Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/423

 and for fires in the middle, and on one side is an elevated stage (girao) overhead, formed of split palm stems. The Tucúnas excel most of the other tribes in the manufacture of pottery. They make broad-mouthed jars for Tucupí sauce, caysúma or mandioca beer, capable of holding twenty or more gallons, ornamenting them outside with crossed diagonal streaks of various colours. These jars, with cooking-pots, smaller jars for holding water, blow-pipes, quivers, matirí bags full of small articles, baskets, skins of animals, and so forth, form the principal part of the furniture of their huts both large and small. The dead bodies of their chiefs are interred, the knees doubled up, in large jars under the floors of their huts.

The semi-religious dances and drinking bouts usual amongst the settled tribes of Amazonian Indians are indulged in to greater excess by the Tucúnas than they are by most other tribes. The Juruparí or Demon is the only superior being they have any conception of, and his name is mixed up with all their ceremonies, but it is difficult to ascertain what they consider to be his attributes. He seems to be believed in simply as a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of all those mishaps of their daily life, the causes of which are not very immediate or obvious to their dull under-