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Updated: June 26, 2025
At this moment the pilot Araujo, who had been observing the state of the river, came up to them. "Have you decided," he asked, "if the raft is to remain at her moorings at the Isle of Muras, or to go on to the port of Manaos?" The question had to be decided before nightfall, and the sooner it was settled the better.
The forests of the Tunantins, however, are inhabited by a tribe of wild Indians called Caishanas, who resemble much, in their social condition and manners, the debased Muras of the Lower Amazons, and have, like them, shown no aptitude for civilised life in any shape. Their huts commence at the distance of an hour's walk from the village, along gloomy and narrow forest paths.
Before we left the hut, an old couple came in; the husband carrying his paddle, bow, arrows, and harpoon, the woman bent beneath the weight of a large basket filled with palm fruits. The man was of low stature and had a wild appearance from the long coarse hair which hung over his forehead. Both his lips were pierced with holes, as is usual with the older Muras seen on the river.
It is not quite clear whether the whole tribe were originally quite ignorant of agriculture; as some families on the banks of the streams behind Villa Nova, who could scarcely have acquired the art in recent times, plant mandioca, but, as a general rule, the only vegetable food used by the Muras is bananas and wild fruits. The original home of this tribe was the banks of the Lower Madeira.
Joam Garral quitted for an instant the work which took up all his time, to warn his people to keep a good guard and not to provoke these Indians. In truth the sides were not well matched. The Muras are remarkably clever at sending through their blow-tubes arrows which cause incurable wounds, even at a range of three hundred paces.
The mother was cooking fish, while the father lay in his hammock suspended between the trees. A small, crazy looking canoe was moored to it. The family appeared perfectly contented and unconcerned, and accustomed to the curious mode of life. Pedro told us they were Muras Indians.
At nightfall a five-holed flute was heard behind the trees in the island, playing several airs in a minor key. Another flute answered. This interchange of musical phrases lasted for two or three minutes, and the Muras disappeared.
At the commencement of the disorders of 1835, he got into the secret of a plot for assassinating his friend, hatched by some villains whose only cause of enmity was their owing him money and envying his prosperity. It was such as these who aroused the stupid and brutal animosity of the Muras against the whites.
Their manner of taking it is very different from that of the swinish Muras, it being kept in the form of a paste, and employed chiefly as a preventive against ague in the months between the dry and wet seasons, when the disease prevails.
The Portuguese made peace with them in the beginning of the present century, the event being brought about by the common cause of quarrel entertained by the two peoples against the hated Muras. They have ever since been firm friends of the whites. It is remarkable how faithfully this friendly feeling has been handed down amongst the Mundurucus, and spread to the remotest of the scattered hordes.
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