pucherum

Updated: May 4, 2025

They make quite a holiday of each pucherum. When the invitation is issued, the family prepares a great quantity of fermented drink, called in this part Taroba, made from soaked mandioca cakes, and porridge of Manicueira. With these simple provisions they regale their helpers.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

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.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons