Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/179
is the fort which they make round about their huts with great long rails, like the fence of a garden. This they do on account of their enemies.
As I entered, the women ran to me and struck me with their fists, and pulled my beard, and spoke in their language "Sche innamme pepicke a e." That is as much. as to say: "with this blow I revenge my friend, him whom those among whom thou hast been, have killed."
Thereupon they led me into the huts, where I had to lie in a hammock, whilst the women came and struck and pulled me before and behind, and threatened me how they would eat me.
And the men were together in a hut, and drank the beverage which they call Kawi, and had with them their gods, called Tammerka,[1] and they sang in praise of them,
- ↑ In other parts of the volume this Tammerka is written Tamerka, Tammaraka, Miraka, and Maracka, which approaches nearest to the correct modern form Maracá. A. Gonçalves Dias (sub voce) accents it Maráca, which is unusual. The word, which also means a rattlesnake, is usually applied to a calabash (Crescentia Cujete), adorned with feathers and full of pebbles, which, when rattled and assisted by ventriloquism, or some equally easy fraud, gave prophetic answers. The
several families by rush mats, and provided with a central fire whose smoke passed through the roof. Some of them contained 200 head. The French more sensibly applied to their long reed granges the Guiana word "Carbet", and in the colonial language of the seventeenth century, carbeter meant to hold a council, or pow-wow. The village (Taba), which contained several of these buge wigwams (Ocas), lasted some four years. The open central space between the Ocas, where prisoners were slain and public business transacted, was called Ocára-it corresponds with the "Palaver house" of the Central-African villages. The palisade here termed Iwara, is mostly known as Cabiçára, Caiçara, or Caiça. The rails were usually trunks of the Gissara, a thorny palm, or of the Taboca, a Brazilian bamboo, and in chapter 28 we are told how the huts were fronted by the impaled skulls of eaten enemies. Varnhagen (i, 116) describes the village at some length, and further details of dimension and shape will be found in Hans Stade, Part ii. Southey (ii, 476) does not understand "Tujupar de Pindoba"—it means a ruinous but of palm leaves.