St. Gonçalo and St. Sebastiam are parishes of this district, both situated upon the Parahiba, and a few leagues distant from the principal town.
The district of Canta Gallo (Singing Cock) is a territory of great fertility, and irrigated by many rivers and smaller streams, which issue from the Organ Mountains, its southern limit, and discharge themselves into the Parahiba, which separates it from Minas Geraes on the north. It is bounded on the east by a continuation of the Organ range, which divides it from Goytacazes; and on the west by the river Piabanha, which separates it from Parahiba Nova. It has mines of gold, for the working of which the first colony was established in the year 1785. The fifths on the gold, rendered to the crown, in the four following years, were above ten thousand cruzades; and the duty upon agricultural productions amounted to eight thousand in the same period.
Amongst its rivers may be remarked the Pequequera, well stored with fish and navigable for the space of twenty miles; the Rio Negro, little less voluminous, and navigable for an equal distance, and also abounding with fish; the Bengales; and one called Rio Grande.
The major part of the territory, up to the epoch of its colonization, was under the dominion of the Coroado Indians, the remains of the ancient Goytacazes, at present not numerous, and allied to the conquerors. Their houses are large, constructed of timber and earth; they are of extraordinary length, covered with grass, or the bark of trees, with one door only, and without a single window. One of these rudely-constructed edifices will contain fifty, sometimes eighty, and even one hundred families. Generally each house constitutes an aldeia; very rarely two are met with together. Every morning, at the break of day, on hearing the song of a species of partridge, called macuco, (which sits upon trees during the night,) they immediately rise, and, although it rains, they go and bathe in the nearest torrent or lake; for which purpose a signal is made by the sound of an instrument formed of a cane.
Their marriage ceremonies consist of a species of banquet, at which all the inhabitants of the aldeia assemble; and generally the whole party become intoxicated. Immediately on being sensible of the approach of labour, the women retire into a wood, where they become mothers without any assistance whatever, and return with their infants, already covered with the juice of certain herbs, to render them less susceptible of cold.
These natives inter their dead in a sitting posture. Formerly the cemeteries of their caciques, or captains, consisted of cylindrical earthen vases, denominated cammucis; some of which have been recently found, containing bones.
These Indians use the bow and arrow only. The arrow is a species of cane, with a point of peculiarly hard wood, exposed to the fire till it acquires the greatest degree of consistency; some, intended for large animals, are formed at the point like a sword; others triangular and quadrangular.
A man who returns to the house after an absence of many days does not say a single word, in compliment, to his family, nor do they receive him in any other manner than if he had only been to fetch water from the fountain.
In 1814 the parish of Santissimo Sacramento was created a town, with the name of St. Pedro de Canta Gallo. Its civil government is conducted by two ordinary judges, three magistrates, and various minor officers. It is a middling town, traversed by a current of good water, which flows to the river Macuco. Its inhabitants, and those of its extensive district, prefer agriculture to mining, and they cultivate the usual necessaries of life belonging to the country.
In this district is the parish of St. Joze de Leonissa, upon the Parahiba, in front of the embouchure of the river Pomba, was created a parish in 1812, and is a povoacāo, abounding with fish and all the necessaries of life. Its inhabitants are yet almost all Indians.