December 14. Started at half past 4 a. m. Misty morning. At ten entered the mouth of the Juruá, thirty-six miles from Fonteboa. Its left bank is very low, and covered with grass and shrub willows; the right bank high and wooded. It has half a mile of width at the mouth; but, a mile up, it seemed divided into two narrow channels by a large island. The Amazon is a mile and a quarter wide where the Juruá enters; but here is a large island in front, and the river is probably equally as wide on the other side. We pulled half a mile up the stream. The water was clearer, though more yellow, than that of the Amazon. In running out the half mile that I had pulled up, which we did in mid-stream, the soundings deepened, as fast as I could heave the lead, from thirty six to seventy-eight feet. Just at the mouth they lessened again to sixty-six. The current was a mile and three-quarters the hour. The bottom was of white and black sand; temperature of the water 82°; the same with the temperature of the air and with that of the water of the Amazon.
The Indians of the Juruá, I was afterwards told by Senhor Batalha, are Arauas and Catauxis, who are met with at eight days' journey up. Some of these are baptized Indians; but the Arauas are described as a treacherous people, who frequently rob and murder the traders on the river. Two months further up are the Culinos and Nawas Infidels. Between these two was a nation called the Canamaris, but they have been nearly entirely destroyed by the Arauas. It is almost impossible to get an accurate idea of the number of the Indians; but I judge, from what I have seen, and from the diversity of names of the tribes, that this is not great. The production of the Juruá are sarza, manteiga, copaiba, seringa, (India rubber,) cocoa, and farinha. At the mouth of a creek (Igarapé) called Menerua, there are Brazil nuts. This year all the expeditions to the Juruá were failures, on account of the hostility of the Arauas.
M. Castelnau, in summing up the accounts of this river, which he had from traders on it, supposes that it may be ascended about seven hundred and eighty miles, or to near the twelfth degree of south latitude. A man showed him a small medal that he had taken from an Indian on the Taruaca, a tributary of the Juruá, which he recognised as a Spanish quarter of a dollar. A short distance above the junction of the Taruaca, the Juruá bifurcates. The principal arm, which comes from the left, has its waters of a white color; and the Indians who dwell upon its branches say that the whites have a village near its sources. (Castelnau, vol. 5, pp. 89, 90.)
M. Castelnau collected some very curious stories concerning the Indians who dwell upon the banks of the Juruá. He says, (vol. 5, p. 105,) "I cannot pass over in silence a very curious passage of Padre Noronha, and which one is astonished to find in a work of so grave a character in other respects. The Indians, Cauamas and Uginas, (says the padre,) live near the sources of the river. The first are of very short stature, scarcely exceeding five palms, (about three and a half feet;) and the last (of this there is no doubt) have tails, and are produced by a mixture of Indians and Coata monkeys. Whatever may be the cause of this fact, I am led to give it credit for three reasons: first, because there is no physical reason why men should not have tails; secondly, because many Indians, whom I have interrogated regarding this thing, have assured me of the fact, telling me that the tail was a palm and a half long; and, thirdly, because the Reverend Father Friar José de Santa Theresa Ribeiro, a Carmelite, and Curate of Castro de Avelaeñs, assured me that he saw the same thing in an Indian who came from Japurá, and who sent me the following attestation:
"'I, José de Santa Theresa Ribeiro, of the Order of our Lady of Mount Carmel, Ancient Observance, &c., certify and swear, in my quality of Priest, and on the Holy Evangelists, that, when I was a missionary in the ancient village of Parauaù, where was afterwards built the village of Noguera, I saw, in 1755, a man called Manuel da Silva, native of Pernambuco, or Bahia, who came from the river Japurá with some Indians, amongst whom was one—an Infidel brute—who the said Manuel declared to me had a tail; and as I was unwilling to believe such an extraordinary fact, he brought the Indian and caused him to strip, on pretence of removing some turtles from a 'pen,' near which I stood to assure myself of the truth. There I saw, without possibility of error, that the man had a tail, of the thickness of a finger, and half a palm long, and covered with a smooth and naked skin. The same Manuel assured me that the Indian had told him that every month he cut his tail, because he did not like to have it too long, and it grew very fast. I do not know to what nation this man belonged, nor if all his tribe had a similar tail; but I understood afterwards that there was a tailed nation upon the banks of the Juruá; and I sign this act and seal it in affirmation of the truth of all that it contains.
"Establishment of Castro de Avelaeñs, October 14, 1768.
"FR. JOSE DE STA. THERESA RIBEIRO."
M. Baena (Corog, Pará) has thought proper to repeat these strange assertions. "In this river," says he, speaking of the Juruá, (p. 487,) "there are Indians, called Canamas, whose height does not exceed five palms; and there are others, called Uginas, who have a tail of three or four palms, (four palms and an inch, Portuguese, make nearly an English yard,) according to the report of many persons. But I leave to every one to put what faith he pleases in these assertions."
M. Castelnau says, after giving these relations, "I will add but a word. Descending the Amazon, I saw one day, near Fonteboa, a black Coata of enormous dimensions. He belonged to an Indian woman, to whom I offered a large price, for the country, for the curious beast; but she refused me with a burst of laughter. 'Your efforts are useless,' said an Indian who was in the cabin; 'that is her husband.'"
These Coatas, of which I had several, are a large, black, pot-bellied monkey. They average about two and a half feet of height, have a few thin hairs on the top of their head, and look very like an old negro.