Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/220

 descended almost to the level of the Indians, and adopted some of their practices. The performances take place in the evening, and occupy five or six hours; bonfires are lighted along the grassy streets, and the families of the better class are seated at their doors, enjoying the wild but good-humoured fun.

A purely Indian festival is celebrated the first week in February, which is called the Feast of Fruits: several kinds of wild fruit becoming ripe at that time, more particularly the Umarí and the Wishí, two sorts which are a favourite food of the people of this province, although of a bitter taste and unpalatable to Europeans. It takes place at the houses of a few families of the Jurí tribe, hidden in the depths of the forest on the banks of a creek about three miles from Ega. I saw a little of it one year, when hunting in the neighbourhood with an Indian attendant. There were about 150 people assembled, nearly all red-skins, and signs of the orgy having been very rampant the previous night were apparent in the litter and confusion all around, and in the number of drunken men lying asleep under the trees and sheds. The women had manufactured a great quantity of spirits in rude clay stills, from mandioca, bananas, and pine-apples. I doubt whether there was ever much symbolic meaning attached by the aborigines to festivals of this kind. The harvest-time of the Umirí and Wishí is one of their seasons of abundance, and they naturally made it the occasion of one of their mad, drunken holidays. They learnt the art of distilling spirits from the early Portuguese; it is only, however, one or two of the superior tribes, such as the Jurís and Passés, who