5. The Cariris.
In his enumeration of the tribes of Central Brazil, Von Martius brings together a large number who once dwelt in the provinces of Bahia and Pernambuco, under the general title, “the Guck or Coco stem,” so called from the word which in many of them means “the paternal uncle.”[389] This division has not been endorsed by later research, and it is evident that Von Martius included several quite different stocks under this appellation.
Among these, the most prominent were the Cariris or Kiriri. They are now reduced to about 600 souls, but at one time were a powerful nation, and in 1699 the Jesuit Mamiani published a grammar and other works in their tongue.[390] They were among the more cultivated of the Brazilian tribes, given to agriculture, skilled in dyeing and weaving cotton, employing a primitive spindle and loom, with weapons of several kinds and of superior finish.
The Sabuyas, who dwell near them, speak a closely related dialect; but further affinities have not been verified. They have, indeed, many loan words from the Tupi, and some from the Carib stock, but the ground-work of these tongues is different. Von den Steinen offers some reasons for believing that they moved down the Amazon from a far western residence.[391]
6. The Coroados, Carajas and others.
The Coroados derive their name from the Portuguese word coroa, a crown, the term “crowned” being applied to several native tribes who wore their hair in a peculiar manner. It is not at all an ethnic designation, and I use it to bring into relief the need of some term of greater precision. Thus, there are the Coroados who are neighbors and linguistically related to the Puris, dwelling on the Paruahyba river. By some they have been included among the Tapuyas as alleged relatives of the Botocudos. But not only is there no relationship of language, but physically they are widely apart. The Puris-Coroados are a dark yellow brown, with mesocephalic heads, dark brown oblique eyes, large mouths and thick lips—nowise the type of the Botocudo. They are moreover agricultural in habits, and farther advanced in the arts.[392]
There are other Coroados in the extreme south of Brazil, in the province of Rio Grande do Sul, whither they are said to have wandered from the north. These do not appear to be Botocudos either. They have round heads, dark brown eyes, low foreheads, and are of a light coffee color. They are noticeable for their clean and ornamental huts, and for their skill in hunting, in which they employ arrows five feet in length, with bone points. They pray to certain stars as protective divinities, and like some northern tribes, clean and preserve the bones of the dead.[393]
The Carajas belong to a stock who dwell on the affluents of the river Araguay, in the province of Goyaz in southern Brazil. The traveler Castelnau[394] penetrated to them, and was our earliest source of information about them. They are wild and warlike, with a bad reputation among their neighbors. He was told they had no religion and no rites, but also that they were strictly monogamous and singularly firm moralists, punishing libertinage with the death of both parties; statements which do not accord. Their method of burial was curious. The corpse was interred in an upright position, the head out of the ground. An ample stock of bananas and other food was placed near it, and renewed from time to time. This clearly indicates a belief in life after death. The pure Carajas are markedly dolichocephalic.
The Caraja language is known too imperfectly to permit a proper study of its relationship. It is complex and difficult, and spoken differently by the men and the women. From the scant material at hand I perceive lexical relationship in some important words to the Tapuya stock,[395] but a wide divergence in phonetics and apparently in construction. Its members are as follows: