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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 2 



chickens 45, geese 0.4, ducks 6.3, turkeys 0.1, guinea 3 dogs and 2 cats per farm. These data are indi- 

 fowl 0.3. In addition, tliere was an average of cated in table 10. 



Table 10. — Nufnier of domestic animals on 15 sitios, Cruz das Almas community, 19^8 



The ox occasionally is still used to pull out 

 stumps and for similar heavy work. If a farmer 

 is without oxen, he may hire a team when needed 

 for these purposes. The horse is used for trans- 

 port, rarely for traction in the fields. Most 

 often, he is saddled for riding, and occasionally 

 hitched to a charrete or carroga. The burro and 

 the mule are the principal beasts of burden. They 

 are preferred to the horse for their ability to re- 

 sist harder work over a longer period of time. The 

 ordinary load of a packsaddle is 60 kilos to a side, 

 or a total of about 260 pounds. At times, how- 

 ever, up to 400 pounds are carried by one of these 

 animals. A burro or a mule is rarely hitched to- 

 gether with a horse, since "he will shirk his load 

 and make the horse pull most of it." 



In general, the ox is used for those services 

 which require greatest strength and the horse for 

 those which require greatest speed. The burro 

 and the mule are considered of intei'mediate value 

 with reference to both services. In this commu- 

 nity, the ox is not used for riding, as sometimes is 

 done elsewhere in Brazil ; the horse is used prin- 

 cipally for this purpose, as also are the burro and 

 the mule, at least to some extent. The ox pulls 

 only things and the horse principally persons. 

 The burro and the mule are used in both cases. 

 The ox is seldom used to plow, list, or harrow; 

 the horse, burro, and mule are used for all these 

 services, about equally for listing and harrowing, 

 the burro and the mule more commonly for plow- 



Farmers and villagers often live in close phy- 

 sical, and at times social, relations with their do- 

 mestic animals. Not only dogs and cats but chick- 

 ens and other fowl and, occasionally, pigs and 

 small goats, walk in and out of many farmhouses 

 almost at will. A farm woman who was keeping 

 a small pig in the house explained, "I'm fattening 

 him. It's easier to feed him here. Outdoors, you 

 throw something to him and the other pigs take 

 it away. He's very tame. The children call him 

 Sagui and he knows his name, ^^^len I go out 

 to the field, he goes along with me." In the house 

 of a village official, which is ordinarily kept quite 

 clean and neat, several hens, roosters, and little 

 chickens, in addition to the family's two dogs, 

 are often to be seen. AVlien visitors are present, 

 the housewife makes occasional and rather un- 

 successful attempts at driving them out. 



Children sometimes give names to small ani- 

 mals, as did a 10-year-old girl in the village to the 

 two young kids her family owns, calling them 

 respectively Cravinho and GrarinhoP'' Although 

 cats are rarely named, a boy in the village who is 

 quite fond of a kitten someone had given him, 

 calls it Caia'pidzinhoP^ 



The following sentences, written by a school- 

 boy, indicate the degi'ee of affection which some- 

 time develops between animals and humans : 



ing. 



'"Corruption of Clarinho (Little Light One). Cravinho 

 mc.ins "Little Carnation." 



'"^ Ziiiho is a Portuguese diminutive. Pid is a Guarani term 

 of affection for a child. The meaning of caia is not clear. 



