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A bunch of fruit when ripe is a load for a strong man, and each tree bears several of them. The Pupunha grows wild nowhere on the Amazons. It is only, however, the more advanced tribes who have kept up the cultivation. The superiority of the fruit on the Solimoens to that grown on the Lower Amazons and in the neighbourhood of Para is very striking.
This new palm was the "pupunha," or "peach-palm," as it is called, from the resemblance which its fruits bear to peaches. It is also named "pirijao" in other parts of South America, and it belongs to the genus "Gullielma." At the tops of these trees, under the great globe of leaves, Guapo and Leon perceived the nuts.
Truly spoke Humboldt, of this or a closely allied species, 'Nature has lavished every beauty of form on the Jagua Palm. But here, as elsewhere to my great regret, I looked in vain for that famous and beautiful tree, the Piriajo, or 'Peach Palm, which is described in Mr. Bates's book, vol ii. p. 218, under the name of Pupunha.
It is with the needle-like spines of this species that many tribes of Indians puncture their skins in tattooing themselves, and other uses are made by them of different parts of this noble tree. The macaws, parrots, and other fruit-eating birds, are fonder of the nuts of the pupunha than perhaps any other species; and so, too, would be the fruit-eating quadrupeds if they could get at them.
Its trunk rose full seventy feet without a branch; and then it spread out in every direction in numerous horizontal limbs, that forked and forked again until they became slender boughs. These branches were clad with the delicate pinnate leaves that characterise the family of the mimosas. Many of the pupunha palms grew under the shadow of this zamang, but not the tallest ones.
Another ran down the body of this one, and taking a turn of his tail round his neck and fore-arm, skipped off and also hung head downwards. A third joined himself on to the second in a similar manner, and then a fourth. The fore-arms of the fourth rested upon the fruit-cluster of the pupunha! The chain was now long enough for the purpose.
The process of cooking came next, and this Guapo made more tedious than it might have been, as he was resolved to dress the marimonda after the manner practised by the Indians, and which by them is esteemed the best. He first built a little stage out of split laths of the pupunha palm. For this a hard wood that will resist fire a long time is necessary, and the pupunha was just the thing.
Its trunk rose full seventy feet without a branch; and then it spread out in every direction in numerous horizontal limbs, that forked and forked again until they became slender boughs. Those branches were clad with the delicate pinnate leaves that characterise the family of the mimosas. Many of the pupunha palms grew under the shadow of this zamang, but not the tallest ones.
Many of them stopped at the pupunha trees, and the hustling, twittering, and screaming, with sounds of falling fruits, showed how they were employed. I thought, at first, they were Nyctipitheci, but they proved to be Jupuras, for the owner of the house early next morning caught a young one, and gave it to me.
There were many mouths to feed, and they wanted more nuts. Without changing their position, they, by means of their arms and legs, threw themselves into a vibrating motion, and by this means the last on the string soon seized upon another pupunha, and also detached its fruit.
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