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The body was formed of neatly-plaited strips of Maranta stalks, and the belt by which it was suspended from the shoulder was decorated with cotton fringes and tassels. A large proportion of the trees were Melastomas, which bore a hairy yellow fruit, nearly as large and as well flavoured as our gooseberry. The season, however, was nearly over for them.
Cypriano's wife, a good- looking mameluco girl, was superintending the packing of farina. Two or three old women, seated on mats, were making baskets with narrow strips of bark from the leafstalks of palms, while others were occupied lining them with the broad leaves of a species of maranta, and filling them afterwards with farina, which was previously measured in a rude square vessel.
The port was full of canoes, large and small, from the montaria, with its arched awning of woven lianas and Maranta leaves, to the two-masted cuberta of the peddling trader, who had resorted to the place in the hope of trafficking with settlers coming from remote sitios to attend the festival.
There was also a large number of cotton and coffee trees. Among the utensils I noticed baskets of different shapes, made of flattened maranta stalks, and dyed various colours. The making of these is an original art of the Passes, but I believe it is also practised by other tribes, for I saw several in the houses of semi- civilised Indians on the Tapajos.
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