Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/426

 have the singular custom, in common with the Collínas and Mauhés, of treating their young girls, on their showing the first signs of womanhood, as if they had committed some crime. They are sent up to the girao under the smoky and filthy roof, and kept there on very meagre diet, sometimes for a whole month. I heard of one poor girl dying under this treatment.

The original territory of the Tucúna tribe embraced the banks of most of the by-streams, from forty miles below St. Paulo to beyond Loreto in Peru, a distance of about 200 miles; the tribe, however, is not well-demarcated from that of the Collínas, who appear to be a section of Tucúnas, and whose home extends 200 miles further to the east. The only other tribe of this neighbourhood concerning which I obtained any information were the Majerónas, whose territory embraces several hundred miles of the western bank of the river Jauarí, an affluent of the Solimoens, 120 miles beyond St. Paulo. These are a fierce, indomitable, and hostile people, like the Aráras of the river Madeira; they are also cannibals. The navigation of the Jauarí is rendered impossible on account of the Majerónas lying in wait on its banks to intercept and murder all travellers, especially whites.

Four months before my arrival at St. Paulo, two young half-castes (nearly white) of the village went to trade on the Jauarí; the Majerónas having shown signs of abating their hostility for a year or two previously. They had not been long gone, when their canoe returned with the news that the two young fellows had been shot with arrows, roasted and eaten by the savages. José Patricio, with his usual activity in the cause of law and