Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/402

 358 ON THE ABORIGINES

middle of which is held with the handle of the palheta in the hand, and thus thrown as from a sling : they have a surprising dexterity in the use of this weapon, and with it readily kill game, birds, and fish.

They grow a few fruits, such as yams and plantains, but sel- dom have any mandiocca, and they construct earthen pans to cook in. They sleep in their houses on the sand of the prayas, making no hammocks or clothing of any kind ; they make no fires in their houses, which are too small, but are kept warm at night by the number of persons in them. They bore large holes in the upper and lower lip, in the septum of the nose, and in the ears ; at their festivals they insert in these holes sticks, six or eight inches long ; at other times they have only a short piece in, to keep them open. In the wet season, when the prayas and banks of the river are all flooded, they construct rafts of trunks of trees bound together with creepers, and on them erect their huts, and live there till the waters fall again, when they guide their raft to the first sandy beach that appears.

Little is known of their domestic customs and superstitions. The men have each but one wife ; the dead are buried in the sandy beaches ; and they are not known to have any pages A few families only live together, in little movable villages, to each of which there is a Tushaua. They have, at times, dances and festivals, when they make intoxicating drinks from wild fruits, and amuse themselves with rude musical instruments, formed of reeds and bones. They do not use salt, but prefer payment in fish-hooks, knives, beads, and farinha, for the salsaparilha and turtle-oil which they sell to the traders.

May not the curious disease, to which they are so subject, be produced by their habit of constantly sleeping naked on the sand, instead of in the comfortable, airy, and cleanly hammock, so universally used by almost every other tribe of Indians in this part of South America ?

The Catauixis, though in the immediate neighbourhood of the last, are very different. They have permanent houses, cultivate mandiocca, sleep in hammocks, and are clean-skinned. They go naked like the last, but do not bore holes in their nose and lips ; they wear a ring of twisted hair on their arms and legs. They use bows, arrows, and gravatdnas, and make the ervadura, or ururf poison. Their canoes are made of the bark of a tree, taken off entire. They eat principally forest