370 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



cultivation is the one common to all savage tribes of the earth. 

 A piece of the forest is cut down and allowed to dry and then burned. 

 By this means the surface of the ground is made ready for planting. 

 The ground is generally used for two or three crops, but by this time 

 young timber has sprung up from the roots and stumps and taken 

 possession of the land and a new plantation is made. 



At 5 o'clock we came out into a clearing of 15 or 20 acres already 

 growing up to weeds and bushes, but with growing sugar cane and mani- 

 hot and clumps of fruiting bananas, and near the center an immense 

 deserted building, the malocca of the Jamamadi. I had expected to 

 find a village of houses, but this was a great village house (fig. 9). It 

 was a large cone-shaped affair, apparently all roof, 70 feet high and 

 130 in diameter. As we came near we found that there were neither 

 doors nor windows, but that the roof was raised about 4 feet from the 

 ground all around upon a circle of small posts. On stooping and enter- 

 ing we found that it was made of a skeleton of long poles reaching 

 from near the ground to the peak. To this skeleton was tied the roof 

 of overlapping horizontal layers of carefully braided thatch made from 

 the leaves of the caranai palm. An inner circle of large posts was 

 set 12 feet apart and about 12 feet from the outer walls. These aided 

 in supporting the roof and outlined a series of cells, which served as 

 family dwelling places. A horizontal pole reached from each post to 

 the outer wall. These were placed about breast high and were divi- 

 sions between the rooms. Inside the inner row of posts the whole 

 center of the building, 100 feet in diameter, was left clear for assem- 

 blies and dances, there being no center pole. The building was deserted 

 and there were no signs of recent occupation. Senhor Joao had told 

 me the story of the tragedy leading to the abandonment. 



In June, 1900, only nine months before, this was the home of 130 

 people and was surrounded by carefully kept fields of corn, sugar cane, 

 and manihot. Then one of the tribe, who had been down to the Purvis, 

 brought back measles, caught from the people of a passing steamer, 

 and soon they were d}ang faster than the living could bury them. 

 When the fever and eruption came on, they would bathe in the river, 

 and this seemed to drive the disease to the lungs and throat and the}' 

 died of a cough. Finally those who could get away deserted the malocca 

 and fled to the woods, and many died beside the paths and the streams. 

 Sefior Joao described the place, as he visited it about this time, the 

 dead bodies and skeletons lying about, and the arms and clothing of 

 the dead left in their places. After the disease had run its course 

 scarcely 30 were left alive. These feared to return to the village, but 

 settled near by. 



After measuring and examining the building as well as possible, we 

 went on. and after a half hour's walk came to a new clearing of 10 or 

 12 acres. The blackened logs and stumps were buried in tall Indian 



