OF THE AMAZON. 



359 



game, tapirs, monkeys, and large birds; they are, however, 

 cannibals, killing and eating any Indians of other tribes they 

 can procure, and they preserve the meat^ smoked and dried. 

 Senhor Domingos, a Portuguese trader up the river Purus, 

 informed me that he once met a party of them, who felt his 

 belly and ribs, as a butcher would handle a sheep, and talked 

 much to each other, apparently intimating that he was fat, and 

 would be excellent eating. 



Of the Jamamaris we have no authentic information, but 

 that they much resemble the last in their manners and customs, 

 and in their appearance. 



The Jubiris are equally unknown ; they, however, most 

 resemble the Purupurus in their habits and mode of life, and, 

 like them, have their bodies spotted and mottled, though not 

 to such a great extent. 



In the country between the Tapaj 6z and the Madeira, 

 among the labyrinth of lakes and channels of the great island 

 of the Tupinambaranos, reside the Mundrucus, the most war- 

 like Indians of the Amazons. These are, I believe, the only 

 perfectly tattooed nation in South America : the markings are 

 extended all over the body; they are produced by pricking 

 with the spines of the pupunha palm, and rubbing in the soot 

 from burning pitch to produce the indelible bluish tinge 



They make their houses with mud walls, in regular villages. 

 In each village they have a large building which serves as a 

 kind of barrack, or fortress, where all the men sleep at night, 

 armed with their bows and arrows, ready in case of alarm : 

 this house is surrounded within with dried heads of their 

 enemies : these heads they smoke and dry, so as to preserve 

 all the features and the hair most perfectly. They make war 

 every year with an adjoining tribe, the Parentintins, taking the 

 women and children for slaves, and preserving the heads of 

 the men. They make good canoes and hammocks. They 

 live principally on forest-game, and are very agricultural, 

 making quantities of farinha and growing many fruits. The 

 men have each one wife, and each village its chief Cravo or 

 wild nutmegs, and farinha, are the principal articles of their 

 trade ; and they receive in exchange cotton cloth, iron goods, 

 salt, beads, etc. 



In the Rio Branco are numerous tribes, and some of them 

 are said to practise circumcision. 



