CAISHANA INDIANS 



485 



skinned children, with a man and woman, were in the 

 shed ; but immediately, on espying me, all of them ran 

 to the hut, bolting through the little doorway like so 

 many wild animals scared into their burrows. A few 

 moments after, the man put his head out with a look of 

 great distrust ; but, on my making the most friendly 

 gestures I could think of, he came forth with the children. 

 They were all smeared with black mud and paint ; the 

 only clothing of the elders was a kind of apron made of 

 the inner bark of the sapucaya-tree, and the savage aspect 

 of the man was heightened by his hair hanging over his 

 forehead to the eyes. I stayed about two hours in the 

 neighbourhood, the children gaining sufficient confidence 

 to come and help me to search for insects. The only 

 weapon used by the Caishanas is the blow-pipe, and this 

 is employed only in shooting animals for food. They 

 are not a warlike people, hke most of the neighbouring 

 tribes on the Japura and Issa. Their utensils consist of 

 earthenware cooking-vessels, wooden stools, drinking- 

 cups of gourds, and the usual apparatus for making 

 farinha, of which they produce a considerable quantity, 

 selling the surplus to traders at Tunandns. 



The whole tribe of Caishanas does not exceed in number 

 400 souls. None of them are baptised Indians, and they 

 do not dwell in villages, like the more advanced sections 

 of the Tupsitock ; but each family has its own solitary 

 hut. They are quite harmless, do not practise tattooing, 

 or perforate their ears and noses in any way. Their 

 social ^^condition is of a low type, very little removed, 

 indeed, from that of the brutes living in the same forests. 

 They do not appear to obey any common chief, and I 

 could not make out that they had Pajes, or medicine- 

 men, those rudest beginnings of a priest class. Sym- 

 bolical or masked dances, and ceremonies in honour of 

 the Jurupari, or demon, customs which prevail amongst 

 all the surrounding tribes, are unknown to the Caishanas. 

 There is amongst them a trace of festival-keeping ; but 

 the only ceremony used is the drinking of cashiri beer, 

 and fermented liquors made of Indian-corn, bananas, 

 and so forth. These affairs, however, are conducted in 

 a degenerate style, for they do not drink to intoxication, 

 or sustain the orgies for several days and nights in suc- 

 cession, like the Juris, Passes, and Tucunas. The men 

 play a musical instrument, made of pieces of stem of the 



