Alfred Russel Wallace
Travels on the Amazon
I had gone on here in my regular routine some time, when one morning, on getting up, I found none of the Indians, and no fire in the verandah. Thinking they had gone out early to hunt or fish, as they sometimes did, I lit the fire and got my breakfast, but still no sign of any of them. Looking about, I found that their hammocks, knives, an earthen pan, and a few other articles, were all gone, and that nothing was left in the house but what was my own. I was now convinced that they had run away in the night, and left me to get on as I could. They had been rather uneasy for some days past, asking me when I meant to go back. They did not like being among people whose language they could not speak, and had been lately using up an enormous quantity of farinha, hoping when they had finished the last basket that I should be unable to purchase any more in the village, and should therefore be obliged to return. The day before I had just bought a fresh basket, and the sight of that appears to have supplied the last stimulus necessary to decide the question, and make them fly from the strange land and still stranger white man, who spent all his time in catching insects, and wasting good caxaça by putting fish and snakes into it. However, there was now nothing to be done, so I took my insect-net, locked up my house, put the key (an Indian-made wooden one) in my pocket, and started off for the forest.
I had luckily, a short time before, bought a fine Venezuelan cheese and some dried beef, so that, with plenty of cassava-bread and plantains, I could get on very well. In the evening some of my usual visitors among the Indians dropped in, and were rather surprised to see me lighting my fire and preparing my dinner; and on my explaining the circumstances to them, they exclaimed that my Indians were "mala gente" (bad fellows), and intimated that they had always thought them no better than they should be. I got some of the boys to fetch me water from the river, and to bring me in a stock of fuel, and then, with coffee and cheese, roasted plantains and cassava-bread, I lived luxuriously. My coffee, however, was just finished, and in a day or two I had none. This I could hardly put up with without a struggle, so I went down to the cottage of an old Indian who could speak a little Spanish, and begged him, "por amor de Dios," to get me some coffee from a small plantation he had. There were some ripe berries on the trees, the sun was shining out, and he promised to set his little girl to work immediately. This was about ten in the morning. I went into the forest, and by four returned, and found that my coffee was ready. It had been gathered, the pulp washed off, dried in the sun (the longest part of the business), husked, roasted, and pounded in a mortar; and in half an hour more I enjoyed one of the most delicious cups of coffee I have ever tasted.
As I wanted to remain a fortnight longer, I tried to persuade one of the brown damsels of the village to come and make my fire and cook for me; but, strange to say, not one would venture, though in the other villages of the Rio Negro I might at any moment have had my choice of half a dozen; and I was forced to be my own cook and housemaid for the rest of my stay in Javíta.
There was now in the village an old Indian trader who had come from Medina, a town at the foot of the Andes, near Bogotá, and from him and some other Indians I obtained much information relative to that part of the country, and the character of the streams that flow from the mountains down to the Orinooko. He informed me that he had ascended by the river Muco, which enters the Orinooko above the Falls of Maypures, and by which he had reached a point within twenty miles of the upper waters of the Meta, opposite Medina. The river Muco had no falls or obstructions to navigation, and all the upper part of its course flowed through an open country, and had fine sandy beaches; so that between this river and the Guaviare is the termination of the great forest of the Amazon valley.
The weather was now terribly wet. For successive days and nights rain was incessant, and a few hours of sunshine was a rarity. Insects were few, and those I procured it was almost impossible to dry. In the drying box they got destroyed by mould, and if placed in the open air and exposed to the sun minute flies laid eggs upon them, and they were soon eaten up by maggots. The only way I could preserve them was to hang them up some time every evening and morning over my fire. I now began to regret more than ever my loss of the fine season, as I was convinced that I could have reaped a splendid harvest. I had, too, just began to initiate the Indian boys into catching beetles for me, and was accumulating a very nice collection. Every evening three or four would come in with their treasures in pieces of bamboo, or carefully tied up in leaves. I purchased all they brought, giving a fish-hook each; and among many common I generally found some curious and rare species. Coleoptera, generally so scarce in the forest districts of the Amazon and Rio Negro, seemed here to become more abundant, owing perhaps to our approach to the margins of the great forest, and the plains of the Orinooko.
