164 The Aborigines of Brazil. 



bestows on her infant not the care of a single year, but con- 

 tinues lactation till it is four or five years old, no one else in 

 the house cares the least for the little one, and if it be depriv- 

 ed of its mother, it is always neglected, and falls away into 

 the most miserable condition. Such unlucky children not 

 unfrequently die of hunger ; if they are able to maintain a 

 wretched existence, they remain in a state of weakness and 

 of atrophy resembling that of the neglected children of 

 European manufacturing populations. If, however, they live 

 long enough to attain the power of supporting themselves, 

 they appear suddenly to regain their lost ground. I at least 

 have never seen boys or girls of the age of 12, who had not 

 the usual strength and cheerfulness of the red man. The 

 only exception to this, was in the case of such girls, as, on the 

 appearance of the catamania, suffered from the strange mis- 

 management, which is commonly adopted. In many cases 

 the girl is at that period subjected to a three weeks' fast. 

 She is removed from all intercourse with the tribe, made to 

 lie alone on a sort of scaffolding at the top of the hut, and 

 there allowed only water and a little fresh cooked fish for 

 nourishment, so that in this wretched penitentiary she is 

 often starved down almost to a skeleton, and for a longtime 

 afterwards suffers from the consequence of such unnatural 

 privations. 



Syphilis. 

 It is well known that this disease has made great ravages 

 among the Indians. It has penetrated into the remotest 

 districts, and like an eating worm gnaws at the marrow 

 of these devoted people, who use against its violent inroads 

 only a few vegetable medicines, and yet gain more by their 

 use, than from the treatment of the European doctors, who 

 continue to use mercury far too freely. I have observed 

 among the Indians along the Amazon rapid infection and rapid 

 spread of the disease. If improvement did not take place 

 soon and decidedly in the hands of the doctor, the infected 



