JUQUERAPUA 



93 



three inches long and of a pretty green colour banded 

 with black ; the natives call it Mamayacu. It is easily 

 caught, and when in the hand distends itself, becoming 

 as round as a ball. This fish amuses the people very 

 much ; when a person gets corpulent, they tell him he 

 is as fat as a Mamayacu. 



At night I slept ashore as a change from the confine- 

 ment of the canoe, having obtained permission from 

 Senhor Joaquim to sling my hammock under his roof. 

 The house, like all others in these out-of-the-way parts 

 of the country, was a large, open, palm- thatched shed, 

 having one end inclosed by means of partitions also made 

 of palm-leaves, so as to form a private apartment. Under 

 the shed were placed all the household utensils ; earthen- 

 ware jars, pots, and kettles, hunting and fishing imple- 

 ments, paddles, bows and arrows, harpoons, and so forth. 

 One or two common wooden chests serve to contain the 

 holiday clothing of the females ; there is no other furni- 

 ture except a few stools and the hammock which answers 

 the purposes of chair and sofa. When a visitor enters 

 he is asked to sit down in a hammock ; persons who are 

 on intimate terms with each other recline together in the 

 same hammock, one at each end ; this is a very con- 

 venient arrangement for friendly conversation. There 

 are neither tables nor chairs ; the cloth for meals is 

 spread on a mat, and the guests squat round in any 

 position they choose. There is no cordiality of manners, 

 but the treatment of the guests shows a keen sense of 

 the duties of hospitality on the part of the host. There 

 is a good deal of formality in the intercourse of these 

 half-wild mamelucos which, I believe, has been chiefly 

 derived from their Indian forefathers, although a little 

 of it may have been copied from the Portuguese. 



A little distance from the house were the open sheds 

 under which the farinha for the use of the establishment 

 was manufactured. In the centre of each shed stood 

 the shallow pans, made of clay and built over ovens, 

 where the meal is roasted. A long flexible cylinder made 

 of the peel of a marantaceous plant, plaited into the 

 proper form, hung suspended from a beam ; it is in this 

 that the pulp of the mandioca is pressed, and from it 

 the juice, which is of a highly poisonous nature, although 

 the pulp is wholesome food, runs into pans placed beneath 

 to receive it. A wooden trough, such as is used in all 



