36 



INSTITUTE or SOCIAl, ANTHROPOLOGY — ^PUBLICATION NO. 12 



pillows. The surjDlus is sold in Sao Paulo. The 

 present price is reported to be 60 cruzeiros a kilo- 

 gram or about US$1.50 per pound. 



The use of small poles for building purposes, of 

 cipo for binding, of cravordna and hucha da terra 

 in making rockets, of numerous plants for magical 

 and medicinal purposes, of taquara for baskets, 

 sieves, winnowing trays, fish traps, pipe stems, and 

 arapucas, and of tumom fiber for weaving lines and 

 nets, is referred to elsewhere. 



PREPAEATIONS FOR QUARRYING 



A quarry is being opened up, at the initiative of 

 outside capital, about 4 miles from the village. 

 Soundings have indicated the existence of an ex- 

 tensive source of lime and cement, reportedly of 

 excellent quality, much of it at or near the surface. 

 Several men in the community are employed get- 

 ting the quarry ready for operation and building 

 a road through the hills to the rail line 11 miles 

 away. 



The expectation is that construction of a factory 

 for crushing rock will shortly begin and that even- 

 tually several score of men will be employed. The 

 develoj^ment of this quarry and the probable mi- 

 gration to the area of a considerable number of 

 workmen and their families will set in operation 

 forces which increasingly will modify the ecologi- 

 cal, economic, and sociological aspects of the com- 

 munity. The residting changes might well be ac- 

 companied and reported upon. 



FOOD AND FOOD HABITS 



The staple foods of the commimity are beans, 

 rice, and maize. Beans are universally used. 

 There is no family which does not have them daily 

 and usually at each principal meal of the day. 

 Eight kinds of beans, known locally as the muJa- 

 tinho, prefo, i7'anco, roxinho^ chumhmho, mour- 

 inho, Jeite, and cari6ca,~^ are grown in the commu- 

 nity. Although many persons like "any kind," the 

 hranco is most used. Each of the other kinds is 

 preferred by a few individuals. 



The use of rice is also quite common. "For 

 me," said a farm woman, "if there's no rice, there's 



" Respectively,, little mulatto, hlack, inhite, little purple one, 

 little lead one, little Moor, and milk. The leite is also called 

 catarinense "because it came from Santa Catarina" (a Brazilian 

 State), said a villajrer. Gari6ca is a popular term used to refer 

 to the inhabitants of the city of Rio de Janeiro and surrounding 

 portion of the Federal District. 



no meal. My husband and the children also like it 

 very much. I cook it every day." Beans and rice 

 are the principal food of all families in the com- 

 munity and, for some families, almost the only 

 food for days at a time. Maize flour and maize 

 meal (fithd) are also common items of food. 



The use for food of game animals, fish and 

 birds, available in the area, as well as i§d, has been 

 referred to." The contribution of this source of 

 food to the total diet, however, is progressively less 

 and less as the mata is cleared away. The severe 

 epidemic of cholera which a few years ago de- 

 stroyed most of the hogs in the region, reduced still 

 further an already limited meat diet. Chickens 

 and a few other fowls are raised but in relatively 

 small numbers (see Domestic Animals). "It's too 

 expensive to eat them," said a farm wife. "We 

 have to sell them instead." Eggs are used "when 

 the hens are laying." Goat meat is sometimes 

 eaten, mutton almost never. Codfish is occasion- 

 ally purchased at a village store. 



Two head of cattle used to be killed in the village 

 each week, one on Tuesday and the other on Fri- 

 day. At present, a single beef is slaughtered each 

 week, on Friday afternoon. An animal is pur- 

 chased in the community by one of the two men 

 in the village who do the slaughtering and driven 

 in with the help of the butchers' dogs to a spot 

 near the village where it is caught and tied to the 

 stump of a tree. The subsequent event then ordi- 

 narily takes on something of a ceremonial 

 character, in which a considerable number of vil- 

 lagers — men, women, and children — participate, in 

 addition to the butchers and almost all the dogs in 

 the village. As the animal is tied up, one notes on 

 the faces of the jDersons who are standing around, 

 and in the restlessness of the dogs as they pace back 

 and forth, a rather general attitude of expectancy. 

 One after the other, the persons present make 

 kno'wn their wants. "Keep the heart for me," one 

 of them will call out. "I want part of the liver," 

 shouts another, almost at the same time. "Give 

 me a good piece to stew," calls out a third. Mean- 

 while, one of the butchers has taken up a long, 

 shari^-poiuted laiife and cautiously approached 

 the animal. When near enough, and at an oppor- 

 tune moment, he plunges it into the left breast once, 

 twice, or thi'ee times, until he reaches and punc- 

 tures the heart. As the blood begins to spurt out, 



' See Hunting, Fishing, and Trapping, p. 32, and iQd, p. 35. 



