60 Prince Maximilian's ^ ' 



nearly three inches in length below the chin.* Some had 

 red spots painted on their forehead and cheeks with Uriicu, 

 (Bixa Orellana, Linn.) and on the breast and arms they had 

 all made dark-blue stripes with the sap of the Genipaba-frmt ; 

 (Genipa americana, Linn.) these are both the colours which 

 the Tapuyas use. Around their neck, or over their breast and 

 one shoulder, they wore a string of threaded, hard black-^ 

 berries, in the front part of the centre of which there were in- 

 terwoven the corner teeth of apes, ounces, cats, and other 

 animfds of prey, though many had necklaces of this kind with- 

 out teeth.f 



The men carried in their hands long bows and arrows, 

 which as well as all their other property they readily bartered 

 for trifles. We received these extraordinary beings in a 

 friendly manner. Two of them had been brought up when 

 children among the Portuguese, and consequently spoke a 

 little of the language of the latter; whence they are often of 

 the greatest use to the fazendas. We presented them with 

 knives, rosaries, small mirrors, &c. and divided among them 

 small bottles of rum. We then announced to them our inten- 

 tion to visit them early in the morning in the woods, if they 

 would receive us kindly : afl er this, and when we had pro- 

 mised to bring agreeable presents for them with us, they left 

 us exceedingly pleased, and returned with loud shouts and 

 singing into their wilderness. Scarcely had we set out in the 

 morning, when we perceived the Indians again issuing from 

 their woody valley. We sprang forward to meet them, re- 

 galed them with spirits, and hastened with them to the wood. 

 As we rode round the sugar-works of the Fazenda, we found 

 the whole horde of Puris stationed there on the grass. This 

 naked, brown-skinned multitude, presented a most extraordi- 

 nary and interesting spectacle. Men, women and children 

 crowded together, regarded us with a mingled aspect of 

 timidity. They had all decorated themselves to the utmost 

 of their power : a few of the women only wore a covering 

 round their hips or over their breast, the rest were perfectly 

 naked. Some of the men had ornamented themselves with a 

 piece of the skin of the ape called Mono (Ateles,) bound round 



* Many writers have run into a great error by calling the Americans 

 beardless, although their beard is generally thin and weak. In Sypotuba there 

 is said to have lived a race of the Aborigines, who being distinguished by a^ 

 stronger beard were thence stiled Barbados by the Portuguese. 



f The ornament here alluded to consists of dark-brown, hollow, longitudi- 

 nal bodies, which in shape are very similar to a Dentalium, and are therefore 

 supposed to be of animal origin, till stricter examination shews that they are 

 formed from a barky substance, and are hence, without doubt, the hull of 

 some thoyn. They may be produced on the Caxowidn of the Paraiba. 



