PLATE XXII.WITOTO BASKETS OF SPLIT CANE AND FIBRE.
PLATE XXII.
WITOTO BASKETS OF SPLIT CANE AND FIBRE.
Besides this sexual differentiation various tribes have their special manufactures in which they excel their neighbours. The Menimehe are known as great pottery workers. The Karahone are renowned for their poisons. The Boro specialise on mat-making, plaiting, the manufacture of ligatures, and the preparation of blow-pipes. The Witoto hammocks are better than those of other tribes. Trade in any organised form is non-existent, it is true, but articles pass, as I have already described, irregularly by personal barter and exchange of gifts to other tribes; and in this fashion the poison of the Karahone reaches tribes unknown to the makers, and beads made in Birmingham filter down by many and devious routes even to these isolated wilds. Over fifty years ago Wallace estimated that some thousands of pounds’ worth of trade goods passed up the Uaupes yearly,[91]and this accounts for the fact that tribes north of the Japura are better supplied than those of the south. The best articles for barter I found were axes, knives, combs—especially scurf-combs—and Brummagem beads. Cloth and fowling-pieces are not valued except in the Rubber Belt; the less sophisticated Indian of the backwoods has no manner of use for them: cloth is less ornamental than paint, and the scatter-gun only frightens the game and lessens the kill.
Indian arts and crafts are neither numerous nor particularly complex; indeed arts—with the exception of music and dancing—are almost unknown. There are no rock pictures in the Issa-Japura valleys, such as those executed by the Indians in so many other parts of the Americas, but then there are no rocks. I have occasionally among the Andoke and the Boro seen pictures of a rude type on the supports of the houses, and on the four large central posts of the bigmaloka; or these may be roughly carved. There is carving also on some of the dancing staves. But these people have no great use for colour and line beyond the ornamentation of their bodies, and in a lesser degree of theirpottery. They make no attempt to use drawing for informative purposes. Elsewhere Indians have shown themselves skilful map-makers,[92]but none of these tribes could so much as draw a rough chart of their own district. Yet this district to them represents the whole world. They do not realise that there can be any other people but themselves and the half-dozen tribes or so who happen to be in their immediate vicinity, and always regarded it as a huge joke on my part when I talked of the sea and the vast countries beyond.
PLATE XXIII.BORO NECKLACE OF JAGUARS TEETH WITH INCISED PATTERNSNECKLACE OF JAGUAR-TEETH, INCISED, AND FLUTE MADE OF HUMAN BONE
PLATE XXIII.
BORO NECKLACE OF JAGUARS TEETH WITH INCISED PATTERNS
NECKLACE OF JAGUAR-TEETH, INCISED, AND FLUTE MADE OF HUMAN BONE
One tribe of Witoto do possess a drawing on bark-cloth that is their equivalent of a map of the world. This tribe when I visited them were located near the source of the Karaparana, and the “map” was so very exceptional an acquisition that it was known and talked about by far distant tribes who had never seen either it or its possessors. In fact, it was one of the wonders of the universe, to be bragged about to any stranger who was ignorantly unaware of its existence. Nothing I could offer would persuade these Witoto to part with their treasure, and unfortunately I was unable to obtain a photograph of it. My too evident interest aroused suspicion, and on this account I was unable to study it clearly, as I saw it but for a moment, and that in a dark house before my eyes were accustomed to the gloom. It was almost immediately hidden for fear I should seize it. This map was made on beaten bark about two feet square. The centre was divided into about a dozen squares. In each square very crude human figures were represented fighting, planting, or hunting in their own tribal territory. These were the “nations” of the world. The dividing lines were of red vegetable pigment. The “nations,” so far as I could see, were fighting amongst themselves. In the margin were the sun, a moon, and many stars. I saw nothing to designate spirits orTaife. So ancient was this map, handed down from generation to generation, that divine origin or use wasassumed. It was said to be the world in the days when the Good Spirit appeared to man.[93]
Slight carvings, such as can be seen in the accompanying illustration, are done at times on the teeth that they string for a necklace; and among the Witoto I twice met with examples of figures carved in wood. The two figures in the first instance, a nude man and woman, were life-size. They were painted white with designs in black and red to represent the paintings done for a dance. These figures were placed on either side of the door jambs outside, and were the only two of the kind I ever saw or heard of in the country. They were greatly prized by their owners, and spoken of by neighbours as notable achievements. No one had any idea who made them, or when they were made, and if questioned simply said they always had been.
