164 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



but since tlien mo^t of the tribal groups have disappeared, partly through epi- 

 demics and general absorption in the surrounding settled populations, but partly 

 also through wholesale butcheries encouraged by the Brazilian officials. During 

 the early frontier wars, from about 1790 to 1820, every effort was made, not 

 merely to reduce, but to extirpate them root and branch. Being regarded as irre- 

 claimable savages, addicted to cannibalism and other pagan practices, and alto- 

 gether no better than wild beasts, methods of warfare were adopted against them 

 which are not usually sanctioned by civilised communities. The small-pox virus 

 was industriously spread amongst them, and poisoned food scattered over the 

 forests frequented by their hunters. By these and other means the Conde de 

 Linhares cleared the coast districts about the Rios Doce and Belmonte, and another 

 Commendador boasted to Professor Hartt that he had either slain with his own 

 hand, or ordered to be butchered with knife, gun, and poison, many hundreds of 

 this " vermin." 



The charge of cannibalism brought against the Botocudos by early writers, 

 and still imputed to them by their neighbours, seems to be fully justified by 

 abundant evidence. D'Orbigny states that they wore collars or strings of the 

 teeth of the persons they had eaten, and the jjortrait of a woman so ornamented 

 is figured in Sir W. Ouseley's " Travels." Yon Martins also asserts positively 

 that all were formerly anthropophagists, devouring not only the enemy slain in 

 battle, but also members of the Puri, Malali, Coroado, and other kindred tribes. 

 The heads were not eaten, but stuck as trophies on stakes, and used as butts for 

 the practice of archery. 



All the brafos, that is, the independent wild tribes, are sfill in the stone age, 

 or rather, have scarcely yet reached that stage. The highly-finished diorite, 

 granite, and porphyry implements, found in the surrounding districts, belong to 

 the Amazonian and other more advanced Brazilian aborigines, and do not appear 

 to have ever been used by the Botocudos. The objects manufactured by them 

 are almost exclusively of wood or vegetable fibre. Such are the wooden mortars, 

 ban)boo water vessels, cotton or bark sacks, reed spears, bows and arrows, which 

 last are their only offensive weapons. The bow is about 6 feet long, and so 

 strong that none but natives can use it; the arrows also are of great length, 

 and, being poisoned, the Portuguese soldiers had to be protected against them 

 by the giboa d'armcis, a kind of armour, made of cotton cloth, thickened with 

 several layers of cotton wadding. 



An instrument of a more peaceful character is a small bamboo flute, which 

 is played on through the nose. This strange habit was probably occasioned by 

 the lip ornament, which prevented the mouth from being conveniently used for 

 the purpose. 



Physically, the Botocudos are of robust frame, with full chest, broad shoulders, 

 small extremities, somewhat oblique eyes, prominent cheek-bones, very large 

 mouth and skull like that observed by Lund in the Lagoa Santa skeletons. Their 

 distinctive ornaments were the enormous discs of light wood by which the lower 

 lijJ and ear-lobes were immensely distended. Unable to use the lips in speaking, 



