OF THE AMAZON, 



349 



will not hesitate to sacrifice his daughter, or a husband his 

 wife, on such an occasion. 



They have many other prejudices with regard to women. 

 They believe that if a woman, during her pregnancy, eats of 

 any meat, any other animal partaking of it will suffer : if a 

 domestic animal or tame bird, it will die ; if a dog, it will be 

 for the future incapable of hunting ; and even a man will 

 ever after be unable to shoot that particular kind of game. 

 An Indian, who was one of my hunters, caught a fine cock of 

 the rock, and gave it to his wife to feed, but the poor woman 

 was obliged to live herself on cassava-bread and fruits, and 

 abstain entirely from all animal food, peppers, and salt, which it 

 was beheved would cause the bird to die ; notwithstanding all 

 precautions, however, the bird did die, and the woman got a 

 beating from her husband, because he thought she had not 

 been sufficiently rigid in her abstinence from the prohibited 

 articles. 



Most of these peculiar practices and superstitions are retained 

 with much tenacity, even by those Indians who are nominally 

 civilised and Christian, and many of them have been even 

 adopted by the Europeans resident in the country : there are 

 actually Portuguese in the Rio Negro who fear the power of 

 the Indian pages, and who fully believe and act on all the 

 Indian superstitions respecting women. 



The river Uaupes is the channel by which European manu- 

 factures find their way into the extensive and unknown regions 

 between the Rio Guaviare on the one side, and the Japura on 

 the other. About a thousand pounds worth of goods enter 

 the Uaupes yearly, mostly in axes, cutlasses, knives, fish-hooks, 

 arrow-heads, salt, mirrors, beads, and a few cottons. 



The articles given in exchange are salsaparilha, pitch, farinha, 

 string, hammocks, and Indian stools, baskets, feather ornaments, 

 and curiosities. The salsaparilha is by far the most valuable 

 product, and is the only one exported. Great quantities of 

 articles of European manufacture are exchanged by the Indians 

 with those of remote districts, for the salsa which they give to 

 the traders ; and thus numerous tribes, among whom no 

 civilised man has ever yet penetrated, are well supplied with 

 iron goods, and send the product of their labour to European 

 markets. 



In order to give some idea of the state of industry and the 



