Cuap. XIII. PETTY TRIBAL WARS. 369 
Tucupi sauce, and eat it with beiju, or mandioca cakes. The women 
are not allowed to taste of the meat, but forced to content themselves 
with sopping pieces of cake in the liquor. 
I obtained a little information here concerning the inhabitants of the 
banks of the Issd, a stream 7co miles in length, which, having its 
sources at the foot of the volcanoes near Pasto, in New Granada, 
enters the Amazons about twenty miles to the west of Tunantins. I 
once met a mulatto of Pasto and his wife, who had descended this 
river from its source to its mouth. They lost all their luggage in passing 
the cataracts ; but found, after the first fifteen days of their journey 
(about 150 miles), no more obstructions to navigation down to the 
Solimoens. It is not so unhealthy a river as the Japurd; but the 
natives are much less friendly to the whites than those inhabiting that 
river. ‘To the distance of about 400 miles from Tunantins, its banks 
are now almost destitute of inhabitants. A few half-civilised and 
peaceable Passés, Juris, and Shumdanas, are settled near its mouth ; but 
higher up the Marietés occupy the domain, and towards the frontiers of 
New Granada, Mirdnhas are the only Indians met with, whose territory 
extends overland thence to the Japurd. The Marietés and Mirdnhas 
have been for many years constantly at war, and the depopulation. of 
the country is owing partly to this circumstance, and partly to diseases 
introduced by the whites. These wars are not carried on by the whole 
of each tribe at once, but in a series of partial hostilities between 
separate hordes or clans. The hordes of each nation live apart ; indeed 
these tribes have no villages, but are scattered in families over the 
country, and are connected together by no other ties than a common 
name, and the tradition of general enmity towards the hordes bearing 
the name of the other nation. Moreover, hordes belonging to the same 
tribe or nation sometimes quarrel with each other. These petty wars 
originate in this fashion: a member of a family falls ill, and his or her 
relations, or the rest of the horde, get hold of the idea that the Pajé of 
a neighbouring horde has caused the illness by witchcraft; all then 
assemble for a grand drinking-bout, during which they excite each other 
by reciting their wrongs. The armed men meet on the following day, 
and march by intricate paths or circuitous streams, so as to take their 
enemies by surprise, and then pounce upon them with loud shouts, 
killing all they can, and burning their huts to the ground. 
LVovember 30th.—I left Tunantins in a trading schooner of eighty 
tons burthen belonging to Senhor Batalha, a tradesman of Ega, which 
had been out all the summer collecting produce, and was commanded 
by a friend of mine, a young Paraense, named Francisco Raiol. We 
arrived on the 3rd of December at the mouth of the Jutahi, a 
considerable stream about half a mile broad, and flowing with a very 
sluggish current. ‘This is one of a series of six rivers, from 400 to 1000 
miles in length, which flow from the south-west through unknown lands 
lying between Bolivia and the Upper Amazons, and enter this latter 
river between the Madeira and the Ucayali. The sources of none of 
them are known. The longest of the six is the Purds, the first met 
with in ascending the Solimoens. I gleaned very little information 
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