Chap. I. INDIAN PROCESSION. 9 



disguised with a peculiar kind of light gauze mask. The 

 troop, with a party of musicians, went the round of their 

 friends' houses in the evening, and treated the large and 

 gaily-dressed companies which were there assembled to 

 a variety of dances. The principal citizens, in the large 

 rooms of whose houses these entertainments were given, 

 seemed quite to enjoy them ; great preparations were 

 made at each place ; and, after the dance, guests and 

 masqueraders were regaled with pale ale and sweet- 

 meats. Once a year the Indians, with whom masked 

 dances and acting are indigenous, had their turn, and on 

 one occasion they gave us a great treat. They assembled 

 from different parts of the neighbourhood at night, on 

 the outskirts of the town, and then marched through the 

 streets by torchlight towards the quarter inhabited by 

 the whites, to perform their hunting and devil dances 

 before the doors of the principal inhabitants. There 

 were about a hundred men, women, and children in 

 the procession. Many of the men w T ere dressed in the 

 magnificent feather crowns, tunics, and belts, manufac- 

 tured by the Mundurucus, and worn by them on festive 

 occasions, but the women were naked to the waist, and 

 the children quite naked, and all were painted and 

 smeared red with anatto. The ringleader enacted the 

 part of the Tushaua, or chief, and carried a sceptre, 

 richly decorated with the orange, red, and green feathers 

 of toucans and parrots. The paje or medicine-man came 

 along, puffing at a long tauari cigar, the instrument by 

 which he professes to make his wonderful cures. Others 

 blew harsh jarring blasts with the ture, a horn made of 

 long and thick bamboo, with a split reed in the mouth- 