I prepared to leave Javíta with much regret. Although, considering the season, I had done well, I knew that had I been earlier I might have done much better. In April I had arranged to go up the unexplored Uaupés with Senhor L., and even the prospect of his conversation was agreeable after the weary solitude I was exposed to here.
I would, however, strongly recommend Javíta to any naturalist wishing for a good unexplored locality in South America. It is easily reached from the West Indies to Angostura, and thence up the Orinooko and Atabápo. A pound's worth of fish-hooks, and five pounds laid out in salt, beads, and calico, will pay all expenses there for six months. The traveller should arrive in September, and can then stay till March, and will have the full benefit of the whole of the dry season. The insects alone would well repay any one; the fishes are also abundant, and very new and interesting; and, as my collections were lost on the voyage home, they would have all the advantage of novelty.
On the 31st of March I left Javíta, the Commissario having sent five or six Indians to carry my luggage, four of whom were to proceed with me to Tómo. The Indians of São Carlos, Tómo, and Maróa had been repairing their part of the road, and were returning home, so some of them agreed to go with me in the place of the Javítanos. They had found in the forest a number of the harlequin beetles (Acrocinus longimanus), which they offered me, carefully wrapped up in leaves; I bought five for a few fish-hooks each. On arriving at Pimichin the little river presented a very different appearance from what it had when I last saw it. It was now brim-full, and the water almost reached up to our shed, which had before been forty yards off, up a steep rocky bank. Before my men ran away I had sent two of them to Tómo to bring my canoe to Pimichin, the river having risen enough to allow it to come up, and I now found it here. They had taken a canoe belonging to Antonio Dias, who had passed Javíta a few days before on his way to São Fernando, so that when he returned he had to borrow another to go home in.
We descended the little river rapidly, and now saw the extraordinary number of bends in it. I took the bearings of thirty with the compass, but then there came on a tremendous storm of wind and rain right in our faces, which rendered it quite impossible to see ahead. Before this had cleared off night came on, so that the remainder of the bends and doubles of the Pimichin river must still remain in obscurity. The country it flows through appears to be a flat sandy tract, covered with a low scrubby vegetation, very like that of the river Cobáti, up which I ascended to the Serra to obtain the cocks of the rock.
It was night when we reached Maróa, and we were nearly passing the village without seeing it. We went to the "casa de nação," rather a better kind of shed than usual, and, making a good fire, passed a comfortable night. The next morning I called on Senhor Carlos Bueno (Charles Good), the dandy Indian Commissario, and did a little business with him. I bought a lot of Indian baskets, gravatánas, quivers, and ururí or curarí poison, and in return gave him some fish-hooks and calico, and, having breakfasted with him, went on to Tómo.
Senhor Antonio Dias was not there, having gone to São Carlos, so I determined to wait a few days for his return, as he had promised to send men with me to Guia. I took up my abode with Senhor Domingos, who was busy superintending the completion of the large vessel before mentioned, in order to get it launched with the high water, which was now within a foot or two of its bottom. I amused myself walking about the campo with my gun, and succeeded in shooting one of the beautiful little black-headed parrots, which have the most brillant green plumage, crimson under-wings, and yellow cheeks; they are only found in these districts, and are rather difficult to obtain. I also got some curious fish to figure,—in particular two large species of Gymnotus, of the group which are not electric.
The Indians had a festa while I was here. They made abundance of "shirac," and kept up their dancing for thirty hours. The principal peculiarity of it was that they mixed up their civilised dress and their Indian decorations in a most extraordinary manner. They all wore clean trousers and white or striped shirts; but they had also feather-plumes, bead necklaces, and painted faces, which made altogether a rather queer mixture. They also carried their hammocks like scarfs over their shoulders, and had generally hollow cylinders in their hands, used to beat upon the ground in time to the dancing. Others had lances, bows, and wands, ornamented with feathers, producing as they danced in the moonlight a singular and wild appearance.
