Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/220

 190 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [Jmie,

feet long, by about forty wide and thirty high, very strongly constructed of round, smooth, barked timbers, and thatched with the fan-shaped leaves of the Carana palm. One end was square, with a gable, the other circular ; and the eaves, hang- ing over the low walls, reached nearly to the ground. In the middle was a broad aisle, formed by the two rows of the principal columns supporting the roof, and between these and the sides were other rows of smaller and shorter timbers ; the whole of them were firmly connected by longitudinal and transverse beams at the top, supporting the rafters, and were all bound together with much symmetry by sipds.

Projecting inwards from the walls on each side were short partitions of palm-thatch, exactly similar in arrangement to the boxes in a London eating-house, or those of a theatre. Each of these is the private apartment of a separate family, who thus live in a sort of patriarchal community. In the side aisles are the farinha ovens, tipitis for squeezing the mandiocca, huge pans and earthen vessels for making caxirf, and other large articles, which appear to be in common ; while in every separate apartment are the small pans, stools, baskets, redes, water-pots, weapons, and ornaments of the occupants. The centre aisle remains unoccupied, and forms a fine walk through the house. At the circular end is a cross partition or railing about five feet high, cutting off rather more than the semicircle, but with a wide opening in the centre : this forms the residence of the chief or head of the malocca, with his wives and children ; the more distant relations residing in the other part of the house. The door at the gable end is very wide and lofty, that at the circular end is smaller, and these are the only apertures to admit light and air. The upper part of the gable is loosely covered with palm-leaves hung vertically, through which the smoke of the numerous wood fires slowly percolates, giving, however, in its passage a jetty lustre to the whole of the upper part of the roof.

On entering this house, I was delighted to find myself at length in the presence of the true denizens of the forest. An old and a young man and two women were the only occupiers, the rest being out on their various pursuits. The women were absolutely naked ; but on the entrance of the " brancos " they slipped on a petticoat, with which in these lower parts of the river they are generally provided but never use except on