AND VISIT TO THE PURIS AT ST. FIDELIS. 123 



and kindness ; they very readily perceived too, by our light hair, 

 that we belonged to another nation. They call all white people 

 indiscriminately Hayon. 



As we could not obtain flour at the fazenda to feed all these 

 people, we considered of other means to satisfy the loud calls of their 

 stomachs. The master of the house gave us a small hog, which we 

 presented to them, telling them to shoot it themselves ; so that we 

 had an opportunity of seeing with what savage cruelty they prepare 

 animals for their food. The hog was eating near the house ; a Puri 

 advanced softly, and shot it too high, under the back-bone ; it ran 

 away screaming, and dragging the arrow along with it. The savage 

 then took a second arrow, shot the animal, while running, in the 

 shoulder, and then caught it. Meantime the women had kindled a 

 fire. When we all came up, they shot the animal again in the neck, 

 to dispatch it, and then in the breast. It was not, however, yet dead ; 

 it lay screaming and bleeding profusely : but without regard to its 

 cries, they threw it alive into the fire to singe off the hair, and 

 laughed heartily at the groans which its sufferings extorted. It was 

 not till our loudly expressed displeasure at this barbarity became 

 more and more impatient, that one of them advanced, and 

 plunged a knife into the breast of the much tortured animal ; on 

 which they scraped off the hair, and immediately cut it up and 

 divided it*. From the small size of the animal, many of them did 

 not obtain a share, and went back grumbling to their woods. They 

 were scarcely gone, when a sack of flour for them arrived from St. 

 Fidelis, which we sent after them. 



Rude insensibility, as this and many other examples shewed me, is 



* Neither here, nor in the sequel, did I find among the savages any confirmation of what 

 Mr. Freyreiss says in Eschwege's Journal of Brazil, namely, that the savages never eat 

 the flesh of animals which they have killed themselves. 



