280 UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. CHap. X,. 
framework. One enacts the part of the Caypor, a kind of sylvan deity 
similar to the Curupira which I have before mentioned. The belief 
in this being seems to be common to all the tribes of the Tupi stock. 
According to the figure they dressed up at Ega, he is a bulky, mis- 
shapen monster, with red skin and long shaggy red hair hanging 
half-way down his back. They believe that he has subterranean 
campos and hunting grounds in the forest, well stocked with pacas and 
deer. He is not at all an object of worship, nor of fear, except to 
children, being considered merely as a kind of hobgoblin. Most of 
the masquers make themselves up as animals—bulls, deer, magoary 
storks, jaguars, and so forth, with the aid of light frameworks, covered 
with old cloth dyed or painted, and shaped according to the object 
represented. Some of the imitations which I saw were capital. One 
ingenious fellow arranged an old piece of canvas in the form of a tapir, 
placed himself under it, and crawled about on all fours. He constructed 
an elastic nose to resemble that of the tapir, and made, before the 
doors of the principal residents, such a good imitation of the beast 
grazing, that peals of laughter greeted him wherever he went. Another 
man walked about solitarily, masked as a jabirti crane (a large animal 
standing about four feet high), and mimicked the gait and habits of 
the bird uncommonly well. One year an Indian lad imitated me, to the 
infinite amusement of the townsfolk. He came the previous day to 
borrow of me an old blouse and straw hat. I felt rather taken in when 
I saw him, on the night of the performance, rigged out as an ento- 
mologist, with an insect net, hunting bag, and pincushion. To make 
the imitation complete, he had borrowed the frame of an old pair 
of spectacles, and went about with it straddled over his nose. ‘The 
jaguar now and then made a raid amongst the crowd of boys who were 
dressed as deer, goats, and so forth. The masquers kept generally 
together, moving from house to house, and the performances were 
directed by an old musician, who sang the orders and explained to the 
spectators what was going forward in a kind of recitative, accompanying 
himself on a wire guitar. The mixture of Portuguese and Indian 
customs is partly owing to the European immigrants in these parts 
having been uneducated men, who, instead of introducing European 
civilisation, have descended almost to the level of the Indians, and 
adopted some of their practices. ‘The performances take place in the 
evening, and occupy five or six hours; bonfires are lighted along the 
grassy streets, and the families of the better class are seated at their 
doors, enjoying the wild but good-humoured fun. 
A purely Indian festival is celebrated the first week in February, 
which is called the Feast of Fruits: several kinds of wild fruit 
becoming ripe at that time, more particularly the Umari and the Wishi, 
two sorts which are a favourite food of the people of this province, 
although of a bitter taste and unpalatable to Europeans. It takes 
place at the houses of a few families of the Juri tribe, hidden in the 
depths of the forest on the banks of a creek about three miles from 
Ega. I saw a little of it one year, when hunting in the neighbourhood 
with an Indian attendant. ‘There were about 150 people assembled, 
nearly all red-skins, and signs of the orgy having been very rampant the 
