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The Mauhes are considered, I think with truth, to be a branch of the great Mundurucu nation, having segregated from them at a remote period, and by long isolation acquired different customs and a totally different language, in a manner which seems to have been general with the Brazilian aborigines.
August 2nd Left Aveyros, having resolved to ascend a branch river, the Cupari, which enters the Tapajos about eight miles above this village, instead of going forward along the main stream. I should have liked to visit the settlements of the Mundurucu tribe which lie beyond the first cataract of the Tapajos, if it had been compatible with the other objects I had in view.
It contained the only lucid description that I had met with of the Mundurucú Indians and their curious method of preserving the severed heads of their enemies; a method by which the head after removal of the bones was shrunk until it was no larger than a man's fist. "I got up, and, taking my lamp and keys, made my way to the museum wing of the house, which opened out of the dining-room.
They recognised the portraits of the most striking birds and mammals which are found in their own country the jaguar, howling monkeys, parrots, trogons, and toucans. The elephant was settled to be a large kind of Tapir; but they made but few remarks, and those in the Mundurucu language, of which I understood only two or three words.
"Well, these are examples of the Mundurucú work." I looked again at the boxes and I must confess that, as my eye traveled along the rows of impassive faces and noted the perfect though diminutive features, the tiny ears, the bristling hair, the frowning eyebrows so discordant with the placid expression and peacefully closed eyes a chill of horror crept over me.
Five miles beyond Aveyros, and also on the left bank, is the missionary village of Santa Cruz, comprising thirty or forty families of baptised Mundurucu Indians, who are at present under the management of a Capuchin Friar, and are independent of the Captain of Trabalhadores of Aveyros.
The owners were two brothers, half-breeds, who, with their families, shared the large roomy dwelling; one of them was a blacksmith, and we found him working with two Indian lads at his forge in an open shed under the shade of mango trees. They were the sons of a Portuguese immigrant who had settled here forty years previously, and married a Mundurucu woman.
He was in excellent health, for he had means to start a fire, and he found abundance of Brazil-nuts and big land-tortoises. Senhor Caripe said that the rubbermen now did not go above the ninth degree, or thereabouts, on the upper Aripuanan proper, having found the rubber poor on the reaches above. A year previously five rubbermen, Mundurucu Indians, were working on the Corumba at about that level.
Preparations for Voyage-First Day's Sail Loss of Boat Altar de Chao Modes of Obtaining Fish Difficulties with Crew Arrival at Aveyros Excursions in the Neighbourhood White Cebus, and Habits and Dispositions of Cebi Monkeys Tame Parrot Missionary Settlement Entering the River Cupari Adventure with Anaconda Smoke-dried Monkey Boa-constrictor Village of Mundurucu Indians, and Incursion of a Wild Tribe Falls of the Cupari Hyacinthine Macaw Re-emerge into the broad Tapajos Descent of River to Santarem
"Have you never heard of the Mundurucú Indians?" he asked. I shook my head. "What about them?" I asked. "You will find an account of them in Bates' "Naturalist on the Amazon," and there is a reference to them in Gould and Pyle's "Anomalies."" There was a pause, during which I gazed, not without awe, at the open boxes. Finally I looked at Challoner and asked, "Well?"
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