770 



THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



those mishapo of their daily life, the causes 

 of which are not very immediate or obvious 

 to their dull understandings. It is vain t 

 try to get information out of a Tucuna on 

 this subject ; they affect great mystery when 

 the name is mentioned, and give very con- 

 fused answers to questions. It was clear, 

 however, that the idea of a spirit as a bene- 

 ficent God or Creator had not entered the 

 minds of these Indians. There is great sim- 

 ilarity in all their ceremonies and mumme- 

 ries, whether the object is a wedding, the cel- 

 ebration of the feast of fruits, the plucking 

 of the hair from the heads of their children, 

 or a holiday got up simply out of a love of 

 dissipation. Some of the tribe on these oc- 

 casions deck themselves w : th the bright- col- 

 ored feathers of parrots and macaws. Th* 

 chief wears a head-dress or cap made by fiv 

 iuss the breast-feathers of the Toucan on * 

 web of Bromelia twine, with ere^t tail 

 plumes of macaws rising from the crown. 

 The cinctures of the arms and legs are i Iso 

 then ornamented with bunches of feathers. 

 Others wear masked dresses. These are long 

 cloaks reaching below the knee, and made 

 Df the thick whitish- colored inner bark 

 of a tree, the fibres of which are inter- 

 laced in so regular a manner, that the 

 material looks like artificial cloth. The 

 sloak covers the head ; two holes are cut out 

 for the eyes, a large round piece i*f the 

 sloth stretched on a rim of flexible wood 

 is stitched on each side to represent ears, 

 and the features are painted in exag- 

 gerated style with yellow, red, ank. 'Jack 

 itreaks. The dresses are sewn into the proper 

 shapes with thread made of the inner bark 

 Df the Uaissima tree. Sometimes grotesque 

 head-dresses, representing monkeys' busts or 

 heads of other animals, made by stretchin g 

 sloth or skin over a basket-work frame, are 

 worn at these holidays. The biggest and 

 ugliest mask represents the Jurupari. In 

 these festival habiliments the Tucunas go 

 through their monotonous see-saw and stamp- 

 ing dances, accompanied by singing and 

 drumming, and keep up the sport often for 

 three or four days and nights in succession, 

 di inking enormous quantities of caysuma, 

 smoking tobacco, and snuffing parica powder. 

 I could not learn that there was any deep 

 symbolical meaning in these masked dances, 

 or that they commemorated any past event 

 in the history of the tribe. Some of them 

 seem vaguely intended as a propitiation of 

 the Jurupari, but the masker who represents 

 the demon sometimes gets drunk along with 

 the rest, and is not treated with any rever- 

 ence. From all I could make out, these In- 

 dians preserve no memory of events going 

 beyond the times of their fathers or grand- 

 fathers. Almost every joyful event is made 

 the occasion of a festival weddings among 

 the rest. A young man who wishes to wed 

 a Tucuna girl has to demand her hand of her 

 parents, who arrange the rest of the affair 

 and fix a day for the marriage ceremony. A 

 wedding which took place in the Christmaf 

 week while I was at St. Paulo, was kept up 



with great spirit for three or fotw day, ttitg 

 ging during the heats of mid-day, bat renew- 

 ing itself with increased vigor every even- 

 ing. During the whole time the bride, deck- 

 ed out with feather oinaments, was under 

 the charge of the older squaws,, whose busi- 

 ness seemed to be sedulously to keep the 

 bridegroom at a safe distance until the end 

 of the dreary period of dancing and boosing. 

 The Tucunas have the singular custom, ID- 

 common with the Colliuas and Mauhes, of 

 treating their young girls r on their showing, 

 the first signs of womanhood, as if they had 

 committed some crime. They are sent up to. 

 the girao under the smoky and filthy roof,, 

 and kept there on very meagre diet,, some- 

 times for a whole month. I heard of ona 

 poor girl dying under this treatment. 



^he only other tribe of this neighborhood 

 concerning which 1 obtained any informa- 

 tion where the Majeronas, whose territory- 

 embraces several hundred miles of the west- 

 ern bank of the River Jauari, an affluent of 

 the Solimoens, 120 miles beyond St. Paulo. 

 These are a fierce, indomitable, and hostile; 

 people, like the Aiaias of the River Madeira ; 

 they are also cannibals. The navigation of 

 the Jauari is rendered impossible on account 

 of the Majer6nas lying ID wait on its banks 

 to intercept and murder all travellers, espe- 

 cially whites. 



Four months before my arrival at St. Pau- 

 lo, two young half-castes (nearly white) of 

 the village went to trade on the Jauari, the 

 Majeionas having shown signs of abating; 

 their hostility for a year or two previously. 

 They had not been long gone, when their 

 cante returned with the news that the two 

 young fellows had been shot with arrows, 

 roasted, and eaten by the savages. Jose Pa- 

 tricio, with his usual activity in the cause off 

 law and order, despatched a party of aimed 

 men of the National Guard to the place to 

 make inquiries, and, if the murder should 

 appear to be unprovoked, to retaliate. When 

 they reached the setthment of the horde who 

 had eaitn the two men, .U was found evacu- 

 ated, with the exception of one giil, who had 

 been in the woods when the rest of her peo- 

 ple had taken flight, and whom the guards 

 brought wuh tiitm to St. Paulo. It was 

 gathered from her, and from other Indians 

 on the Jauari, that the young men had 

 brought their fate on themselves through 

 improper conduct towaid the MajeroDa 

 women. The girl, on arriving at St. Paulo, 

 was taken care of by Senhor Jose Patricio, 

 baptized under the name of Maria, and taught 

 Portuguese. I saw a good deal of her, lor 

 my friend sent her daily to my house to fill 

 the water jars, make the fire, and so forth. I 

 also gained her good will by extracting the 

 grub of an (Estrus fly from her back, and 

 thus cured her of a painful tumor. She was 

 decidedly the best-humored and, to all ap- 

 pearance, the kindest-hearted specimen of 

 her race I had yet seen. She was tall and 

 very stout ; in color much lighter than the 

 ordinary Indian tint, and her ways alto- 

 gether were more like those of a caieless. 



