Middle Amazon Tribes. 319 



On the great northwest tributary of the Eio N"egro, the 

 Uacaiari, there are numerous tribes, collectively known as 

 the Uaupes. They have j)ermanent abodes, m shape a 

 parallelogram, with a semicircle at one end, and of a size 

 to contain several families, sometimes a whole tribe. One 

 of them, Wallace informs us, was 115 feet long by 75 

 broad, and about 30 high. The w^alls are bullet-proof. 

 Partitions of palm-leaves divide it into apartments for 

 families, the chief occupying the semicircular end. The 

 men alone wear clothes and ornaments, but both sexes 

 paint their bodies with red, black, and yellow colors in 

 regular patterns. The men have a little beard, which they 

 pull out, as also the eyebrows, and allow the hair to grow 

 unshorn, tying it beliind with a cord and wearing a comb ; 

 while the women cut theirs and wear no comb. They are 

 an agricultural people — peaceable, ingenious, apathetic, dif- 

 fident, and bashful. 



The Catauishes inhabit the banks of the Teffe. They 

 perforate the lips, and wear rows of sticks in the holes. 

 At the mouth of the Jurua are the uncivilized, but tall, 

 noble-looking Marauas. They pierce the ears and lips, and 

 insert sticks. They live in separate families, and have no 

 common chief. Above them live the treacherous Arauas."^ 

 On the opposite side of the Amazon are the nearly extinct 

 Passes and Juris, the finest tribes in central South Amer- 

 ica. They are peaceable and industrious, and have always 

 been friendly to the whites. The Passes are a slenderly- 

 built, light-colored, dignified, superior race, distinguished 

 by a large square tattooed patch in the middle of the face. 

 The Juris tattoo in a circle round the mouth. Xear by are 

 the Usenambeus, or ''Humming-birds," distinguished by 



* Near the sources of this river Castlenau locates the Canamas and Ugi- 

 nas ; the former dwarfs, the hitter having tails a palm and a half long — a 

 livbrid from an Indian and Barifrudo monkev. 



