The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1892-12-07
THE SAVAGES OF BRAZIL,
CURIOUS TRIBES OF INDIANS
WHICH INHABIT THE COUNTRY.
Habits of the BOtocudos Pleasant
People Who Make Parlor Orna-
ments of Their Enemies, Heads.

~ F the 12, 900, 900 people now
occupying Brazil not quite one
third, says Fannie B. Ward in
the Washington Star, are
"Caucasians," and in the majority of
individual cases they are so largely
linked" as hardly to deserve the name :,
Another third are negroes; less than one
tenth are Indians, and the rest come un-
der the general head of Metis, or mixed
beyond classification. The first, the ed
ucated, generally wealthy and compar-
atively white Portuguese, Brazilians,
Spanish -Brazilians and Saxon -Brazilians,
whether planters, politicians, merchants
or gentlemen Of leisure, arc naturally the
ruling class; as in all Nations of mixed
races the whitest, though in ever so
small a minority, are the controlling ele-
ment. To these should be added the
soldiers, for though the rank aud file
shade from black and tan to ebony they
are differed by white men of command
ing talent and influence. It was they
who wrought the recent revolution which
overthrew an Empire (really against the
wishes of the majority Of Brazilians out
side the capital, who ousted the first
President in the beginning Of his term,
and are capable at any time of any sort
of political overturning.
Brazilian Indians are said to be about
the ugliest human beings on the face OF
the earth, not excepting the "Diggers"
of lower California and the tribes of
TERRA del Fuego. The Botocudos, who
are most noted, have advanced far
enough to till small patches of land, live
in huts, raise cattle and weave mats for
sale. The Portuguese gave them their
singular name from the word potogue,
meaning a barrel buug-from their habit
of wearing large, round disks of wood
in their ears and under hps. This fashion
used to 90 so far that in middle life
many of them had stiff under lips pro-
jecting five or six inches, holding plug
as big as the ton Of coffee cup. OF late
years the custo, = mostly discontinued.
The men varniA., themselves all over
with bright yellow pant made from the
bark and gum OF a species of palm; and
the women 'dress up" rs some civilized
ladies do, by applying few stresks of
white and red to their faces aud arms.
Though many of the Botocudos are now
partially civilized, we are assured that
those of the far interior are yet cannibals
to the extent Of eating their captives
taken in war. Like the Greeks of the
Homeric age, they consider it the great
est of evils to lie uuburied after death :;
so they delight in making flutes and
trumpets of their enemies bones. 1
have the questionable pleasure of own
ing one of these ghastly trophies, which
has five holes, and is ornamented with
tufts of red and yellow feathers attached
to the bone by strings; but it requires
somebody more courageous than your
correspondent to test its value as q
musical instrument by personal expert
ment.
There is another Brazilian tribe,
whose name do not remember, who are
an almost exact counterpart Of the Pue.
bios of Mexico and Arizona-simple,
peaceful and industrious. They live near
the coast and are doubtless descendants
of those Pinzon and other early voyagers
first encountered. But unfortunately
they are few in number and rapidly
dying out, for among their fierce neigh
bors the "turn unto him the other
cheek also" principle is disastrous to
life and property. There are many scat
tered tribes of unreclaimed savages, most
of whom are wandering cannibals aud
all implacably hostile. Perhaps the
most interesting among these lat safe
dlstance) are the Mundrucus or "Be-
headers" who, with their allies, are
said to number between twenty aud
thirty thousand. They live up the Ma.
dura Tapajos, Rio Negro and other trib-
utaries of the Amazon, in palm leaf huts
set around central malocca; the latter
not the dwelling of chief, as might be
supposed, but rather grand council
chamber, fortress, arsenal and general
pow-wow room. In it are deposited
those horrible trophies, the preserved
heads of their enemies, which have given
TO the Mundrucus their title of "Be-
headers" ;" Unlike the Jiveros of South
eastern Ecuador, they do not extract the
skull, but by some savage process of
embalming keep the cranial relic as
nearly entire as possible, inserting false
eyes (made of bits of shell or polished
quartz), the long hair combed
carefully out and decorated with
strings of rockcock and macaw
feathers, feather earrings in the ears and
dyed strings passed through the tongue by
which to suspend it to the rafters. In
peaceful times hundreds of these arc
ranged around the walls of the malocca
or set in rows around the mandioca fields
to keep the ghosts away that might
otherwise injure the growing food, and
on warlike and festive occasions they are
trotted out on the points of the warriors
spears. Strange to say the Dyaks of
Borneo have similar custom of preserv-
ing their enemies heads, and are pro-
Vided with blowguns, almost identical
with those of South Americans.
Like most other Amazonian Indians,
the Mundrucus cultivate q little mandioca,
corn aud plantains. They know how to
prepare farinha meal from the mandioca,
md also to brew a sort of intoxicant re.
chica. They have gourd yes
iels, some Of them quantity carved, rude
pots Of baked clay aud utensils of wood
md stone. Their canoes are followed
rec trunks, and besides the blowguns
or killing birds, they have bamboo spears
With poisoned points and arrows tipped
With the deadly curare. by the way, the
after is now generally conceded to be
leitheT a vegetable poison nor the yennm