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It is then hung to a beam or branch of a tree by a loop at the mouth, while a heavy weight is attached to one at the bottom, till the basket has assumed its original tube-like form and length, and the whole of the liquid has been pressed out of the mass of mandioca.
Several smaller huts surrounded the large dwelling, besides extensive open sheds containing mandioca ovens and rude wooden mills for grinding sugar-cane to make molasses. All the buildings were embosomed in trees: it would be scarcely possible to find a more retired nook, and an air of contentment was spread over the whole establishment.
I was once two years without tasting wheaten bread, and attribute partly to this the gradual deterioration of health which I suffered on the Upper Amazons. Mandioca meal is a poor, weak substitute for bread; it is deficient in gluten, and consequently cannot be formed into a leavened mass or loaf, but is obliged to be roasted in hard grains in order to keep any length of time.
When all was done, hard drinking began, and soon after there was a dance, to which Penna and I were invited. The liquor served was chiefly a spirit distilled by the people themselves from mandioca cakes. The dances were all of the same class, namely, different varieties of the "Landum," an erotic dance similar to the fandango, originally learned from the Portuguese.
When boiled and crushed it yields a quantity of juice of about the consistency of chocolate, somewhat of the colour of blackberry juice, when it has a sweetish taste and is eaten, made into cakes with the flour of the mandioca root. From it also is formed the favourite beverage of the people.
We heard the shrill and noisy notes of its fellows in the trees near us. "Ah, that is a piosoca!" said Duppo, "and that leaf is its oven;" and so it was in shape like the pans in which the natives roast their mandioca meal. Ellen had, in the meantime, been examining one of the beautiful flowers which the boatmen picked for her.
The mandioca, or root of the cassada plant, is generally used for bread, of which the juice while raw is said to be a virulent poison; while its meal, or rasped root, after the malignant juice is carefully pressed out, is used for bread. The inhabitants also, have sheep, hogs, goats, and an immense number of poultry; but these have probably been introduced by the Portuguese.
Of the former I did not hear much; the Muras lead a lazy quiet life on the banks of the labyrinths of lakes and channels which intersect the low country on both sides of the river below Borba. The Araras are one of those tribes which do not plant mandioca; and indeed have no settled habitations.
He is a mysterious being, sometimes described as a kind of orang-outang, covered with long shaggy hair, and living in trees; at others, he is said to have cloven feet and a bright red face. He has a wife and children, who, as well as himself, come down to the plantations to steal the mandioca."
Processions headed by long-robed priests with flambeaux and crucifixes; young girls in light costumes and long white cotton shawls, selling sweet cakes of mandioca flour, and bonbons; swarthy Brazilians, some in white jackets, loose cotton drawers, and straw hats, others in brown leather boots and ponchos; Negroes in short white drawers and shirts, besides many without any clothing above their waists; Indians from the interior, copper-coloured, and some of them, fine-looking men, having only a strip of cloth about their loins; such were the strange crew whose loud voices added to the whiz of rockets, squibs, crackers, guns, and musical instruments, created a deafening noise.
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