On the Aborigines of Brazil. 25 



Diet. 

 Their diet consists of game, fish, and raw or coarsely 

 cooked vegetables. These are yams, (Dioscorea), caras 

 (Caladium) batatas, (Convolvulus,)* the wholesome aypi root 

 (Manihot aypi) ; and the poisonous mandiocca root (Manihot 

 utilissima), the injurious properties of which are removed by 

 the use of fire. Among their more delicate vegetable food, we 

 find Indian corn, the only one of the Cerealia known to the 

 Indians of Brazil. Several vegetables, for instance species 

 of Amarantus (Caruru) and of Portulaca are cooked, some- 

 times alone, sometimes with powdered seeds of Sapucaya 

 trees (Lecythis, Bertholletia.) Plantains are, like other 

 fruits of the country, eaten raw, or boiled with water into a 

 kind of soup. All these vegetables are used without any 

 kind of seasoning. Flesh is either roasted on a spit or 

 boiled with water, but is almost always eaten without any 

 condiment. Common salt is utterly unknown to many Indian 

 tribes.f Only the comparatively highly civilized ones in Mato 

 Grosso, where it effloresces from the soil, are familiar with 

 its use. A few tribes along the Amazon stream receive from 

 their neighbours in Maynas, Peruvian rock salt, but most 

 of the races which have not yet begun to barter with the 

 Brazilians, make use instead of common salt, of an impure 

 potash, which they extract from the lye of the ashes of the 

 bark of certain trees, (Lecythis, Eschweilera, and species of 

 Couratari, and Licania.) The continued use of this salt 

 weakens the digestion. The only vegetable condiment em- 

 ployed by the Indian is the fruit of the Spanish pepper. 

 Many species of it, for instance the Capsicum frutescens, 

 the C. cerasiforme, and the C. pendulum, are cultivated 



* Convolvulus batatas, is the common sweet potato ; cassava and tapioca are 

 both procured from the root of the poisonous Mandiocca. — Tr. 



f Catlin says, that even in districts which have their whole surface encrusted with 

 salt, and in which brine springs exist, the wild Indian makes no use of salt. Are 

 the cattle that resort to the Canadian salt-licks, to be considered more civilized ? 

 — TV. 



E 



