Page:The American Indian.djvu/292

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240
THE AMERICAN INDIAN

tobacco, cigar fashion; the signal drum is absent. The house is similar in form but smaller, the tendency being to form villages; yet as we go in from the coast the transition to the large community house is rapid.

On the south of the Amazon we find the higher culture among the Tupi of the Brazilian coast. The new traits are: smoking tobacco in stone pipes, palisaded villages, fine stone tools, urn burial; but otherwise the culture compares concisely with that of the Arawak and Carib of Guiana. A few small stocks have similar culture, but on the interior plateaus were the Tapuya (the Botocudo, etc.), who stand somewhat apart from their neighbors.[1] All reports considered, these tribes are of low culture and notorious cannibals. They were non-agricultural, did not work stone and made little pretense of weaving. These negative traits and a few positive ones tend to group these people with the Patagonians. If it is true that the Tupi tribes pushed out from the interior and dispossessed the Tapuya, we may consider the earlier existence of a Brazilian extension to the great hunting areas in Argentina and Patagonia. This is made probable on geographical grounds as reference to the forestry map will suggest. Anyway, it is clear that by culture the Tupi belong with the tribes of the Amazon, while the Tapuya belong elsewhere. With the latter eliminated, we have great uniformity of culture throughout. Yet the Tapuya share certain traits with the South Amazons, particularly the large lip plug and, as may be expected, a number of their neighbors in the Matto Grosso show simpler forms of Amazon culture.

Turning again to the Amazon area, including the Tupi, we have remarkable uniformity in the following from north to south and east to west: agriculture; canoes; hammocks; pottery; blowgun; a thatched post-supported house with gables; sword clubs; leg and arm binding; certain types of feather-work; human bone flutes; calabash rattles; use of honey and wax; cannibalism; certain kinds of dance masks; couvade; ceremonial whipping of boys, and women barred from ceremonials. This is truly a formidable list. There are a few traits with partial distribution; thus, on the south side

  1. Maximilian, 1820. I; Von den Steinen, 1897. I.