206 THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 



descended almost to the level of the Indians, and 

 adopted some of their practices. The performances 

 take place in the evening, and occupy five or six hours ; 

 bonfires are lighted along the grassy streets, and the 

 families of the better class are seated at their doors, 

 enjoying the wild but good-humoured fun. 



A purely Indian festival is celebrated the first week 

 in February, which is called the Feast of Fruits : several 

 kinds of wild fruit becoming ripe at that time, more 

 particularly the Umari and the Wish!, two sorts which 

 are a favourite food of the people of this piovince, 

 although of a bitter taste and unpalatable to Europeans. 

 It takes place at the houses of a few families of the 

 Juri tribe, hidden in the depths of the forest on the 

 banks of a creek about three miles from Ega. I saw a 

 little of it one year, when hunting in the neighbourhood 

 with an Indian attendant. There were about 150 people 

 assembled, nearly all red-skins, and signs of the orgy 

 having been very rampant the previous night were appa- 

 rent in the litter and confusion all around, and in the 

 number of drunken men lying asleep under the trees and 

 sheds. The women had manufactured a great quantity of 

 spirits in rude clay stills, from mandioca, bananas, and 

 pine-apples. I doubt whether there was ever much 

 symbolic meaning attached by the aborigines to festivals 

 of this kind. The harvest-time of the Umiri and Wishi 

 is one of their seasons of abundance, and they naturally 

 made it the occasion of one of their mad, drunken 

 holidays. They learnt the art of distilling spirits from 

 the early Portuguese ; it is only, however, one or two of 

 the superior tribes, such as the Juris and Passes, who 



