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This is the information I collected. I would add here, that facts about the mightiest tributary of the Amazon were in part obtained from the documents of Goncalves da Fonseca and Ricardo Franco de Almeida Serra, and partly from the oral information of the travelers with whom I spoke.

(II) The Mundurucus (muturicus), before the year 1770, were barely known in Brazil by name;

but from then on they burst forth in innumerable hordes along the Rio Tapajos, destroyed colonies, and became so tempestuous, that it was necessary to send troops against them, which they opposed with great audacity. In the eighth decade of the preceding century, a horde of more than 2,000 men emerged from their villages, crossed the Xingu and Tocantins Rivers,

and went even further, spreading war and devastation along the borders of the province of Maranhao; but they suffered the crushing defeat by the warlike Apinajes, so that only the survivors of the war were able to retreat northward to the Moju and Capim Rivers, where they plundered Portuguese farms. Harassed by the same farmers, the horde, finally returned to the Tapajos. The government sent against them a detachment of 300 men, who, after ten days' journey from the bank of that river, found a densely populated village, that then found itself surrounded by countless armed enemies.

Portuguese soldiers versus Mundurucus

Only at great cost could they clear the path and reach the river; yet it seems that the enemy had caused the Mundurucus to lose about 1,000 men, according to the carvings one of the enemy chiefs had marked on his club and who, coincidently, was the first chief to offer a covenant of friendship.

In the year 1803, the first village of the Mundurucus, Santa Cruz, was founded, seven days' journey above Santarem, on the Tapajos,

and from that time the whole tribe established peace with the Brazilians; many of its large villages have turned into missions and exploit trade with whites. Santa Cruz, Boim, Pinhel and other villages of the Tapajos count 1,000 archers (men combatants); the mission of Mauhe has 1,600,

the one of Juruti, 1,000 inhabitants.

Juruti

This tribe is more industrious than any other. It is evaluated that, in the villages of the Tapajos, the domiciled Mundurucus prepare annually 6,000 bushels of flour; those of the Mauhe, 1,500; and those of Canoma, 800; and the flour, for the most part, is exported to Santarem and neighboring towns. To their missionaries they donate a great quantity of this product. When we returned from the Caiaue huts to Canoma, the loaded canoe was full of flour.

In the year 1819, the Mundurucus of Canoma had collected 900 arrobas of Maranhao cloves

and another of salsaparilla,

Salsaparilla aspera

bringing everything to trade. With such dispositions for civilized activities, it was to be expected that all the Mundurucus would soon be settled among the whites, if some government misunderstanding did not stand in the way. But this imposition was soon announced: that all the villages should provide men for the public works of Barra do Rio Negro and Belem do Para.

This unpopular order, contrary to the true interests of the country, hindered the prosperity of Santa Cruz, Canoma, and other towns, and we heard complaints by the more rational patriots. I have already mentioned the important service rendered by the Mundurucus,

stopping the murderous rampage of the Muras and keeping them in respect.

The Mundurucus of Canoma descended from their fields on the eastern bank of the Tapajos, downstream on the river Sucunduri, and are in communication with the villages there. The port of this last river, where they embarked for Canonia, is ten days' journey away, and the canoes of merchants, who buy salsaparilla and clove, can reach the Port of Mundurucus without fear, from one side or the other (the Canoma River , above the confluence with the Sucunduri, has not yet been navigated), when one reaches, in three days of trip by land, to the Tapajos river that crosses in Santa Cruz and Uxituba, where one arrives at the great villages to the east.

What I referred to above concerning the expeditions of the Mundurucus, reminds me of the same migrations of those Tupis,

Tupinamba today

who once expelled the Quimimuras of the coasts of Bahia and Pernambuco; However, such migrations of peoples are not exclusively limited to the primitive inhabitants of Brazil.

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