376 EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA. Chai\ VI. 



and they do not dwell in villages, like the more ad- 

 vanced sections of the Tupi stock ; but each family has 

 its own solitary hut. They are quite harmless, do not 

 practise tattooing, or perforate their ears and noses in 

 any way. Their social condition is of a low type, very 

 little removed, indeed, from that of the brutes living in 

 the same forests. They do not appear to obey any 

 common chief, and I could not make out that they had 

 Pajes, or medicine-men, those rudest beginnings of a 

 priest class. Symbolical or masked dances, and cere- 

 monies in honour of the Jurupari, or demon, customs 

 which prevail amongst all the surrounding tribes, are 

 unknown to the Caishanas. There is amongst them a 

 trace of festival-keeping ; but the only ceremony used 

 is the drinking of cashiri beer, and fermented liquors 

 made of India'h-com, bananas, and so forth. These 

 affairs, however, are conducted in a degenerate style, for 

 they do not drink to intoxication, or sustain the orgies 

 for several days and nights in succession, like the Juris, 

 Passes, and Tucunas. The men play a musical instru- 

 ment, made of pieces of stem of the arrow-grass cut in 

 different lengths and arranged like pan-pipes. With 

 this they while away whole hours, lolling in ragged bast 

 hammocks slung in their dark, smoky huts. The Tu- 

 nantins people say that the Caishanas have persecuted 

 the wild animals and birds to such an extent near their 

 settlements that there is now quite a scarcity of animal 

 food. If they kill a Toucan, it is considered an import- 

 ant event, and the bird is made to serve as a meal for a 

 score or more persons. They boil the meat in earthen- 

 ware kettles filled with Tucupi sauce, and eat it with 