Senhor Antonio Dias delayed his return, and rather a scene in his domestic circle took place in consequence. As might be expected, the ladies did not agree very well together. The elder one in particular was very jealous of the Indian girls, and took every opportunity of ill-treating them, and now that the master was absent went, I suppose, to greater lengths than usual; and the consequence was, one of the girls ran away. This was an unexpected dénouement, and they were in a great state of alarm, for the girl was a particular favourite of Senhor Antonio's, and if he returned before she came back he was not likely to be very delicate in showing his displeasure. The girl had gone off in a canoe with a child about a year old; the night had been stormy and wet, but that sort of thing will not stop an Indian. Messengers were sent after her, but she was not to be found; and then the old lady and her daughter went off themselves in a tremendous rain, but with no better success. One resource more, however, remained, and they resolved to apply to the Saints. Senhor Domingos was sent to bring the image of St. Antonio from the church. This saint is supposed to have especial power over things lost, but the manner of securing his influence is rather singular:—the poor saint is tied round tightly with a cord and laid on his back on the floor, and it is believed that in order to obtain deliverance from such durance vile he will cause the lost sheep to return. Thus was the unfortunate St. Antony of Tómo now treated, and laid ignominiously on the earthen floor all night, but without effect; he was obstinate, and nothing was heard of the wanderer. More inquiries were made, but with no result, till two days afterwards Senhor Antonio himself returned accompanied by the girl. She had hid herself in a sitio a short distance from the village, waited for Senhor Antonio's passing, and then joined him, and told her own story first; and so the remainder of the harem got some hard words, and I am inclined to think some hard blows too.
Before leaving Tómo, I purchased a pair of the beautiful feather-work borders, before alluded to, for which I paid £3 in silver dollars. Five Indians were procured to go with me, and at the same time take another small canoe, in which to bring back several articles that Senhor Antonio was much in want of. We paid the men between us, before going, with calicoes and cotton cloth, worth in England about twopence a yard, but here valued at 2s. 6d., and soap, beads, knives, and axes, in the same proportion. On the way, I got these Tómo Indians to give me a vocabulary of their language, which differs from that of the villages above and below them. We paddled by day, and floated down by night; and as the current was now tremendous, we got on so quickly, that in three days we reached Marabitanas, a distance which had taken us nine in going up.
Here I stayed a week with the Commandante, who had invited me when at Guia. I, however, did little in the collecting way: there were no paths in the forest, and no insects, and very few birds worth shooting. I obtained some very curious half-spiny rodent animals, and a pretty white-marked bird, allied to the starlings, which appears here only once a year in flocks, and is called "Ciucí uera" (the star-bird).
The inhabitants of Marabitanas are celebrated for their festas: their lives are spent, half at their festas, and the other half in preparing for them. They consume immense quantities of raw spirit, distilled from cane-juice and from the mandiocca: at a festa which took place while I was here, there was about a hogshead of strong spirit consumed, all drunk raw. In every house, where the dancing takes place, there are three or four persons constantly going round with a bottle and glass, and no one is expected ever to refuse; they keep on the whole night, and the moment you have tasted one glass, another succeeds, and you must at least take a sip of it. The Indians empty the glass every time; and this continues for two or three days. When all is finished, the inhabitants return to their sitios, and commence the preparation of a fresh lot of spirit for the next occasion.
About a fortnight before each festa—which is always on a Saint's day of the Roman Catholic Church—a party of ten or a dozen of the inhabitants go round, in a canoe, to all the sitios and Indian villages within fifty or a hundred miles, carrying the image of the saint, flags, and music. They are entertained at every house, the saint is kissed, and presents are made for the feast; one gives a fowl, another some eggs or a bunch of plantains, another a few coppers. The live animals are frequently promised beforehand for a particular saint; and often, when I have wanted to buy some provisions, I have been assured that "that is St. John's pig," or that "those fowls belong to the Holy Ghost."
