Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/146

 tural Indians. These campaigns begin in July, and last throughout the dry months; the women generally accompanying the warriors to carry their arrows and javelins. They had the diabolical custom, in former days, of cutting off the heads of their slain enemies, and preserving them as trophies around their houses. I believe this, together with other savage practices, has been relinquished in those parts where they have had long intercourse with the Brazilians, for I could neither see nor hear anything of these preserved heads. They used to sever the head with knives made of broad bamboo, and then, after taking out the brain and fleshy parts, soak it in bitter vegetable oil (andiroba), and expose it for several days over the smoke of a fire or in the sun. In the tract of country between the Tapajos and the Madeira, a deadly war has been for many years carried on between the Mundurucús and the Aráras. I was told by a Frenchman at Santarem, who had visited that part, that all the settlements there have a military organization. A separate shed is built outside of each village, where the fighting men sleep at night, sentinels being stationed to give the alarm with blasts of the Turé on the approach of the Aráras, who choose the night for their onslaughts.

Each horde of Mundurucús has its pajé or medicine man, who is the priest and doctor; fixes upon the time most propitious for attacking the enemy; exorcises evil spirits, and professes to cure the sick. All illness whose origin is not very apparent is supposed to be caused by a worm in the part affected. This the pajé pretends to extract; he blows on the seat of pain the smoke from