INHABITANTS OP AMAZONIA. 



Ill 



hostile elements. The Crichanas have the curious custom of burying their dead 

 in the hollow trunks of trees killed by the close embrace of coiling lianas. 



All the wild tribes being driven to the upper reaches above the rapids, the 

 Tapuyos, Negroes, and Brazilians occupy the lower courses of tbe northern 

 affluents, where some have formed little mucamhos, or petty communal settle- 

 ments, inhabited especially by runaway blacks, deserters, and freedmen. Through 

 their influence Portuguese is gradually replacing the native dialects in this 

 remote region where the lingoa geral had never penetrated. Here are still 

 vainly sought the famous " Amazons " of the Icamiaba nation, with whom the 

 whites had to contend during their first voyage down the great river named from 



Fig. 38. — Indian Populations of Amazonia. 

 Scale 1 : 35,000,000. 



1,220 Miles. 



them. According to Wallace, OrelLma and his companions, seeing the young 

 Indian warriors in the distance, with their long hair dressed in a top-knot, their 

 necklaces and bracelets of berries, may have easily taken them for women ; hence 

 the origin of the fabulous Amazons, suggested by classical reminiscences. Both 

 Barbosa Hodrigues and Coudreau believe that the tribe of pretended female warriors 

 is still represented by some of the Uaupes, whose chiefs possess "divine stones," 

 quartz, jasper, or jade, through which they take years to drill holes, and which 

 serve both as amulets and as badges of their authority. On the Upper Yamunda 

 is seen a lake consecrated to "Mother Moon," into which the "Amazons" threw 

 their muirakitans, sacred stones, representing animals, fishes, or other symbolic 

 objects. 



