132 VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. Chap. II. 



tural Indians. These campaigns begin in July, and last 

 throughout the dry months ; the women generally ac- 

 companying the warriors to carry their arrows and jave- 

 lins. They had the diabolical custom, in former days, 

 of cutting off the heads of their slain enemies, and pre- 

 serving them as trophies around their houses. I 

 believe this, together with other savage practices, has 

 been relinquished in those parts where they have had 

 long intercourse with the Brazilians, for I could neither 

 see nor hear anything of these preserved heads. They 

 used to sever the head with knives made of broad 

 bamboo, and then, after taking out the brain and 

 fleshy parts, soak it in bitter vegetable oil (andiroba), 

 and expose it for several days over the smoke of a fire 

 or in the sun. In the tract of country between the 

 Tapajos and the Madeira, a deadly war has been for 

 many years carried on between the Mundurucus and 

 the Araras. I was told by a Frenchman at Santarem, 

 who had visited that part, that all the settlements 

 there have a military organization. A separate shed 

 is built outside of each village, where the fighting men 

 sleep at night, sentinels being stationed to give the alarm 

 with blasts of the Ture on the approach of the Araras, 

 who choose the night for their onslaughts. 



Each horde of Mundurucus has its paje or medicine 

 man, who is the priest and doctor ; fixes upon the time 

 most propitious for attacking the enemy ; exorcises evil 

 spirits, and professes to cure the sick. All illness whose 

 origin is not very apparent is supposed to be caused by 

 a worm in the part affected. This the paje' pretends to 

 extract ; he blows on the seat of pain the smoke from 



