Chap. VI. WEDDINGS. 405 



work frame, are worn at these holidays. The biggest 

 and ugliest mask represents the Jurupari. In these 

 festival habiliments the Tuctinas go through their 

 monotonous see-saw and stamping dances accompanied 

 by singing and drumming, and keep up the sport often 

 for three or four days and nights in succession, drinking 

 enormous quantities of caysuma, smoking tobacco, and 

 snuffing parica powder. 



I could not learn that there was any deep symbolical 

 meaning in these masked dances, or that thev comme- 

 morated any past event in the history of the tribe. Some 

 of them seem vaguely intended as a propitiation of the 

 Jurupari, but the masker who represents the demon 

 sometimes gets drunk along with the rest, and is not 

 treated with any reverence. From all I could make out, 

 these Indians preserve no memory of events going beyond 

 the times of their fathers or grandfathers. Almost every 

 joyful event is made the occasion of a festival : wed- 

 dings amongst the rest. A youug man who wishes to 

 wed a Tucuna girl has to demand her hand of her 

 parents, who arrange the rest of the affair, and fix a 

 day for the marriage ceremony. A wedding which took 

 place in the Christmas week whilst I was at St. Paulo, 

 was kept up with great spirit for three or four days ; 

 flagging during the heats of mid-day, but renewing 

 itself with increased vigour every - evening. During 

 the whole time the bride, decked out with feather 

 ornaments, was under the charge of the older squaws, 

 whose business seemed to be, sedulously to keep the 

 brideoroom at a safe distance until the end of the 

 dreary period of dancing and boosing. The Tuciinas 



