s--the
Bororo children were left to dangle their legs, thereby increasing the
difficulty of carrying them, instead of sitting with legs astride across
the mother's haunches. I was amazed to see until what age Bororo mothers
and sisters would carry the young upon their shoulders--certainly
children of five or six years of age were being carried about in this
fashion, while such hard duties as pounding Indian corn, thrashing beans,
and hut-building, were attended to.

Neither in women nor in men was the power of resistance in any way to be
compared with that of the tribes of Central Africa or Asia. The Indian
tribes of Brazil impressed one as being strong, because one compared them
with their neighbours and masters, the Brazilians, who were physically
one of the weakest, least-resisting races I have ever seen. When you
compared them with some of the healthy savage races elsewhere, the
Indians did not approach them in endurance and quickness of intellect. Do
not forget that endurance is greatly due to brain power and self-control.
The Indian races I saw in Brazil seemed to me almost exhausted
physically, owing perhaps to constant intermarriage among themselves. The
eyesight of the Bororos, for instance, was extremely bad. There were many
in every _aldeja_ who were almost or absolutely blind. The others were
nearly all short-sighted.

The Bororos removed--pulled out, in fact--their eyelashes one by one, as
they believed it improved their sight, especially for seeing at long
distances. They all suffered more or less from complaints of the eyes.
Indeed, I have seldom found races whose members had eyes in such poor
condition. Conjunctivitis was the most prevalent form of eye disease.
Ophthalmia was frequently met with. They seemed to have no efficacious
method of curing those complaints, and the result was that one found an
appalling number of blind or half-blind persons among them--quite out of
proportion to the small population. The Bororos did not, of course, know
of spectacles or any other way of protecting the eyes. Even when their
eyes were in a normal condition, they nearly all had some defect of
vision. Squinting was frequently to be noticed among them, and nearly
invariably unevenness of the eyes. Cataract was common at a comparatively
early age, and they knew no remedy for it. An abnormally marked
discoloration of the upper part of the iris was constantly to be noticed
even in young people. Among the healthiest I ne