The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866, page 119 by Various Authors
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--was stopped for want of hands. The appearance of things certainly confirms this, for one sees scarcely any men about in the villages, and the canoes one meets are mostly rowed by women.
I must say that the life of the Indian woman, so far as we have seen it, and this is by no means the only time that we have been indebted to Indians for hospitality, seems to me enviable in comparison with that of the Brazilian lady in the Amazonian towns. The former has a healthful out-of-door life; she has her canoe on the lake or river, and her paths through the forest, with perfect liberty to come and go; she has her appointed daily occupations, being busy not only with the care of her house and children, but in making farinha or tapioca, or in drying and rolling tobacco, while the men are fishing and turtle-hunting; and she has her frequent festa days to enliven her working life. It is, on the contrary, impossible to imagine anything more dreary and monotonous than the life of the Brazilian senhora in any of the smaller towns. In the northern provinces, especially, old Portuguese notions about shutting women up and making their home-life as colorless as that of a cloistered nun, without even the element of religious enthusiasm to give it zest, still prevail. Many a Brazilian lady passes day after day without stirring beyond her four walls, scarcely even showing herself at the door or window; for she is always in a careless dishabille, unless she expects company. It is sad to see these stifled existences; without any contact with the world outside, without any charm of domestic life, without books or culture of any kind, the Brazilian senhora in this part of the country either sinks contentedly into a vapid, empty, aimless life, or frets against her chains, and is as discontented as she is useless.
On the day of our arrival the dinner had been interrupted by the entrance of the Indians with their greetings and presents of game to the President; but on the second day it was enlivened by quite a number of appro