To amuse the Tushaua, I fetched from the canoe the two volumes of Knight's Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature.The engravings quite took his fancy, and he called his wives, of whom, as Iafterwards learned from Aracu, he had three or four, to look at them; one of them was a handsome girl, decorated with necklace and bracelets of blue beads.In a short time, others left their work, and I then had a crowd of women and children around me, who all displayed unusual curiosity for Indians.It was no light task to go through the whole of the illustrations, but they would not allow me to miss a page, making me turn back when I tried to skip.The pictures of the elephant, camels, orangutangs, and tigers, seemed most to astonish them; but they were interested in almost everything, down even to the shells and insects.They recognised the portraits of the most striking birds and mammals which are found in their own country-- the jaguar, howling monkeys, parrots, trogons, and toucans.The elephant was settled to be a large kind of Tapir; but they made but few remarks, and those in the Mundurucu language, of which I understood only two or three words.Their way of expressing surprise was a clicking sound made with the teeth, similar to the one we ourselves use, or a subdued exclamation, Hm! hm! Before I finished, from fifty to sixty had assembled; there was no pushing or rudeness, the grown-up women letting the young girls and children stand before them, and all behaved in the most quiet and orderly manner possible.
The Mundurucus are perhaps the most numerous and formidable tribe of Indians now surviving in the Amazons region.They inhabit the shores of the Tapajos (chiefly the right bank), from 3 to 7 south latitude, and the interior of the country between that part of the river and the Madeira.On the Tapajos alone they can muster, I was told, 2000 fighting men; the total population of the tribe may be about 20,000.They were not heard of until about ninety years ago, when they made war on the Portuguese settlements, their hosts crossing the interior of the country eastward of the Tapajos, and attacking the establishments of the whites in the province of Maranham.The Portuguese made peace with them in the beginning of the present century, the event being brought about by the common cause of quarrel entertained by the two peoples against the hated Muras.They have ever since been firm friends of the whites.It is remarkable how faithfully this friendly feeling has been handed down amongst the Mundurucus, and spread to the remotest of the scattered hordes.Wherever a white man meets a family, or even an individual of the tribe, he is almost sure to be reminded of this alliance.They are the most warlike of the Brazilian tribes, and are considered also the most settled and industrious; they are not, however, superior in this latter respect to the Juris and Passes on the Upper Amazons, or the Uapes Indians near the headwaters of the Rio Negro.They make very large plantations of mandioca, and sell the surplus produce, which amounts to, on the Tapajos, from 3000 to 5000 baskets (60lbs.each) annually, to traders who ascend the river from Santarem between the months of August and January.They also gather large quantities of sarsaparilla, India-rubber, and Tonka beans, in the forests.The traders, on their arrival at the Campinas (the scantily wooded region inhabited by the main body of Mundurucus beyond the cataracts) have first to distribute their wares--cheap cotton cloths, iron hatchets, cutlery, small wares, and cashaca--amongst the minor chiefs, and then wait three or four months for repayment in produce.
A rapid change is taking place in the habits of these Indians through frequent intercourse with the whites, and those who dwell on the banks of the Tapajos now seldom tattoo their children.The principal Tushaua of the whole tribe or nation, named Joaquim, was rewarded with a commission in the Brazilian army, in acknowledgment of the assistance he gave to the legal authorities during the rebellion of 1835-6.It would be a misnomer to call the Mundurucus of the Cupari and many parts of the Tapajos savages; their regular mode of life, agricultural habits, loyalty to their chiefs, fidelity to treaties, and gentleness of demeanour, give them a right to a better title.Yet they show no aptitude for the civilised life of towns, and, like the rest of the Brazilian tribes, seem incapable of any further advance in culture.
In their former wars they exterminated two of the neighbouring peoples, the Jumas and the Jacares, and make now an annual expedition against the Pararauates, and one or two other similar wild tribes who inhabit the interior of the land.Additionally they are sometimes driven by hunger towards the banks of the great rivers to rob the plantations of the agricultural Indians.
