When we returned to the house after mid-day, Cardozo was still sipping cauim, and now looked exceedingly merry.It was fearfully hot; the good fellow sat in his hammock with a cuya full of grog in his hands; his broad honest face all of a glow, and the perspiration streaming down his uncovered breast, the unbuttoned shirt having slipped half-way over his broad shoulders.Pedro-uassu had not drunk much; he was noted, as I afterwards learned, for his temperance.But he was standing up as I had left him two hours previous, talking to Cardozo in the same monotonous tones, the conversation apparently not having flagged all the time.Ihad never heard so much talking amongst Indians.The widower was asleep; the stirring, managing old lady with her daughter were preparing dinner.This, which was ready soon after I entered, consisted of boiled fowls and rice, seasoned with large green peppers and lemon juice, and piles of new, fragrant farinha and raw bananas.It was served on plates of English manufacture on a tupe, or large plaited rush mat, such as is made by the natives pretty generally on the Amazons.Three or four other Indians, men and women of middle age, now made their appearance, and joined in the meal.We all sat round on the floor: the women, according to custom, not eating until after the men had done.Before sitting down, our host apologised in his usual quiet, courteous manner for not having knives and forks; Cardozo and I ate by the aid of wooden spoons, the Indians using their fingers.The old man waited until we were all served before he himself commenced.At the end of the meal, one of the women brought us water in a painted clay basin of Indian manufacture, and a clean coarse cotton napkin, that we might wash our hands.
The horde of Passes of which Pedro-uassu was Tushaua or chieftain, was at this time reduced to a very small number of individuals.The disease mentioned in the last chapter had for several generations made great havoc among them; many had also entered the service of whites at Ega, and, of late years, intermarriages with whites, half-castes, and civilised Indians had been frequent.The old man bewailed the fate of his race to Cardozo with tears in his eyes."The people of my nation," he said," have always been good friends to the Cariwas (whites), but before my grandchildren are old like me the name of Passe will be forgotten." In so far as the Passes have amalgamated with European immigrants or their descendants, and become civilised Brazilian citizens, there can scarcely be ground for lamenting their extinction as a nation; but it fills one with regret to learn how many die prematurely of a disease which seems to arise on their simply breathing the same air as the whites.The original territory of the tribe must have been of large extent, for Passes are said to have been found by the early Portuguese colonists on the Rio Negro; an ancient settlement on that river, Barcellos, having been peopled by them when it was first established; and they formed also part of the original population of Fonte-boa on the Solimoens.Their hordes were therefore, spread over a region 400 miles in length from cast to west.It is probable, however, that they have been confounded by the colonists with other neighbouring tribes who tattoo their faces in a similar manner.The extinct tribe of Yurimauas, or Sorimoas, from which the river Solimoens derives its name, according to traditions extant at Ega, resembled the Passes in their slender figures and friendly disposition.These tribes (with others lying between them) peopled the banks of the main river and its by-streams from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Peru.True Passes existed in their primitive state on the banks of the Issa, 240miles to the west of Ega, within the memory of living persons.
The only large body of them now extant are located on the Japura, at a place distant about 150 miles from Ega: the population of this horde, however, does not exceed, from what I could learn, 300 or 400 persons.I think it probable that the lower part of the Japura and its extensive delta lands formed the original home of this gentle tribe of Indians.
The Passes are always spoken of in this country as the most advanced of all the Indian nations in the Amazons region.Under what influences this tribe has become so strongly modified in mental, social, and bodily features it is hard to divine.The industrious habits, fidelity, and mildness of disposition of the Passes, their docility and, it may be added, their personal beauty, especially of the children and women, made them from the first very attractive to the Portuguese colonists.They were, consequently, enticed in great number from their villages and brought to Barra and other settlements of the whites.The wives of governors and military officers from Europe were always eager to obtain children for domestic servants; the girls being taught to sew, cook, weave hammocks, manufacture pillow-lace, and so forth.They have been generally treated with kindness, especially by the educated families in the settlements.It is pleasant to have to record that I never heard of a deed of violence perpetrated, on the one side or the other, in the dealings between European settlers and this noble tribe of savages.
