202 



SARAYACU. 



surface there is pure sand ; and no Indian thinks of cultivating the same 

 farm longer than three years; he then clears the forest and plants 

 another. There is nothing but a little coffee produced for sale in the 

 neighborhood of the town. The fathers extract about three hundred 

 arrobas of sarsaparilla, from the small streams above, and sell it to 

 Senhor Cauper in Nauta. This gives them a profit of about five hun- 

 dred dollars. The College at Ocopa allows them a dollar for every mass 

 said or sung. The four padres are able to perform about seven hundred 

 annually, (those for Sundays and feast-days are not paid for;) and this 

 income of twelve hundred dollars is appropriated to the repairs of the 

 churches and conventos, church furniture, the vestments of the priests, 

 their table and chamber furniture, and some little luxuries — such as 

 sugar, flower, vinegar, &c, bought of the Portuguese below. 



The padres have recently obtained an order from the prefect of the 

 department of Amazonas, giving them the exclusive right of collecting 

 sarsaparilla on the Ucayali and its tributaries ; but I doubt if this will 

 benefit them much, for, there being no power to enforce the decree, the 

 Portuguese will send their agents there as before. 



Each padre has two Mitayos, appointed monthly — one a hunter, the 

 other a fisherman — to supply his table with the products of the forest and 

 the river. The Fiscales cultivate him a small farm for his yuccas and 

 plantains, and he himself raises poultry and eggs ; they also make him 

 rum from the sugar-cane, of which he needs a large supply to give to 

 the constables, (Varayos, from "vara," a wand, each one carrying a 

 cane,) the Fiscales, and the Mitayos. 



The government is paternal. The Indians recognise in the padre the 

 power to appoint and remove curacas, captains, and other officers ; to 

 inflict stripes; and to confine in the stocks. They obey the priest's 

 orders readily, and seem tractable and docile. They take advantage, 

 however, of Father Calvo's good nature, and are sometimes a little inso- 

 lent. On an occasion of this kind, my friend Ijurra, who is always an 

 advocate of strong measures, and says that in the government of the 

 Indians there is nothing like the santo palo, (sacred cudgel,) asked 

 Father Calvo why he did not put the impudent rascal in the stocks. 

 But the good Father replied that he did not like to do it — that it was 

 cruel, and hurt the poor fellow's legs. 



The Indians here, as elsewhere, are drunken and lazy. The women 

 do most of the work ; carry most of the burdens to and from the chacras 

 and canoes ; make the masato, and the earthen vessels out of which it is 

 drunk ; spin the cotton and weave the cloth ; cook and take care of the 

 children. And their reward is to be maltreated by their husbands, and, 



