United States or Mali ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On the land we came upon an encampment of poor, half or wholly naked Caingwa Indians. By them we were kindly received, and found that, notwithstanding their extremely sunken condition and abject poverty, they seemed to have mandioca and bananas in abundance. In return for a few knives and beads, I was able to purchase quite a stock.
Martin started convulsively, for he had never seen one of the kind before, and he knew that the bite of some of the snakes is deadly. Fortunately his axe was at hand. Grasping it quickly, he killed the reptile with a single blow. Two or three mandioca cakes, a few wild fruits, and a draught of water from the stream, formed the wanderer's simple breakfast.
Soon after his arrival at the Indian village Martin was given to understand, by signs, that he was to reside with a particular family, and work every day in the maize and mandioca fields, besides doing a great deal of the drudgery of the hut; so that he now knew he was regarded as a slave by the tribe into whose hands he had fallen.
The mandioca is called cassava in some countries. The press used by the Indians is a simple and most ingenious contrivance. It is made by the Indians wherever the plant is grown. It is a basket made of fine split cane loosely plaited; in shape, a tube five feet long and five inches in diameter at the mouth, and narrowing somewhat at the bottom. A strong loop is left at each end.
It was only the wealthy among the ancient Mexicans who ate pure cacao; the poor, on account of the value of the beans as coins, used to mix maize and mandioca meal with them. Even in our own day the inhabitants of Central America make use of the beans as small coins, as they have no copper money, nor smaller silver coins than the half-real.
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 shifts, 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.
At first I was inclined to discredit the stories of their entering habitations and carrying off grain by grain the farinha or mandioca meal, the bread of the poorer classes of Brazil. At length, whilst residing at an Indian village on the Tapajos, I had ample proof of the fact.
The people occupy themselves the greater part of the year with their small plantations of mandioca. All the heavy work, such as felling and burning the timber, planting and weeding, is done in the plantation of each family by a congregation of neighbours, which they call a "pucherum" a similar custom to the "bee" in the backwood settlements of North America.
When my tall friend saw me, after dinner, collecting insects along the paths near the houses, he approached, and, taking me by the arm, led me to a mandioca shed, making signs, as he could speak very little Tupi, that he had something to show.
They live in wretched dilapidated mud-hovels; the women cultivate small patches of mandioca; the men spend most of their time in fishing, selling what they do not require themselves and getting drunk with the most exemplary regularity on cashaca, purchased with the proceeds. I made, in this second visit to Villa Nova, an extensive collection of the natural productions of the neighbourhood.
Word Of The Day