Identifier: brazilamazonscoa00smit (find matches)
Title: Brazil, the Amazons and the coast
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Smith, Herbert H. (Herbert Huntington), 1851-1919
Subjects: Folklore -- Brazil Brazil -- Description and travel Brazil -- Economic conditions Amazon River Valley -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Brown University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brown University

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htly twistedwith the fingers, and then spun by rolling the spindle be-tween the hands. But at Erere a simple spinning-wheelhas been introduced, a noisy little affair, the clatter of whichmay often be heard as the old women sit by their open doorsmaking hammock-thread. Homespun clothing is no longerin vogue; even the Indians find it cheaper to purchaseAmerican and French cloths of the traders. However, Jo-sepha will show us how the cotton is woven into coarse, ser-viceable hammocks. She has dyed some of the threads paleblue and yellow; these are the woof, which, with the warpof white, will form a simple check pattern. She is seatednow, tailor-fashion, before the simple loom—or rather frame,for it is nothing more ; every thread of the woof must be25 386 BRAZIL. passed through the warp by hand—a task which might ap-pear formidable, even to our fancy-work maniacs at home.But Josepha sits all day with her pretty, modest eyes fixedon her work, and her hands—brown, but not unshapely—
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Hammock-weaving. cleverly tucking the thread-bobbins through the warp. Atthe end of a month she will have a hammock as serviceableas any she could buy in the shops, and but for the miserableshort-staple cotton cultivated here, the product would bemuch more valuable. I tell you I have a real respect for Josepha, a goodwife and a good mother, keeping faithfully to her roundof womanly duty as she understands it. It is true that sheknows nothing of theology, but she is devout in her way,and holds the saints in reverence. It is true that her singleiron kettle is scrubbed only on the inside, and there is a sit- AN INDIAN VILLAGE. 387 ting hen in the corner of her parlor bedroom, and the tamepig is allowed to run about the house at its own sweet will;but the bright-looking children are as clean as water willmake them, and their clothes are well patched ; the earthenfloor is carefully swept, and the space around the house iskept free from weeds and bushes. Probably she is not le-gally bound t

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