Odd people

by Mayne Reid

By such name is his house (or village rather) known among the tapuios and traders of the Amazon. Since it is both house and village at the same time, it must needs be a large structure; and so is it, large enough to contain the whole tribe—or at least the section of it that has chosen one particular spot for their residence. It is the property of the whole community, built by the labour of all, and used as their common dwelling—though each family has its own section specially set apart for itself. It will thus be seen that the Amazonian savage is, to some extent, a disciple of the Socialist school.

I have not space to enter into a minute account of the architecture of the malocca. Suffice it to say, that it is an immense temple-like building, raised upon timber uprights, so smooth and straight as to resemble columns. The beams and rafters are also straight and smooth, and are held in their places by “sipos” (tough creeping plants), which are whipped around the joints with a neatness and compactness equal to that used in the rigging of a ship. The roof is a thatch of palm-leaves, laid on with great regularity, and brought very low down at the eaves, so as to give to the whole structure the appearance of a gigantic beehive. The walls are built of split palms or bamboos, placed so closely together as to be impervious to either bullet or arrows.

The plan is a parallelogram, with a semicircle at one end; and the building is large enough to accommodate the whole community, often numbering more than a hundred individuals. On grand festive occasions several neighbouring communities can find room enough in it—even for dancing—and three or four hundred individuals not unfrequently assemble under the roof of a single malocca.

Inside the arrangements are curious. There is a wide hall or avenue in the middle—that extends from end to end throughout the whole length of the parallelogram—and on both sides of the hall is a row of partitions, separated from each other by split palms or canes, closely placed. Each of these sections is the abode of a family, and the place of deposit for the hammocks, clay pots, calabash-cups, dishes, baskets, weapons, and ornaments, which are the private property of each. The hall is used for the larger cooking utensils—such as the great clay ovens and pans for baking the cassava, and boiling the caxire or chicha. This is also a neutral ground, where the children play, and where the dancing is done on the occasion of grand “balls” and other ceremonial festivals.

The common doorway is in the gable end, and is six feet wide by ten in height. It remains open during the day, but is closed at night by a mat of palm fibre suspended from the top. There is another and smaller doorway at the semicircular end; but this is for the private use of the chief, who appropriates the whole section of the semicircle to himself and his family.

Of course the above is only the general outline of a malocca. A more particular description would not answer for that of all the tribes of the Amazon. Among different communities, and in different parts of the Montaña, the malocca varies in size, shape, and the materials of which it is built; and there are some tribes who live in separate huts. These exceptions, however, are few, and as a general thing, that above described is the style of habitation throughout the whole Montaña, from the confines of Peru to the shores of the Atlantic. North and south we encounter this singular house-village, from the headwaters of the Rio Negro to the highlands of Brazil.

Most of the Amazonian tribes follow agriculture, and understood the art of tillage before the coming of the Spaniards. They practise it, however, to a very limited extent. They cultivate a little manioc, and know how to manufacture it into farinha or cassava bread. They plant the musaceae and yam, and understand the distillation of various drinks, both from the plantain and several kinds of palms. They can make pottery from clay,—shaping it into various forms, neither rude nor inelegant,—and from the trees and parasitical twiners that surround their dwellings, they manufacture an endless variety of neat implements and utensils.

Their canoes are hollow trunks of trees sufficiently well-shaped, and admirably adapted to their mode of travelling—which is almost exclusively by water, by the numerous canos and igaripes, which are the roads and paths of their country—often as narrow and intricate as paths by land.

The Indians of the tropic forest dress in the very lightest costume. Of course each tribe has its own fashion; but a mere belt of cotton cloth, or the inner bark of a tree, passed round the waist and between the limbs, is all the covering they care for. It is the guayuco. Some wear a skirt of tree bark, and, on grand occasions, feather tunics are seen, and also plume head-dresses, made of the brilliant wing and tail feathers of parrots and macaws. Circlets of these also adorn the arms and limbs. All the tribes paint, using the anotto, caruto, and several other dyes which they obtain from various kinds of trees, elsewhere more particularly described.

There are one or two tribes who tattoo their skins; but this strange practice is far less common among the American Indians than with the natives of the Pacific isles.