Bidding adieu to the Commandante, Senhor Tenente Antonio Filisberto Correio de Araujo, who had treated me with the greatest kindness and hospitality, I proceeded on to Guia, where I arrived about the end of April, hoping to find Senhor L. ready, soon to start for the river Uaupés; but I was again doomed to delay, for a canoe which had been sent to Barra had not yet returned, and we could not start till it came. It was now due, but as it was manned by Indians, only who had no particular interest in hurrying back, it might very well be a month longer. And so it proved, for it did not arrive till the end of May. All that time I could do but little; the season was very wet, and Guia was a poor locality. Fishes were my principal resource, as Senhor L. had a fisherman out every day, to procure us our suppers, and I always had the day's sport brought to me first, to select any species I had not yet seen. In this way I constantly got new kinds, and became more than ever impressed with the extraordinary variety and abundance of the inhabitants of these rivers. I had now figured and described a hundred and sixty species from the Rio Negro alone; I had besides seen many others; and fresh varieties still occurred as abundantly as ever in every new locality. I am convinced that the number of species in the Rio Negro and its tributaries alone would be found to amount to five or six hundred. But the Amazon has most of its fishes peculiar to itself, and so have all its numerous tributaries, especially in their upper waters; so that the number of distinct kinds inhabiting the whole basin of the Amazon must be immense.
CHAPTER X
FIRST ASCENT OF THE RIVER UAUPÉS
Rapid Current—An Indian Malocca—The Inmates—A Festival—Paint and Ornaments—Illness—São Jeronymo—Passing the Cataracts—Jauarité—The Tushaúa Calistro—Singular Palm—Birds—Cheap Provisions—Edible Ants, and Earthworms—A Grand Dance—Feather Ornaments—The Snake-dance—The Capí—A State Cigar—Ananárapicóma—Fish—Chegoes—Pass down the Falls—Tame Birds—Orchids—Pium͂s—Eating Dirt—Poisoning—Return to Guia—Manoel Joaquim—Annoying Delays.
At length the long-looked for canoe arrived, and we immediately made preparations for our voyage. Fish-hooks and knives and beads were looked out to suit the customers we were going among, and from whom Senhor L. hoped to obtain farinha and sarsaparilla: and I, fish, insects, birds, and all sorts of bows, arrows, blowpipes, baskets, and other Indian curiosities.
On the 3rd of June, at six in the morning, we started. The weather had cleared up a few days before, and was now very fine. We had only two Indians with us, the same who had run away from Javíta, and who had been paid their wages beforehand, so we now made them work it out. Those who had just returned from Barra were not willing to go out again immediately, but we hoped to get plenty on entering the Uaupés. The same afternoon we reached São Joaquim, at the mouth of that river; but as there were no men there, we were obliged to go on, and then commenced our real difficulties, for we had to encounter the powerful current of the overflowing stream. At first some bays, in which there were counter-currents, favoured us; but in more exposed parts, the waters rushed along with such violence, that our two paddles could not possibly move the canoe.
We could only get on by pulling the bushes and creepers and tree-branches which line the margin of the river, now that almost all the adjacent lands were more or less flooded. The next day we cut long hooked poles, by which we could pull and push ourselves along at all difficult points, with more advantage. Sometimes, for miles together, we had to proceed thus,—getting the canoe filled, and ourselves covered, with stinging and biting ants of fifty different species, each producing its own peculiar effect, from a gentle tickle to an acute sting; and which, getting entangled in our hair and beards, and creeping over all parts of our bodies under our clothes, were not the most agreeable companions. Sometimes, too, we would encounter swarms of wasps, whose nests were concealed among the leaves, and who always make a most furious attack upon intruders. The naked bodies of the Indians offered no defence against their stings, and they several times suffered while we escaped. Nor are these the only inconveniences attending an up-stream voyage in the time of high flood, for all the river-banks being overflowed, it is only at some rocky point which still keeps above water that a fire can be made; and as these are few and far between, we frequently had to pass the whole day on farinha and water, with a piece of cold fish or a pacova, if we were so lucky as to have any. All these points, or sleeping places, are well known to the traders in the river, so that whenever we reached one, at whatever hour of the day or night, we stopped to make our coffee and rest a little, knowing that we should only get to another haven after eight or ten hours of hard pulling and paddling.
