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The use of Parica was found by the early travellers amongst the Omaguas, a section of the Tupis who formerly lived on the Upper Amazons, a thousand miles distant from the homes of the Mauhes and Muras. This community of habits is one of those facts which support the view of the common origin and near relationship of the Amazonian Indians.
Those tribes which are supposed to be more nearly related to the Tupis are distinguished by their settled agricultural habits, their living in well-constructed houses, their practice of many arts, such as the manufacture of painted earthenware, weaving, and their general custom of tattooing, social organisation, obedience to chiefs, and so forth.
The women had to perform all the hard work, and were never allowed to eat meat. The boys and girls wore no clothes, but the young men painted their bodies in a variety of patterns. The Tupis, another large tribe, appear either to have extended to the Amazon, or to have been driven there from the south, as their language is now spoken by the tribes on its banks.
The egg of the tortoise, it may be remarked, has a very hard shell; while that of the turtle is quite soft. A vast number of tribes inhabit the banks of the Amazon and its tributaries, who, though having a general resemblance, differ in their habits and customs. Those found on the Lower Amazon are more or less civilised, and are known as Tupis, or Tapuyas.
On the east of the Continent, ranging from the territory which is now known as Misiones in Argentina, and Southern Paraguay to the north-east of the Continent, were various branches of the great Guarani family, a nation that some consider should be more correctly known as Tupis, and whose northernmost section are known as Caribs.
In the western part of the continent the theistic systems are less developed, but the details of the cults have not yet been fully collected; so far as appears, a departmental organization has not been made. In Brazil there is a trace of such a conception among the Tupis; but the South American tribes remain at a low level of theistic development.
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