Cuap, IX. THE PARARAUATE TRIBE. 240 
returned from a two days’ pursuit of a wandering horde of savages of 
the Pardraudte tribe, who had strayed this way from the interior lands 
and robbed the plantations. A little further on we came to the house 
of the Tushatia, or chief, situated on the top of a high bank, which we 
had to ascend by wooden steps. There were four other houses in the 
neighbourhood, all filled with people. A fine old fellow, with face, 
shoulders, and breast tattooed all over in a crossbar pattern, was the 
first strange object that caught my eye. Most of the men lay lounging 
or sleeping in their hammocks. ‘The women were employed in an 
adjoining shed making farinha, many of them being quite naked, and 
rushing off to the huts to slip on their petticoats when they caught sight 
of us. Our entrance aroused the Tushatia from a nap; after rubbing 
his eyes he came forward and bade us welcome with the most formal 
politeness, and in very good Portuguese. He was a tall, broad- 
shouldered, well-made man, apparently about thirty years of age, with 
handsome regular features, not tattooed, and a quiet good-humoured 
expression of countenance. He had been several times to Santarem 
and once to Para, learning the Portuguese language during these 
journeys. He was dressed in shirt and trousers made of blue-checked 
cotton cloth, and there was not the slightest trace of the savage in his 
appearance or demeanour. I was told that he had come into the 
chieftainship by inheritance, and that the Cupari horde of Munduructs, 
over which his fathers had ruled before him, was formerly much more 
numerous, furnishing 300 bows in time of war. They could now scarcely 
muster forty ; but the horde has no longer a close political connection 
with the main body of the tribe, which inhabits the banks of the 
Tapajos, six days’ journey from the Cupart settiement. 
I spent the remainder of the day here, sending Aracti and the men to 
fish, whilst I amused myself with the Tushatia and his people. <A few 
words served to explain my errand on the river ; he comprehended at 
once why white men should admire, and travel to collect, the beautiful 
birds and animals of his country, and neither he nor his people spoke 
a single word about trading, or gave us any trouble by coveting the 
things we had brought. He related to me the events of the preceding 
three days. The Pardraudtes were a tribe of intractable savages, with 
whom the Munduructis have been always at war. They had no fixed 
abode, and of course made no plantations, but passed their lives like the 
wild beasts, roaming through the forest, guided by the sun: wherever 
they found themselves at night-time, there they slept, slinging their bast 
hammocks, which are carried by the women, to the trees. They 
ranged over the whole of the interior country, from the head waters of 
the Itapacura (a branch of the Tapajos flowing from the east, whose 
sources lie in about 7° south latitude) to the banks of the Curua (about 
3° south latitude), and from the Munduruct settlements on the ‘T'apajos 
(55° west longitude) to the Pacajaz (50° west longitude). They cross 
the streams which lie in their course in bark canoes, which they make 
on reaching the water, and cast away after landing on the opposite side. 
The tribe is very numerous, but the different hordes obey only their 
own chieftains. The Munduructs of the upper Tapajos have an 
expedition on foot against them at the present time, and the Tushatia 
16 
