226 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



work, and sometimes plastered with clay, had on 

 both sides openings the height of a man, with 

 movable doors of palm leaves ; the roof was made 

 of palm leaves and maize straw, the hut was closed 

 on the windward side ; or where the sides were 

 entirely open, the roof extended much further and 

 lower down. In every hut there were, in different 

 parts of the floor, heartlis for the several families 

 residing in it. Some families had huts resembling 

 tents, entirely made of palm leaves. There was no 

 other issue left for the smoke than through the 

 roof and the doors. Hammocks made of cotton 

 cords, which at once supplied the place of tables, 

 beds, and chairs, were suspended to the posts 

 round the huts, about a foot from the ground ; 

 they are the chief article of furniture, and often 

 serve the man, the woman, and the child as their 

 common bed. Some earthen pots ; baskets made 

 of palm leaves, filled with Spanish potatoes, maize, 

 mandiocca roots, and other fruits of the forest ; 

 drinking vessels (agas), dishes with orlean and 

 genipapo colours ; a hollowed trunk of a tree, for 

 pounding maize, constituted the whole of their 

 household furniture. The arms of the men, bows 

 and arrows, lean against the walls. In the hut of 

 the chief hangs an ox horn, the tip of which is 

 cut off, which he uses to announce to the neigh- 

 bours the arrival of a white man, or any other 

 event, or to summon them to festivals and wars. 

 The Maracdi a longish gourd shell, filled with 



