MARAUA INDIANS 



489 



lying between the Jutahi and the Jurua, near the mouths 

 of both these great tributaries. They Uve in separate 

 families or small hordes ; have no common chief, and 

 are considered as a tribe little disposed to adopt civilized 

 customs or be friendly with the whites. One of the houses 

 belonged to a Juri family, and we saw the owner, an erect, 

 noble-looking old fellow, tattooed, as customary with his 

 tribe, in a large patch over the middle of his face, fishing 

 under the shade of a colossal tree in his port with hook 

 and line. He saluted us in the usual grave and courteous 

 manner of the better sort of Indians as we passed by. 



We reached the last house, or rather two houses, about 

 ten o'clock, and spent there several hours during the 

 great heat of mid-day. The houses, which stood on a 

 high clayey bank, were of quadrangular shape, partly 

 open like sheds, and partly enclosed with rude mud- 

 walls, forming one or more chambers. The inhabitants, 

 a few families of Marauas, comprising about thirty persons, 

 received us in a frank, smiling manner : a reception which 

 may have been due to Senhor Raiol being an old acquaint- 

 ance and somewhat of a favourite. None of them were 

 tattooed ; but the men had great holes pierced in their 

 ear-lobes, in which they insert plugs of wood, and their 

 lips were drilled with smaller holes. One of the younger 

 men, a fine strapping fellow nearly six feet high, with a 

 large aquiline nose, who seemed to wish to be particularly 

 friendly with me, showed me the use of these lip-holes, 

 by fixing a number of little white sticks in them, and 

 then twisting his mouth about and going through a 

 pantomime to represent defiance in the presence of an 

 enemy. Nearly all the people were disfigured by dark 

 blotches on the skin, the effect of a cutaneous disease 

 very prevalent in this part of the country. The face of 

 one old man was completely blackened, and looked as 

 though it had been smeared with black lead, the blotches 

 having coalesced to form one large patch. Others were 

 simply mottled ; the black spots were hard and rough, 

 but not scaly, and were margined with rings of a colour 

 paler than the natural hue of the skin. I had seen many 

 Indians and a few half-castes at Tunantins, and after- 

 wards saw others at Fonte Boa blotched in the same 

 way. The disease would seem to be contagious, for I 

 was told that a Portuguese trader became disfigured 

 with it after cohabiting some years with an Indian woman. 



