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It would be a misnomer to call the Mundurucus of the Cupari and many parts of the Tapajos savages; their regular mode of life, agricultural habits, loyalty to their chiefs, fidelity to treaties, and gentleness of demeanour, give them a right to a better title.
The Mundurucus are perhaps the most numerous and formidable tribe of Indians now surviving in the Amazons region. On the Tapajos alone they can muster, I was told, 2000 fighting men; the total population of the tribe may be about 20,000.
Fiala, after the experience of his trip down the Papagaio, the Juruena, and the Tapajos, gives his judgment about equipment and provisions as follows: The history of South American exploration has been full of the losses of canoes and cargoes and lives. The native canoe made from the single trunk of a forest giant is the craft that has been used.
In the tract of country between the Tapajos and the Madeira, a deadly war has been for many years carried on between the Mundurucus and the Araras. I was told by a Frenchman at Santarem, who had visited that part, that all the settlements there have a military organisation.
I hesitated at first at this conclusion, but in reflecting that the tide was known to be perceptible at Obydos, more than 400 miles from the sea, that at high water in the dry season a large flood from the Amazons enters the mouth of the Tapajos, and that there is but a very small difference of level between that point and the Cupari, a fact shown by the absence of current in the dry season.
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