Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/176
again to the mainland, whereon were huts, built at a former time. It was night when we arrived there, and they drew the canoes ashore, and made a fire, and then led me to it.There I had to sleep in a net which in their language they call Inni,[1] which are their beds, and are tied to two posts. above the ground, or if they are in a forest they make it fast to two trees. The ropes which I had round my neck, they lashed to a tree above, and they lay during the night round about me, mocking me and calling me in their language, "Schere inbau ende", Thou art my bound beast.
Before the dawn broke they put off again, and rowed the whole day, and when the position of the sun indicated about vesper time, they were yet two miles (leagues) from the place where they purposed encamping for the night. Then a great black cloud arose and came behind us, of terrible aspect, and they rowed quickly, that they might reach land and escape the clouds and wind.
Now when they saw that they could not escape them they said to me, "Ne mungitta dee. Tuppan do Quabo, amanasu[2] y an dee Imme Ranni me sis se." That is as much as to say, "speak with thy God,[3] so that the great rain and wind may
- ↑ In Part 2, chap. 6, it is called "Ini", from "in", to be lying down (A. Gonçalves Dias), or Inimbó, thread, string. The hammock (a Haytian word) was more generally known as Maquira, Kysaba, or Kiçava (Chrestomathia da Lingua Brasilica pelo Dr. Ernesto Ferreira França, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1859). Invented to escape vermin, it was woven by the women from the fibre of the Murity palm, which was soft as cotton-thread. Nieuboff tells us that the Tapuyas had hammocks twelve to fourteen feet long, which lodged four sleepers. In the Brazil there are still two kinds, the small and the large or double: the latter enables the occupant to lie "athwart ship", and thus his head and feet are not tilted up.
- ↑ Aman-usu, great wind, or rain. As has been said in the Preface, I navigated these seas in a canoe during mid-winter, and I can well realise the wish of the savages to exorcise the storm.
- ↑ The Tupi word is Tupá, which Dobrizhoffer (ii, 77) and Ruiz de Montoya explain as Tû! exclamation of astonishment, and Pa? interrogative particle. This would reduce it to the formula "!?" a decid