The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

INHABITANTS OF AMAZONIA. Ill
hostile elements. The Crichanas have the curious custom of buning their dead
in the hollow trunks of trees killed by the close embrace of coiling lianas.
All the wild tribes being driven to the upper reaches above the rapids, the
Tapuyos, Negroes, and Brazilians occupy the lower courses of the northern
affluents, where some have formed little mucambos, or petty communal settle-
ments, inhabited especially by runaway blacks, deserters, and freedmen. Through
their influence Portuguese is gradually replacing the native dialects in this
remote region where the lingoa geral had never penetrated. Here are stiU
vainly sought the famous " Amazons " of the Icamiaba nation, with whom the
whites had to contend during their first voyage down the great river named from
Fig. 38.—IxDLLN Populations of Amazonia.
Scale 1 : 36.000,000.
1,220 Miles.
them. According to Wallace, Orellana and his companions, seeing the young
Indian warriors in the distance, with their long hair dressed in a top-knot, their
necklaces and bracelets of berries, may have easily taken them for women ; hence
the origin of the fabulous Amazons, suggested by classical reminiscences. Both
Barbosa Rodrigues and Coudreau believe that the tribe of pretended female warriors
is still represented by some of the Uaupes, whose chiefs possess " divine stones,"
quartz, jasper, or jade, through which they take years to drill holes, and which
serve both as amulets and as badges of their authority. On the Upper Yamunda
is seen a lake consecrated to " Mother Moon," into which the " Amazons " threw
their tnuirakitans, sacred stones, representing animals, fishes, or other symbolic
objects.