474 



PROVINCE OF PARA, 



These arrows are not more than a span, and have at the posterior extremity 

 a ball of cotton, equal to the eighth part of the esgaravatana. When they wish 

 to discharge it, (which is said to be very certain, and as swift as the shot of a 

 carbine,) the point is dipped in a thick fluid, composed of the juices of various 

 poisonous plants. Some say that sugar is the only antidote, others that salt will 

 destroy its fatal effects, and that the wound is not mortal if the poison was dry 

 on contaminating the blood ; and it is on this account that they carry the venom 

 in a cocoa-nut shell, or gourd, in order to introduce the arrow into it at the 

 moment of discharge. Condamine says, that on wounding a fowl with an 

 arrow that had been envenomed twelve months previously with a composition 

 made by the Ticunas of Peru, it only lived about eight minutes; but there was 

 probably some ingredient in this poison that the Indians we have been speaking 

 of are unacquainted with. 



The Jummas also wield a club, barbed at the extremity. 



The Araras, who are the most celebrated for making ornaments of feathers, 

 form a black circle round the mouth, and perforate the cartilage of the nose, 

 through which they put a small piece of wood, trimmed with plumes of various 

 colours. 



The Parintintins distend the ears very much with round targets, and blacken 

 the upper lip into a half moon form, conceiving that their consequence is thus 

 augmented. 



The Muras, perhaps the most numerous among those who have had inter- 

 course with the Portuguese, are the most backward in adopting any species of 

 covering for their bodies, the main portion of both sexes yet appearing in a state 

 of absolute nudity. The men not only ornament their arms and legs, but like- 

 wise perforate the nose, ears, and lips, and attach to them pendants of shells, 

 the teeth of the boar, and of other wild quadrupeds. Many of them design 

 various tigures upon the skin, not without considerable suffering and much 

 time ; others disguise the body with dies, and even with clay and loam, adopt- 

 ing this mode of deforming themselves not so much perhaps with an i(!ea of 

 giving beauty to their persons as that they may thus assume an imposing air, in 

 order to deter their enemies by their uncouth appearance. The women are much 

 attached to their offspring whilst little, and row in the canoes equally with the 

 men, of whom a great many have beards. The superiors have many wives; 

 others but one : they separate from them, however, at their caprice or ditscretibn, 

 and take others. Tuxaulia is the title given to the chiefs of the Mura tribe. 



The Mundrucus, whose custom is to paint the body black with the die of 