In the second instance the figure was a small female doll. It was in the possession of the daughter of a chief of the Itoma Gurra tribe of Witoto, a young girl, but who had arrived at maturity. The Indians said the doll was for the children to play with, but such toys are extremely scarce. This one was about eight inches high, and was made of some very light wood, painted white, with the organs that denoted the sex marked in red.[94]The toy was not regarded in any way as an idol, nor was there any suggestion of magical powers attaching to it. To secure such a toy is almost impossible, but this doll I did obtain. Unfortunately I showed it to an Indian afterwards, who told me that his tribe made such things, and that he could get me a pair to it. I gave him the toy, but never saw him or the doll again. This was unusual. As a rule when an Indian says he will do anything he keeps his word.
Smelting, or any description of metallurgy, cannot be looked for among the inhabitants of a country so singularly devoid of all metalliferous deposit or formation. Metalthere is practically none in the aboriginal homes of the natives, and whatever of it is received, be it but a trousers-button, becomes at once an heirloom and a treasure. Their only method of working metal when obtained is to heat and hammer it into various forms and shapes for ornaments. Weapons and implements alike must be contrived of other materials. In normal conditions man, without the knowledge to work ore, turns to stone for substitute, but conditions in Amazonia are, as has already been shown, abnormal. If there is no metal neither is there any stone. It is so rare that it is looked upon as almost sacred,[95]and implements fashioned of it are not made nowadays by the tribes, but those in use are handed down from one generation to another. North of the Japura, where quartz can be obtained, at least by barter, it is used for knives, arrow-heads, spear-points, and cassava-graters; but these Issa-Japura Indians have to content themselves with wood and palm-spines, and have only their ancestral stone axes.[96]These are constructed in true “prehistoric” manner; the stones have been and are fastened to their wooden hafts with fibre lashings fixed by vegetable pitch.[97]The Indian cannot say from whence they came, there is no memory of their makers; they are, in fact, looked upon as veritable gifts from the gods.
Wooden knives are constructed from such hardwood trees as the black ironwood. These knives and stone axes will be used by Indians even more in touch with civilisation than these tribes, possibly because the Brummagem trade-goods knife and hatchet has been proved useless for practical wear.
For boring purposes the Indians make an instrument like a bradawl T with a capybara’s tooth, and a paca tooth is used for scraping. With these simple implements the labour involved in producing such a weapon as the blow-pipe is enormous. But these are all the tools the Indian craftsmen possess.
Manufactures among the Issa-Japura tribes are not numerous. These Indians have no textile fabrics; they neither spin nor weave; everything is done by finger-work, and the local substitutes for woven goods are beaten bark-cloth and netted or plaited palm-fibre. This, as a rule, is in its natural colour, as very little dye is ever employed. There is no leather working. The only use made of the skins of animals, I ever discovered, was that some Menimehe tribes had large round shields of tapir hides, two to five hides superimposed one on another;[98]the medicine-men make garments of the same leather; while the medicine-pouch is often made of the unshorn skin of the jaguar. Leather thongs are sometimes employed for tying purposes, such as securing an axe-haft, and on the north of the Japura to string a bow, but the ubiquitous fibre and liana are in more general use.
Glass is unknown to the Indian, but every tribe makes its own pottery. Earthenware pots are used by all Indians for cooking. The best are manufactured by the Menimehe women, and are distinguished by the red and black colouring. This is obtained by the use of certain juices extracted from the bark of a tree. These handsome, well-finished pots are a great article of barter, and are exchanged for other products of friendly tribes. Thus they are to be found at far distances from where they are made on the northern bank of the Japura. It amounts to a trade, distinct if unorganised.
Pottery-making is the sole province of the women in any tribe, earthenware appertaining to the culinary department which is their special sphere. The pots, entirely made and shaped by hand, when finished are beautifully symmetrical, though the Indian potters possess nothing approximatingto a wheel.[99]Squatting on the ground the women work and mould the clay, and rub it between their hands into long cylinders very much like plug tobacco. These are coiled round and round and kneaded into a previously constructed shape; or the women will prepare a circular hole in the ground and mould the clay into that. The plastic coils are then worked round with any hard thing that is handy—a bone or a piece of wood. When the vessel is built up to the size intended it is carefully rubbed before it is set out to dry in the sun. Finally, hot ashes are heaped over the pots, which are baked slowly and polished afterwards.
The clay used is commonly to be found on the river-banks, and with it the Indians mix wood ashes, either to stiffen it or, as Crevaux suggests,[100]to render the finished article more porous, so that its contents are kept cool by evaporation. This pottery is known as caraipé ware, from the fact that the ashes of the caraipé bark are preferred for its manufacture.[101]In some districts vessels of even a very large size are made of it,[102]but I never saw any big pots either imported or made locally in the Issa-Japura valleys. The large vessels used for making kawana by these tribes consist merely of huge strips of the inner bark of the tree, riveted together with thorns or spines, and set upright on a hard earthen surface; or else a section of a great tree trunk is hollowed out to make a trough. Large flat plates to bake the cassava cakes on are made of earthenware, but very often only wooden platters are used.
