Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/97

 interior lands of Brazil. They were settled in villages, and addicted to agriculture. They navigated the rivers in large canoes, called ubás, made of immense hollowed-out tree trunks; in these they used to go on war expeditions, carrying in the prows their trophies and calabash rattles, whose clatter was meant to intimidate their enemies. They were gentle in disposition, and received the early Portuguese settlers with great friendliness. The inland savages, on the other hand, led a wandering life, as they do at the present time, only coming down occasionally to rob the plantations of the coast tribes, who always entertained the greatest enmity towards them.

The original Indian tribes of the district are now either civilised, or have amalgamated with the white and negro immigrants. Their distinguishing tribal names have long been forgotten, and the race bears now the general appellation of Tapuyo, which seems to have been one of the names of the ancient Tupinambas. The Indians of the interior, still remaining in the savage state, are called by the Brazilians Indios, or Gentios (Heathens). All the semi-civilised Tapuyos of the villages, and in fact the inhabitants of retired places generally, speak the Lingoa geral, a language adapted by the Jesuit missionaries from the original idiom of the Tupinambas. The language of the Guaranis, a nation living on the banks of the Paraguay, is a dialect of it, and hence it is called by philologists the Tupi-Guarani language; printed grammars of it are always on sale at the shops of the Pará booksellers. The fact of one language having been spoken over so wide an extent of country as that from the Amazons to Paraguay, is quite an isolated