On the second day we found a small "Sucurujú" (Eunectes murinus), about a yard long, sunning itself on a bush over the water; one of our Indians shot it with an arrow, and when we stayed for the night roasted it for supper. I tasted a piece, and found it excessively tough and glutinous, but without any disagreeable flavour; and well stewed, it would, I have no doubt, be very good. Having stopped at a sitio we purchased a fowl, which, boiled with rice, made us an excellent supper.
On the 7th we entered a narrow winding channel, branching from the north bank of the river, and in about an hour reached a "malocca," or native Indian lodge, the first we had encountered. It was a large, substantial building, near a hundred feet long, by about forty wide and thirty high, very strongly constructed of round, smooth, barked timbers, and thatched with the fan-shaped leaves of the Caraná palm. One end was square, with a gable, the other circular; and the eaves, hanging over the low walls, reached nearly to the ground. In the middle was a broad aisle, formed by the two rows of the principal columns supporting the roof, and between these and the sides were other rows of smaller and shorter timbers; the whole of them were firmly connected by longitudinal and transverse beams at the top, supporting the rafters, and were all bound together with much symmetry by sipós.
Projecting inwards from the walls on each side were short partitions of palm-thatch, exactly similar in arrangement to the boxes in a London eating-house, or those of a theatre. Each of these is the private apartment of a separate family, who thus live in a sort of patriarchal community. In the side aisles are the farinha ovens, tipitís for squeezing the mandiocca, huge pans and earthen vessels for making caxirí, and other large articles, which appear to be in common; while in every separate apartment are the small pans, stools, baskets, redes, water-pots, weapons, and ornaments of the occupants. The centre aisle remains unoccupied, and forms a fine walk through the house. At the circular end is a cross partition or railing about five feet high, cutting off rather more than the semicircle, but with a wide opening in the centre: this forms the residence of the chief or head of the malocca, with his wives and children; the more distant relations residing in the other part of the house. The door at the gable end is very wide and lofty, that at the circular end is smaller, and these are the only apertures to admit light and air. The upper part of the gable is loosely covered with palm-leaves hung vertically, through which the smoke of the numerous wood fires slowly percolates, giving, however, in its passage a jetty lustre to the whole of the upper part of the roof.
On entering this house, I was delighted to find myself at length in the presence of the true denizens of the forest. An old and a young man and two women were the only occupiers, the rest being out on their various pursuits. The women were absolutely naked; but on the entrance of the "brancos" they slipped on a petticoat, with which in these lower parts of the river they are generally provided but never use except on such occasions. Their hair was but moderately long, and they were without any ornament but strongly knitted garters, tightly laced immediately below the knee.
It was the men, however, who presented the most novel appearance, as different from all the half-civilised races among whom I had been so long living, as they could be if I had been suddenly transported to another quarter of the globe. Their hair was carefully parted in the middle, combed behind the ears, and tied behind in a long tail reaching a yard down the back. The hair of this tail was firmly bound with a long cord formed of monkeys' hair, very soft and pliable. On the top of the head was stuck a comb, ingeniously constructed of palm-wood and grass, and ornamented with little tufts of toucans' rump feathers at each end; and the ears were pierced, and a small piece of straw stuck in the hole; altogether giving a most feminine appearance to the face, increased by the total absence of beard or whiskers, and by the hair of the eyebrows being almost entirely plucked out. A small strip of "tururí" (the inner bark of a tree) passed between the legs, and secured to a string round the waist, with a pair of knitted garters, constituted their simple dress.
