316 The Aborigines of Brazil, 



is believed to mate them worse. Clear star-light is also 

 unfavourable to diseases, while a clouded sky is benefici- 

 al. Sun-light too impedes the cure, especially of wounds 

 and fevers, and therefore patients suffering from them must 

 await their recovery in the darkest corner of their huts. 

 They almost always augur bad results from winds, especially 

 when during the dry season they blow from the south, or 

 during the rainy from the west. 



The Indians divide the year by the seasons, when certain 

 trees ripen their fruits, or the turtles lay their eggs in the sand- 

 islands, From these fixed epochs they reckon the changes 

 of their simple existence, the pregnancies of their wives, 

 and the maturity of their women. These terrestrial changes 

 concern them more than the celestial ones. A few only of 

 the most observant take any interest in the latter, and in re- 

 lation to the periodicity of diseases,, the phases of the moon, 

 the time of high-water, and of spring and ebb tides, are the 

 only points to which they attend. 



Perhaps the most interesting chapter in the crude and 

 limited physics of these neglected men, is that of their cos- 

 mogonies and geogonies. Here we find the most traces of a 

 former knowledge of nature, although much debased and very 

 confused. I must however only allude to them, as they 

 have nothing to do with the immediate object of these re- 

 marks, and are rather connected with their religious myths. 



Anatomy. 



Their anatomy is in its merest infancy. They never exa- 

 mine a body systematically. They only dismember and dis- 

 embowel the bodies of their enemies. They know the large 

 organs in the interior of the cavities, and have for them dis- 

 tinct, and often very descriptive names. Thus, in the Tupi 

 language, the lungs are called, c pyabubui/ i. e. floating liver; 

 the stomach is called, e cigie-assu/ i, e. larger ; the intestines, 

 ' cigie-merim/ i. e. smaller stomach. They have not of course 

 studied the convolutions of the brain, but they show that 



