seen, and as our freight was carried 

 on shore a half dozen Paumari women came down and helped carry it 

 to the storehouse. While among civilized people they were dressed 

 like the poorer Tapuios, but were readily known by their small size 

 and peculiar method of wearing their hair, which was cut straight 

 across the forehead above the eyes and allowed to fall loose down the 

 back. They were also marked by a peculiar skin disease, which leaves 

 large white spots upon the hands and feet. The only man among them, 

 after carrying a few loads up the slippery bank through the mud and 

 rain, with the promise of a drink of rum as pay. gave it up in disgust. 

 and getting into his canoe drifted down astern of the steamer, where 

 he sat slapping mosquitoes and watching us until we were ready to 

 start. 



On my former trip I had visited these Indians in their villages. 

 Anciently they were much more numerous and are said to have occu- 

 pied the Purus down to near its mouth. They are now reduced to a 

 few hundred, who are found during the dry season leading a wander- 

 ing life along the river from the Ituchy to the Cashoeiras (rapids of 

 the Purus). The Paumari are the best known of the Purus tribes. 

 They are peculiarly river Indians, expert swimmers and boatmen, liv- 

 ing almost entirely upon fish and turtles. During the dry season they 

 wander in their little dugout canoes from one sand bar to another, liv- 