The young man was lazily swinging in a maqueira, but disappeared soon after we entered; the elder one was engaged making one of the flat hollow baskets, a manufacture peculiar to this district. He continued quietly at his occupation, answering the questions Senhor L. put to him about the rest of the inhabitants in a very imperfect "Lingoa Geral," which language is comparatively little known in this river, and that only in the lower and more frequented parts. As we wanted to procure one or two men to go with us, we determined to stay here for the night. We succeeded in purchasing for a few fish-hooks some fresh fish, which another Indian brought in: and then prepared our dinner and coffee, and brought our maqueiras up to the house, hanging them in the middle aisle, to pass the night there. About dusk many more Indians, male and female, arrived; fires were lighted in the several compartments, pots put on with fish or game for supper, and fresh mandiocca cakes made. I now saw several of the men with their most peculiar and valued ornament—a cylindrical, opaque, white stone, looking like marble, but which is really quartz imperfectly crystallized. These stones are from four to eight inches long, and about an inch in diameter. They are ground round, and flat at the ends, a work of great labour, and are each pierced with a hole at one end, through which a string is inserted, to suspend it round the neck. It appears almost incredible that they should make this hole in so hard a substance without any iron instrument for the purpose. What they are said to use is the pointed flexible leaf-shoot of the large wild plantain, triturating with fine sand and a little water; and I have no doubt it is, as it is said to be, a labour of years. Yet it must take a much longer time to pierce that which the Tushaúa wears as the symbol of his authority, for it is generally of the largest size, and is worn transversely across the breast, for which purpose the hole is bored lengthways from one end to the other, an operation which I was informed sometimes occupies two lives. The stones themselves are procured from a great distance up the river, probably from near its sources at the base of the Andes; they are therefore highly valued, and it is seldom the owners can be induced to part with them, the chiefs scarcely ever. I here purchased a club of hard red wood for a small mirror, a comb for half-a-dozen small fish-hooks, and some other trifling articles.
A portion only of the inhabitants arrived that night, as when traders come they are afraid of being compelled to go with them, and so hide themselves. Many of the worst characters in the Rio Negro come to trade in this river, force the Indians, by threats of shooting them, into their canoes, and sometimes even do not scruple to carry their threats into execution, they being here quite out of reach of even that minute portion of the law which still struggles for existence in the Rio Negro.
We passed the night in the malocca, surrounded by the naked Indians hanging round their fires, which sent a fitful light up into the dark smoke-filled roof. A torrent of rain poured without, and I could not help admiring the degree of sociality and comfort in numerous families thus living together in patriarchal harmony. The next morning Senhor L. succeeded in persuading one Indian to earn a "saía" (petticoat) for his wife, and embark with us, and so we bade adieu to Assaí Paraná (Assaí river). On lifting up the mat covering of our canoe, I found lying comfortably coiled up on the top of my box a fine young boa, of a species of which I possessed two live specimens at Guía: he had probably fallen in unperceived during our passage among the bushes on the river-side. In the afternoon we reached another village, also situated up a narrow igaripé, and consisting of a house and two maloccas at some distance from it. The inhabitants had gone to a neighbouring village, where there was caxirí and dancing, and two women only were left behind with some children. About these houses were several parrots, macaws, and curassow-birds, which all these Indians breed in great numbers. The next day we reached Ananárapicóma, or "Pine-apple Point," the village where the dance was taking place. It consisted of several small houses besides the large malocca, many of the Indians who have been with traders to the Rio Negro imitating them in using separate dwellings.
On entering the great malocca a most extraordinary and novel scene presented itself. Some two hundred men, women, and children were scattered about the house, lying in the maqueiras, squatting on the ground, or sitting on the small painted stools, which are made only by the inhabitants of this river. Almost all were naked and painted, and wearing their various feathers and other ornaments. Some were walking or conversing, and others were dancing, or playing small fifes and whistles. The regular festa had been broken up that morning; the chiefs and principal men had put off their feather head-dresses, but as caxirí still remained, the young men and women continued dancing. They were painted over their whole bodies in regular patterns of a diamond or diagonal character, with black, red, and yellow colours; the former, a purple or blue black, predominating. The face was ornamented in various styles, generally with bright red in bold stripes or spots, a large quantity of the colour being applied to each ear, and running down on the sides of the cheeks and neck, producing a very fearful and sanguinary appearance. The grass in the ears was now decorated with a little tuft of white downy feathers, and some in addition had three little strings of beads from a hole pierced in the lower lip. All wore the garters, which were now generally painted yellow. Most of the young women who danced had besides a small apron of beads of about eight inches by six inches, arranged in diagonal patterns with much taste; besides this, the paint on their naked bodies was their only ornament; they had not even the comb in their hair, which the men are never without.
