Europeans certainly withstand the high temperature better than the original inhabitants of the country; I always found I could myself bear exposure to the sun or unusually hot weather quite as well as the Indians, although not well-fitted by nature for a hot climate.Their skin is always hot to the touch, and they perspire little.No Indian resident of Ega can be induced to stay in the village (where the heat is felt more than in the forest or on the river), for many days together.They bathe many times a day, but do not plunge in the water, taking merely a sitz-bath, as dogs may be seen doing in hot climates, to cool the lower parts of the body.The women and children, who often remain at home, while the men are out for many days together fishing, generally find some excuse for trooping off to the shades of the forest in the hot hours of the afternoons.They are restless and discontented in fine dry weather, but cheerful in cool days, when the rain is pouring down on their naked backs.When suffering under fever, nothing but strict watching can prevent them from going down to bathe in the river, or eating immoderate quantities of juicy fruits, although these indulgences are frequently the cause of death.They are very subject to disorders of the liver, dysentery, and other diseases of hot climates, and when any epidemic is about, they fall ill quicker, and suffer more than negroes or even whites.How different all this is with the negro, the true child of tropical climes! The impression gradually forced itself on my mind that the red Indian lives as a stranger, or immigrant in these hot regions, and that his constitution was not originally adapted, and has not since become perfectly adapted, to the climate.
The Indian element is very prominent in the amusements of the Ega people.All the Roman Catholic holidays are kept up with great spirit; rude Indian sports being mingled with the ceremonies introduced by the Portuguese.Besides these, the aborigines celebrate their own ruder festivals; the people of different tribes combining-- for, in most of their features, the merry-makings were originally alike in all the tribes.The Indian idea of a holiday is bonfires, processions, masquerading, especially the mimicry of different kinds of animals, plenty of confused drumming and fifing, monotonous dancing, kept up hour after hour without intermission, and, the most important point of all, getting gradually and completely drunk.But he attaches a kind of superstitious significance to these acts, and thinks that the amusements appended to the Roman Catholic holidays as celebrated by the descendants of the Portuguese, are also an essential part of the religious ceremonies.But in this respect, the uneducated whites and half-breeds are not a bit more enlightened than the poor, dull-souled Indian.All look upon a religious holiday as an amusement, in which the priest takes the part of director or chief actor.
Almost every unusual event, independent of saints' days, is made the occasion of a holiday by the sociable, easy-going people of the white and Mameluco classes-- funerals, christenings, weddings, the arrival of strangers, and so forth.The custom of "waking" the dead is also kept up.A few days after I arrived, Iwas awoke in the middle of a dark, moist night by Cardozo, to sit up with a neighbour whose wife had just died.I found the body laid out on a table, with crucifix and lighted wax-candles at the head, and the room full of women and girls squatted on stools or on their haunches.The men were seated round the open door, smoking, drinking coffee, and telling stories, the bereaved husband exerting himself much to keep the people merry during the remainder of the night.The Ega people seem to like an excuse for turning night into day; it is so cool and pleasant, and they can sit about during these hours in the open air, clad as usual in simple shirt and trousers, without streaming with perspiration.
The patron saint is Santa Theresa, the festival at whose anniversary lasts, like most of the others, ten days.It begins very quietly with evening litanies sung in the church, which are attended by the greater part of the population, all clean and gaily dressed in calicos and muslins; the girls wearing jasmines and other natural flowers in their hair, no other headdress being worn by females of any class.The evenings pass pleasantly; the church is lighted up with wax candles, and illuminated on the outside by a great number of little oil lamps, rude clay cups, or halves of the thick rind of the bitter orange, which are fixed all over the front.The congregation seem very attentive, and the responses to the litany of Our Lady, sung by a couple of hundred fresh female voices, ring agreeably through the still village.
