250 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



hesitate to lose a large quantity of blood, or to cut 

 off a limb. They are acquainted with venesection, 

 which they perform on the arm, by discharging at 

 the vein, from a small bow, a little arrow headed 

 with a small crystal. They perform scarification 

 with a sharp splinter of reed, or with a pebble 

 ground to a fine edge. 



When an Indian dies he is buried in the hut, 

 which, if he was an adult, is abandoned, and another 

 built in its stead. The body, in a squatting atti- 

 tude, is put in a large pot, or wrapped in bass or 

 old cotton stuff, and placed in the ground, which 

 they then tread hard with their feet, amidst cries 

 and lamentations. They lay the arms of the de- 

 ceased for a time on his grave, likewise food and 

 game, and repeat the lamentation for the dead 

 twice a day ; and either cut their hair very short 

 or let it grow very long, and the women are said to 

 paint their whole bodies black. Long after death, 

 if they accidentally come near the place where one 

 of their people is buried, they celebrate his memory 

 by lamentation. Among the Puris, a kind of 

 funeral discourse is said to be held : the soul of the 

 departed is now, according to their notions, in a 

 pleasant wood, full of sapucaja trees and game, 

 where it is happy in the coinpany of all the de- 

 ceased. What notion the Indians have of the 

 nature of the soul, cannot possibly be discovered 

 without long intercourse with them, and entering 

 into their way of thinking ; but it appeared certain 



