246 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



part : for the most part, the poor slavish woman 

 pays dearly for her fault. 



The Indians live in irregular monogamy or poly- 

 gamy. Each takes as many wives as he has a mind, 

 or as he can and will support, and dismisses them 

 when he pleases, and they then look for another 

 husband ; it frequently happens, however, that a 

 man has only one wife after another. Their 

 marriages are entered upon early, and are not very 

 fruitful. We met with some mothers, twenty 

 years of age, who had already four children, but 

 we seldom saw more than four children in a family. 

 There is no solemnity in the celebration of their 

 marriages, the only ceremony being the present- 

 ation of game or fruit, by the suitor, to the parents 

 of his bride, by which he tacitly engages to sup- 

 port the wife by the chase. We have never ob- 

 served any indications of an equivocal connection 

 between fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters ; 

 but the vice of sodomy is practised by certain tribes 

 of the Indians. 



While the man is solely occupied with the chase, 

 war, and making his arms, all the cares of the 

 domestic concerns fall on the women. They plant 

 and collect the harvest, if this species of cultivation 

 has been introduced among them ; look in the 

 woods for Spanish potatoes and fruit for the family, 

 and provide the requisite earthen-ware utensils 

 and basket-work. The women are on the whole 

 the slaves of the meai, and in tlieir wandering ex- 



