Chap. YI. 
THE JUEUPARL 
403 
and for fires in the middle, and on one side is an ele- 
vated stage (girao) overhead, formed of split palm stems. 
The Tug Unas excel most of the other tribes in the 
manufacture of pottery. They make broad-mouthed 
jars for Tucupi sauce, caysuma or mandioca beer, 
capable of holding twenty or more gallons, ornament- 
ing them outside with crossed diagonal streaks of 
various colours. These jars, with cooking-pots, smaller 
jars for holding water, blow-pipes, quivers, matiri 
bags* full of small articles, baskets, skins of animals, 
and so forth, form the principal part of the furniture of 
their huts both large and small. The dead bodies of 
their chiefs are interred, the knees doubled up, in large 
jars under the floors of their huts. 
The semi-religious dances and drinking bouts usual 
amongst the settled tribes of Amazonian Indians are 
indulged in to greater excess by the Tucunas than 
they are by most other tribes. The Jurupari or 
Demon is the only superior being they have any con- 
ception of, and his name is mixed up with all their 
ceremonies, but it is difficult to ascertain what they con- 
sider to be his attributes. He seems to be believed in 
simply as a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of 
all those mishaps of their daily life, the causes of which 
are not very immediate or obvious to their dull under- 
* Tliese bags are formed of remarkably neat twine made of Bro- 
melia fibres elaborately knitted, all in one piece, with sticks ; a belt of 
the same material, but more closely woven, being attached to the top 
to suspend them by. They aff'ord good examples of the mechanical 
ability of these Indians. The Tucunas also possess the art of skinning 
and stuffing birds, the handsome kinds of which they sell in great 
numbers to passing travellers. 
