THE MUNDURUCU INDIANS 
great deal of merriment was produced, my men for the 
rest of the day talking about the incident and reproducing 
in a realistic way the sounds of the rushing water and the 
impact of the waves against the canoe. 
We found after that a great basin 8,000 metres long, 
1,800 metres broad, from west to east, with a lovely sand 
beach 1,000 metres long on its eastern side. 
At last —after all that time without meeting a soul 
— I came across a small tribe of Mundurucus, six of them 
all counted. They had their aideja, or village, on the right 
side of the stream. Their chief rejoiced in the name of 
Joao. They were tiny little fellows, the tallest only five 
feet in height. If you had met them anywhere else than 
in Central Brazil you would have mistaken them for 
Japanese, so exactly like them were they in appearance. 
Their faces were of a very dark yellow, almost black, with 
perfectly straight hair, just like the Japanese or their near 
cousins, the Tagalos of the Philippine Islands. 
The Mundurucus were mild and gentle, soft-spoken 
and shy. They had all adopted Brazilian clothes. The 
hut of the chief was extremely clean and neat inside, the 
few utensils that were visible being kept in a tidy manner. 
Joao spoke a little Portuguese. From him I was 
able to buy a quantity of farinha, which came in useful 
to us, although I had to pay an exorbitant price for it 
—■«£4 sterling for each 50 litres or thereabouts: that is 
to say, about 5% pecks in English measure. The price of 
farinha on the coast would be less than four shillings for 
that quantity. 
What interested me most among the Mundurucus were 
their strange ornamentations. The angular pattern was 
a great favourite with them — especially angles side by 
side—-and the cross, which I think had been suggested, 
however, by their contact with Catholic missionaries 
farther down the river. 
The rudimentary figures which they carved — merely 
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