Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/401

 OF THE AMAZON. 357

of the india-rubber tree to their legs when they dance. Each village has a Tushaua : the succession is hereditary, but the chief has very little power. They have pages, whom they believe to have much skill, and are afraid of, and pay well. They were formerly very warlike, and made many attacks upon the Europeans, but are now much more peaceful ; and are the most skilful of all Indians in shooting turtles and fish, and in catching the cow-fish. They still use their own language among themselves, though they also understand the Lingoa Geral. The white traders obtain from them salsaparilha, oil from turtles' eggs and the cow-fish, Brazil-nuts, and estopa, which is the bark of the young Brazil-nut tree {Bertholletia excelsa), used extensively for caulking canoes ; and pay them in cotton goods, harpoon and arrow-heads, hooks, beads, knives, cutlasses, etc.

The next tribes, the Purupurus, are in many respects very peculiar, and differ remarkably in their habits from any other nation we have yet described. They call themselves Pamouiris, but are always called by the Brazilians Purupurus, a name also applied to a peculiar disease, with which they are almost all afflicted : this consists in the body being spotted and blotched with white, brown, or nearly black patches, of irregular size and shape, and having a very disagreeable appearance : when young, their skins are clear, but' as they grow up, they invariably become more or less spotted. Other Indians are sometimes seen afflicted in this manner, and they are then said to have the Purupuru ; though it does not appear whether the disease is called after the tribe of Indians who are most subject to it, or the Indians after the disease. Some say that the word is Portuguese, but this seems to be a mistake.

The Purupurus, men and women, go perfectly naked ; and their houses are of the rudest construction, being semi-cylindri- cal, like those of our gipsies, and so small, as to be set up on the sandy beaches and carried away in their canoes whenever they wish to move. These canoes are of the rudest construc- tion, having a flat bottom and upright sides, — a mere square box, and quite unlike those of all other Indians. But what distinguishes them yet more from their neighbours is, that they use neither the gravatana, nor bow and arrows, but have an instrument called a " palheta," which is a piece of wood with a projection at the end, to secure the base of the arrow, the