Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/273

 1S52.] DEVIL-MUSIC. 241

apple tribe ; I bought some dresses and feather ornaments of them ; and fish, mandiocca-cakes, etc., were brought me in considerable quantities, the articles most coveted in return being fish-hooks and red beads, of both of which I had a large stock. Just below the fall, the river is not more than two or three hundred yards wide ; while above, it is half a mile, and contains several large islands.

The large black pacu was abundant here, and, with other small fish, was generally brought us in sufficient quantity to prevent our recurring to fowls, which are considered by the traders to be the most ordinary fare a man can live on. I now ate for the first time the curious river-weed, called carurii, that grows on the rocks. We tried it as a salad, and also boiled with fish ; and both ways it was excellent ; — boiled, it much resembled spinach.

Here, too, I first saw and heard the "Juripari," or Devil- music of the Indians. One evening there was a caxiri-drinking ; and a little before dusk a sound as of trombones and bassoons was heard coming on the river towards the village, and presently appeared eight Indians, each playing on a great bassoon-looking instrument. They had four pairs, of different sizes, and produced a wild and pleasing sound. They blew them all together, tolerably in concert, to a simple tune, and showed more taste for music than I had yet seen displayed among these people. The instruments are made of bark spirally twisted, and with a mouthpiece of leaves.

In the evening I went to the malocca, and found two old men playing on the largest of the instruments. They waved them about in a singular manner, vertically and sideways, accompanied by corresponding contortions of the body, and played a long while in a regular tune, accompanying each other very correctly. From the moment the music was first heard, not a female, old or young, was to be seen ; for it is one of the strangest superstitions of the Uaupes Indians, that they con- sider it so dangerous for a woman ever to see one of these instruments, that having done so is punished with death, generally by poison. Even should the view be perfectly accidental, or should there be only a suspicion that the pro- scribed articles have been seen, no mercy is shown ; and it is said that fathers have been the executioners of their own daughters, and husbands of their wives, when such has been

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