Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/221

 practise it. The Indians of the Upper Amazons, like those of the Lower river, mostly use fermented drinks (called here Caysúma), made from mandioca cakes and different kinds of fruit.

I did not see much fruit about. A few old women in one of the sheds were preparing and cooking porridge of bananas in large earthenware kettles. It was now near midday, the time when a little rest is taken before resuming the orgy in the evening; but a small party of young men and women were keeping up the dance to the accompaniment of drums made of hollow logs and beaten with the hands. The men formed a curved line on the outside, and the women a similar line on the inside facing their partners. Each man had in his right hand a long reed representing a javelin, and rested his left on the shoulders of his neighbour. They all moved, first to the right and then to the left, with a slow step, singing a drawling monotonous verse, in a language which I did not understand. The same figure was repeated in the dreariest possible way for at least half an hour, and in fact constituted the whole of the dance. The assembled crowd included individuals of most of the tribes living in the region around Ega; but the majority were Miránhas and Jurís. They had no common chief, an active middle-aged Jurí, named Alexandro, in the employ of Senhor Chrysostomo of Ega, seeming to have the principal management. This festival of fruits was the only occasion in which the Indians of the neighbourhood assembled together or exhibited any traces of joint action. It declined in importance every year, and will no doubt soon be discontinued altogether.