Although these Indians have dropped cannibalism, and other inhuman practices, they are still simple children in their customs and beliefs. They live as their ancestors have lived for centuries, have adopted few of the conveniences or luxuries of civilization, and live a hand-to-mouth existence. Religious holidays are observed with a strange mixture of superstition. Their idea of a holiday, whether religious or secular, is “bonfires, processions, masquerading, confused drumming and fifing, monotonous dancing kept up hour after hour without intermission, and, the most important part of all, getting gradually and completely drunk.” They are kindly disposed toward aliens, and are as hospitable as their circumstances permit. The Tupi-Guarini language is generally spoken, or at least understood, and this has been reduced to written form by the Jesuit clergy. CHAPTER X THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS The Brazilian people are made up of three distinct races: Europeans of every nationality, but most of Latin origin, Indians and negroes, the latter two nationalities being more or less mixed in the process of assimilation, and distributed all along the seaboard and the rivers, from the Amazon to the Paraná. In Brazil there is no race problem or antagonism between white and black, or Indian, and the hopeful ones say that in course of time not only all race distinctions, but even colour distinction, will disappear, and be merged in the new Brazilian type. The pure Indians are now found only on the Amazon, the headwaters of the Paraguay, and the sections remote from the railways of such states as São Paulo, Paraná, Bahia and others. Most of them were never the bloodthirsty race that our own redskins were, although a number of the tribes were cannibalistic in their practices. The number still existing is placed at about six hundred thousand. There was no regular spreading of civilization and population, but it was done through the sporadic settlement of advancing posts which were pushed out into the wilderness. They were at first armed against the Indians, who were then hostile, but most of the aborigines were finally subjugated, and gathered into settlements by the conquerors. These settlements formed the nuclei about which the towns began to grow. As there were few European women in the country, the Portuguese took wives from among the conquered people, and such a connection was not considered a _mesalliance_, even by those of good birth.