MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



401 



in fact, the management. These 

 Juizes have the power of putting 

 suspicious persons into confine- 

 ment, and of pimlshing for small 

 crimes ; those of more importance 

 wait for the Correi^am, or circuit 

 of the Ouvidor of the captaincy. 

 Each village contains a town -hall 

 and prison. The administration 

 of justice in the Sertam is gene- 

 rally spoken of as most wretch- 

 edly bad ; every crime obtains 

 impunity by the payment of a sum 

 of money. An innocent person 

 is sometimes punished through 

 the interest of a great man, whom 

 he may have offended, and the 

 murderer escapes who has the 

 good fortune to be under the pro- 

 tection of a powerful patron. This 

 proceeds still more from the feudal 

 state of the country than from the 

 corruption of the magistrates, who 

 might often be inclined to do their 

 duty, and yet be aware that their 

 exertions would be of no avail, 

 and would possibly prove fatal to 

 themselves. The Indians have 

 likewise their Capitaens-mores, 

 and this title is conferred for life ; 

 it gives the holder some power 

 over his fellows, but as it is among 

 them unaccompanied by the pos- 

 session of property, the Indian 

 Capitaens-mores are much ridi- 

 culed by the whites ; and indeed 

 the half-naked officer with his 

 gold-headed cane is a personage 

 who would excite laughter from 

 the most rigid nerves. 



The Indians are in general a 

 quiet and inoffensive people ; they 

 have not much fidelity ; but al- 

 though they desert, they will not 

 injure those whom they have 

 served. Their lives are certainly 

 not passed in a pleasant manner 

 under the eye of a director, by 



VoL.LIX. 



whom they are imperiously treated ; 

 consequently it is not surprising 

 that they should do all in their 

 power to leave their villages, and 

 be free from an immediate su- 

 perior ; but even when they have 

 escaped from the irksome domi- 

 nion of the director, they never 

 settle in one place. The Indian 

 scarcely ever plants for himself, 

 or if he does, rarely waits the 

 crop ; he sells his maize or man- 

 dioc for half its value, before it is 

 fit to be gathered, and removes to 

 some other district. His favourite 

 pursuits are fishing and hunting; 

 a lake or rivulet will alone induce 

 him to be stationary for any length 

 of time. He has a sort of inde- 

 pendent feeling, which makes him 

 spurn at any thing like a wish to 

 deprive him of his own free 

 agency ; to the director he sub- 

 mits, because it is out of his power 

 to resist. An Indian, can never be 

 persuaded to address the master 

 to whom he may have hired him- 

 self, by the term of Senhor, 

 though it is made use of by the 

 whites in speaking to each other, 

 and by all other free people in the 

 country ; but the negroes also use 

 it in speaking to their masters, 

 therefore the Indian will not ; he 

 addresses his temporary master by 

 the term of amo or patram, pro- 

 tector or patron. The reluctance 

 to use the term of Senhor may 

 perhaps have commenced with the 

 immediate descendants of those 

 who were in slavery, and thus the 

 objection may have become tradi- 

 tionary. They may refuse to give 

 by courtesy what was once re- 

 quired from them by law. How- 

 ever, if it began in this manner, 

 it is not now continued for the 

 same reason, as none of those with 

 2 D whom 



