Chap. VI. THE JURIJPARI. 403 



and for fires in the middle, and on one side is an ele- 

 vated stage (girao) overhead, formed of split palm stems. 

 The Tucimas excel most of the other tribes in the 

 manufacture of pottery. They make broad-mouthed 

 jars for Tucupi sauce, caysuma or mandioca beer, 

 capable of holding twenty or more gallons, ornament- 

 ing them outside with crossed diagonal streaks of 

 various colours. These jars, with cooking-pots, smaller 

 jars for holding water, blow-pipes, quivers, matiri 

 bags* full of small articles, baskets, skins of animals, 

 and so forth, form the principal part of the furniture of 

 their huts both large and small. The dead bodies of 

 their chiefs are interred, the knees doubled up, in large 

 jars under the floors of their huts. 



The semi-religious dances and drinking bouts usual 

 amongst the settled tribes of Amazonian Indians are 

 indulged in to greater excess by the Tucunas than 

 they are by most other tribes. The Jurupari or 

 Demon is the only superior being they have any con- 

 ception of, and his name is mixed up with all their 

 ceremonies, but it is difficult to ascertain what they con- 

 sider to be his attributes. He seems to be believed in 

 simply as a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of 

 all those mishaps of their daily life, the causes of which 

 are not very immediate or obvious to their dull under- 



* These bags are formed of remarkably neat twine made of Bro- 

 melia fibres elaborately knitted, all in one piece, with sticks ; a belt of 

 the same material, but more closely woven, being attached to the top 

 to suspend them by. They afford good examples of the mechanical 

 ability of these Indians. The Tucunas also possess the art of skinning 

 and stuffing birds, the handsome kinds of which they sell in great 

 numbers to passing travellers. 



dd2 



