Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/403

 OF THE AMAZON. 3S9

game, tapirs, monkeys, and large birds; they are, however, cannibals, killing and eating any Indians of other tribes they can procure, and they preserve the meat, smoked and dried. Senhor Domingos, a Portuguese trader up the river Purus, informed me that he once met a party of them, who felt his belly and ribs, as a butcher would handle a sheep, and talked much to each other, apparently intimating that he was fat, and would be excellent eating.

Of the Jamamaris we have no authentic information, but that they much resemble the last in their manners and customs, and in their appearance.

The Jubiris are equally unknown ; they, however, most resemble the Purupurus in their habits and mode of life, and, like them, have their bodies spotted and mottled, though not to such a great extent.

In the country between the Tapajoz and the Madeira, among the labyrinth of lakes and channels of the great island of the Tupinambaranos, reside the Mundrucus, the most war- like Indians of the Amazons. These are, I believe, the only perfectly tattooed nation in South America : the markings are extended all over the body; they are produced by pricking with the spines of the pupunha palm, and rubbing in the soot from burning pitch to produce the indelible bluish tinge

They make their houses with mud walls, in regular villages. In each village they have a large building which serves as a kind of barrack, or fortress, where all the men sleep at night, armed with their bows and arrows, ready in case of alarm : this house is surrounded within with dried heads of their enemies : these heads they smoke and dry, so as to preserve all the features and the hair most perfectly. They make war every year with an adjoining tribe, the Parentintins, taking the women and children for slaves, and preserving the heads of the men. They make good canoes and hammocks. They live principally on forest-game, and are very agricultural, making quantities of farinha and growing many fruits. The men have each one wife, and each village its chief. Cravo or wild nutmegs, and farinha, are the principal articles of their trade ; and they receive in exchange cotton cloth, iron goods, salt, beads, etc.

In the Rio Branco are numerous tribes, and some of them are said to practise circumcision.