244 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



head band, and accompanied by a small child, was with 

 them. At the village there were a number of men, 

 women, and children. Although as completely naked 

 as the others we had met, the members of this band were 

 more ornamented with beads, and wore earrings made 

 from the inside of mussel-shells or very big snail-shells. 

 They were more hairy than the ones we had so far met. 

 The women, but not the men, completely remove the 

 hair from their bodies — and look more, instead of less, 

 indecent in consequence. The chief, whose body was 

 painted red with the juice of a fruit, had what could 

 fairly be styled a mustache and imperial; and one old 

 man looked somewhat like a hairy Ainu, or perhaps even 

 more like an Australian black fellow. My companion 

 told me that this probably represented an infusion of 

 negro blood, and possibly of mulatto blood, from run- 

 away slaves of the old days, when some of the Matto 

 Grosso mines were worked by slave labor. They also 

 thought it possible that this infiltration of African negroes 

 might be responsible for the curious shape of the bigger 

 huts, which were utterly unlike their flimsy, ordinary 

 shelters, and bore no resemblance in shape to those of 

 the other Indian tribes of this region ; whereas they were 

 not unlike the ordinary beehive huts of the agricultural 

 African negroes. There were in this village several huts 

 or shelters open at the sides, and two of the big huts. 

 These were of closely woven thatch, circular in outline, 

 with a rounded dome, and two doors a couple of feet 

 high opposite each other, and no other opening. There 

 were fifteen or twenty people to each hut. Inside were 

 their implements and utensils, such as wicker baskets 



