500 
ON THE ABORIGINES 
are much, consulted and believed in, and are well paid 
for their services. An Indian will give almost all his 
wealth to a page, when he is threatened with any real 
or imaginary danger. 
They scarcely seem to think that death can occur na- 
turally, always imputing it either to direct poisoning or 
the charms of some enemy, and, on this supposition, will 
proceed to revenge it. This they generally do by poisons, 
of which they have many which are most deadly in their 
effects : they are given at some festival in a bowl of ca- 
xiri, which it is good manners always to empty, so that 
the whole dose is sure to be taken. One of the poisons 
often used is most terrible in its effects, causing the 
tongue and throat, as well as the intestines, to putrefy 
and rot away, so that the sufferer lingers some days in 
the greatest agony : this is of course again retaliated, on 
perhaps the wrong party, and thus a long succession of 
murders may result from a mere groundless suspicion in 
the first instance. 
I cannot make out that they have any belief that can 
be called a religion. They appear to have no definite idea 
of a God; if asked who they think made the rivers, 
and the forests, and the sky, they will reply that they 
do not know, or sometimes that they suppose it was 
“ Tupanau,” a word that appears to answer to God, but of 
which they understand nothing. They have much more 
definite ideas of a bad spirit, “Jumpari,"’ or Devil, 
whom they fear, and endeavour through their pages to 
propitiate. When it thunders, they say the '' Jurupari ” 
is angry, and their idea of natural death is that the 
Jurupari kills them. At an eclipse they believe that this 
