Borneo and the Uaupés country, both are under the equator; and the same mode of building large houses for joint occupation prevails in both.
Observe, too, the use of the blow-pipe; it appears equally on the Amazons and in Borneo.
The details of the group before us are as follows:—
The tattoed and painted individual with the skull of a slain enemy on a pole, is a Mundrucu, of the River Tapajos, the most formidable, numerous, and independent of the Brazilian Indians.
When a Mundrucu has slain an enemy, he cuts off his head, extracts the brain through the occipital foramen, washes the blood away, fills the skull with cotton, and then converts the whole into a kind of mummy, by drying it before the fire. The eyes he gouges out, and he fills up the orbits with colouring matter. Thus prepared, the head is placed outside his hut. On festive occasions it is placed at the top of a spear. Such is the history of the head of an enemy. Those, however, of friends and relations are preserved, and kept—though with certain differences of detail. Thus, on certain days dedicated to the obsequies and memory of the dead, the widow of the deceased takes his skull, seats herself before the cabin, and indulges either in melancholy lamentation, or in fierce encomium—the assembled friends meanwhile dancing round her.
The one behind is a Mura; the Muras being a numerous tribe, and from the vast extent of country over which they are spread, or rather scattered, a tribe whose number seems greater than it is. Settled habitations they have none; but, just as necessity or inclination takes them, they wander from wood to wood, from stream to stream. Taking the different divisions of them altogether, their number may amount to between 6000 and 7000 “bows,” (this “bow” meaning “fighting-man;”) the rest of the population being in proportion. This gives us from 20,000 to 30,000 persons. The lower Madeira was their original area, but the lower Madeira was vexed and harassed by tribes of the powerful and hostile Mundrucus; and the Mundrucus and Muras are ever at war with each other. At present the Mundrucus are the superior population. They are bigger in body, and they are more closely allied to the Portuguese. Indeed the Portuguese used them as a sort of military police against the Muras; who fear them so much that the presence of a single Mundrucu on board Von Martius’ canoe terrified a whole family of Muras.
The incursions, then, of the Mundrucus dispersed the Muras of the lower Madeira over vast districts on the Solimoes, and on the Rio Negro. Here they are formidable as pirates. The Muras, with their associates, the Toras (or Torayes), harass the navigation of the Amazons, where the settlers and traders know them as the Indios de Corso, and attempt their extermination accordingly. When the stream gets narrow, and the current strong, and the canoe has to labour slowly against the stream of a mighty river, the Mura places himself on the banks, and lies in wait, turé in hand. The turé is an instrument, half wood and half reed, made out of the bamboo, the transverse septum of which is pierced in its centre. Here is inserted a second piece of cane, split. The turé is heard at a considerable distance, and the watchman that blows it has a tree for a watch-tower. The turé, too, is the instrument to which they dance, and sing, and drink, at their festivals.
Less formidable than they once were, the Mura is still shy, indocile, intractable, and impracticable as a labourer. Nothing but liquor will tempt him; and liquor tempts him but little in the way of work. He hunts skilfully, and he fishes skilfully; but he is rarely provident enough to economise the results of any successful exertions for the future. He gorges himself when he is in luck, and starves when out of it; he thinks of the passing time only.
As a general rule, the Indians of the Amazons neither respect the female sex, nor vex themselves with jealousy on account of them. The Muras are said to be exceptions. The number of wives is two or three, and of these the youngest is the favoured one. The other is little more than a domestic drudge. To win them, the Mura must have fought at fisticuffs; for a battle of this kind always takes place whenever a young lady becomes marriageable. Those who enter into the list for possession, fight, and the winner carries her off.
Their language is harsh and guttural, and their speech is accompanied with gesticulation. It is peculiar, at least it is different from the Lingoa Geral, which but few Muras understand. It has been stated that the Mundrucus are their chief enemies. Besides these there are the Mauhes, and the Catauxis—hostile also.