I could not learn that there was any deep symbolical meaning in these masked dances, or that they commemorated any past event in the history of the tribe.Some of them seem vaguely intended as a propitiation of the Jurupari, but the masker who represents the demon sometimes gets drunk along with the rest, and is not treated with any reverence.From all I could make out, these Indians preserve no memory of events going beyond the times of their fathers or grandfathers.Almost every joyful event is made the occasion of a festival-- weddings among the best.A young man who wishes to wed a Tucuna girl has to demand her hand of her parents, who arrange the rest of the affair, and fix a day for the marriage ceremony.A wedding which took place in the Christmas week while I was at St.Paulo was kept up with great spirit for three or four days, flagging during the heats of mid-day, but renewing itself with increased vigour every evening.
During the whole time the bride, decked out with feather ornaments, was under the charge of the older squaws whose business seemed to be, sedulously, to keep the bridegroom at a safe distance until the end of the dreary period of dancing and boosing.The Tucunas have the singular custom, in common with the Collinas and Mauhes, 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 only other tribe of this neighbourhood concerning which Iobtained any information were the Majeronas, whose territory embraces several hundred miles of the western bank of the river Jauari, an affluent of the Solimoens, 120 miles beyond St.Paulo.
These are a fierce, indomitable, and hostile people, like the Araras of the river Madeira; they are also cannibals.The navigation of the Jauari is rendered impossible on account of the Majeronas 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 Jauari; the Majeronas 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.Jose Patricio, with his usual activity in the cause of law and order, despatched a party of armed men of the National Guard to the place to make inquiries, and, if the murder should appear to be unprovoked, to retaliate.When they reached the settlement of the horde who had eaten the two men, it was found evacuated, with the exception of one girl, who had been in the woods when the rest of her people had taken flight, and whom the guards brought with them to St.Paulo.It was gathered from her, and from other Indians on the Jauari, that the young men had brought their fate on themselves through improper conduct towards the Majerona women.The girl, on arriving at St.Paulo, was taken care of by Senor Jose Patricio, baptised under the name of Maria, and taught Portuguese.I saw a good deal of her, for my friend sent her daily to my house to fill the water-jars, make the fire, and so forth.I also gained her goodwill by extracting the grub of an Oestrus fly from her back, and thus cured her of a painful tumour.She was decidedly the best-humoured and, to all appearance, the kindest-hearted specimen of her race I had yet seen.She was tall and very stout; in colour much lighter than the ordinary Indian tint, and her ways altogether were more like those of a careless, laughing country wench, such as might be met with any day amongst the labouring class in villages in our own country, than a cannibal.I heard this artless maiden relate, in the coolest manner possible, how she ate a portion of the bodies of the young men whom her tribe had roasted.But what increased greatly the incongruity of this business, the young widow of one of the victims, a neighbour of mine, happened to be present during the narrative, and showed her interest in it by laughing at the broken Portuguese in which the girl related the horrible story.
In the fourth month of my sojourn at St.Paulo I had a serious illness, an attack of the "sizoens," or ague of the country, which, as it left me with shattered health and damped enthusiasm, led to my abandoning the plan I had formed of proceeding to the Peruvian towns of Pebas and Moyobamba, 250 and 600 miles further west, and so completing the examination of the Natural History of the Amazonian plains up to the foot of the Andes.I made a very large collection at St.Paulo, and employed a collector at Tabatinga and on the banks of the Jauari for several months, so that I acquired a very fair knowledge altogether of the productions of the country bordering the Amazons to the end of the Brazilian territory, a distance of 1900 miles from the Atlantic at the mouth of the Para; but beyond the Peruvian boundary I found now I should be unable to go.My ague seemed to be the culmination of a gradual deterioration of health, which had been going on for several years.I had exposed myself too much in the sun, working to the utmost of my strength six days a week, and had suffered much, besides, from bad and insufficient food.The ague did not exist at St.Paulo but the foul and humid state of the village was, perhaps, sufficient to produce ague in a person much weakened from other causes.The country bordering the shores of the Solimoens is healthy throughout; some endemic diseases certainly exist, but these are not of a fatal nature, and the epidemics which desolated the Lower Amazons from Para to the Rio Negro, between the years 1850 and 1856, had never reached this favoured land.Ague is known only on the banks of those tributary streams which have dark-coloured water.
