OF THE AMAZON, 



341 



both boiled as a vegetable, or with oil and vinegar as a 

 salad. 



All the tribes of the Uaupes construct their dwellings after 

 one plan, which is peculiar to them. Their houses arc the 

 abode of numerous families, sometimes of a whole tribe. The 

 plan is a parallelogram, with a semicircle at one end. The 

 dimensions of one at Jauarite were one hundred and fifteen 

 feet in length, by seventy-five broad, and about thirty high. 

 This house would hold about a dozen families, consisting of 

 near a hundred individuals. In times of feasts and dances, 

 three or four hundred are accommodated in them. The roof 

 is supported on fine cylindrical columns, formed of the trunks 

 of trees, and beautifully straight and smooth. In the centre 

 a clear opening is left, twenty feet wide, and on the sides are 

 little partitions of palm-leaf thatch, dividing off rooms for the 

 separate families : here are kept the private household utensils, 

 weapons, and ornaments ; while the rest of the space contains, 

 on each side, the large ovens and gigantic pans for making 

 caxiri, and, in the centre, a place for the children to play, and 

 for their dances to take place. These houses are built with 

 much labour and skill ; the main supporters, beams, rafters, 

 and other parts, are straight, well proportioned to the strength 

 required, and bound together with split creepers, in a manner 

 that a sailor would admire. The thatch is of the leaf of some 

 one of the numerous palms so well adapted to the purpose, 

 and is laid on with great compactness and regularity. The 

 side-walls, which are very low, are formed also of palm thatch, 

 but so thick and so well bound together, that neither arrow 

 nor bullet will penetrate them. At the gable-end is a large door- 

 way, about six feet wide and eight or ten high : the door is 

 a large palm-mat, hung from the top, supported by a pole 

 during the day, and let down at night. At the semicircular 

 end is a smaller door, which is the private entrance of the 

 Tushaua, or chief, to whom this part of the house exclusively 

 belongs. The lower part of the gable-end, on each side of 

 the entrance, is covered with the thick bark of a tree unrolled, 

 and standing vertically. Above this is a loose hanging of 

 palm-leaves, between the fissures of which the smoke from the 

 numerous fires within finds an exit. In some cases this gable- 

 end is much ornamented with symmetrical figures painted in 

 colours, as at Caruru caxoeira. 