PLATE XXIV.BORO CASSAVA-SQUEEZER.(a) LOOP AT END
PLATE XXIV.
BORO CASSAVA-SQUEEZER.
(a) LOOP AT END
Women are not the tribal potters alone; they are also the chief basket-makers, though on occasions the men will make baskets. Both Karahone and Boro Indians excel in basket-making, though all tribes are skilful enough at it. If you give an Indian anything to carry he never dreams of holding it in his hands if it will allow of other carriage. He either winds a strip of bark-fibre round his head to make a sling in which to place it, or, if it were anythingthat did not admit of easy adjustment—as, for instance, fruit—he gathers some green palm leaves, and in about five minutes has plaited them, on a foundation of two rods, into a long and deep square basket, which is thrown away at the end of the march. Such quickly made baskets are continually in use, but the tribes also construct more elaborate ones that can be utilised for more than immediate purposes. In everymalokamay be seen baskets of plaited bark-fibre and of plaited cane,[103]usually white, but sometimes with an interwoven and regular pattern in black cane. The Resigero make bottle-shaped baskets as receptacles for edible ants. A large basket is carried on the back, slung from the forehead with the customary band of bark-fibre.
Quite as important as the pottery is the manufacture of hammocks.[104]This again is done by the women of the tribes. It is woman’s, that is to say light, work. All these tribes make them on the same principle and in the same way, the only difference in the hammocks of different tribes is the spacing of the cross-threads. This, according to Hamilton Rice, is a tribal distinction, each group of tribes having an individual spacing.[105]The material used is curana string or palm-fibre. To prepare this the women take the pinnate leaflets of the Chambiri palm[106]and fold over each strip atits broadest part. They grip it tightly and shred it down with the thumb and forefinger. The fibre thus procured is then twisted into a cord by rolling it tightly and hard against the naked thigh.
To make a hammock a woman takes a length of this fibre string and turns it round, backwards and forwards between two posts set in the earthen floor of themaloka. Cross strings of the same material are then tied at the regulation intervals and knotted across, from string to string, to the opposite side. No implement of any kind is used; the two posts are the only framework, and the whole construction is carried out entirely by the women’s fingers without any artificial aid.
The cassava-squeezer, that essential complement to an Indian household, is another plaited or basket-work article. The squeezer, which is common to the Boro and all the tribes north or south, except the Witoto, the Muenane, and the Nonuya, consists of a long cylinder with a loop at both ends. One is attached to a rafter, and the other to a stout stick, on which a woman sits, and thereby pulls upon the cylinder. The manioc is inserted through the open end before the weight is applied, and the elastic structure widens out to permit the soaked and grated roots to be packed in, till it resembles nothing so much as a well-filled Christmas stocking; but when pressure is brought to bear on the lower end the cylinder gradually elongates, and thereby contracts, crushing the roots to a pulp, from which the poisonous juice drains away.
The material used to make these squeezers appears to be a species of cane, but is said to be the bark of a palm tree.[107]It is cut into narrow strips and closely plaited into an elastic bottle some seven to ten feet long, and not more than about six inches wide when open. Instead of this cylinder the Witoto use a long web, a rectangular strip about ten inches wide of plaited bark-fibre, about an inch wide. This they wind round the grated manioc after the manner that puttiesare adjusted on the leg. The tighter they twist the pliable web the greater the pressure upon the crushed roots, and the juice is thus wrung out of them.
The grater that is used to scrape the manioc roots, before they are placed in the squeezer, is a wooden implement made by the Indian women themselves.[108]It is a flat oval. The one in the illustration measures 16½ inches by 5¾ inches. The wood is of a bamboo type set with short black palm-spines about an eighth of an inch apart, thicker at one end than the other, but arranged in no regular pattern. These spines are fixed into the wood and project about an eighth of an inch above it. Those in which quartz stones are inserted instead of spines are a valuable commercial commodity north of the Japura.
PLATE XXV.OKAINA GROUPNote Coca pestle and mortar.GROUP OF OKAINA WOMEN
PLATE XXV.
OKAINA GROUP
Note Coca pestle and mortar.
GROUP OF OKAINA WOMEN
I never saw manioc crushed, as Robuchon described, with a pestle and mortar; but these articles are in frequent use, especially for the preparation of coca and tobacco, so they are items of importance in an Indian inventory. A mortar is easily improvised from the hollowed trunk of a tree, and such a small mortar, with a long heavy pounder, is shown on the right of the photograph of a group of Okaina Indians. It is being used to pound coca (Plate XXV.). The pestles are made of some heavy wood, such as red wood or mahogany, and the lower trunk of the peach palm,[109]or a block of ironwood makes a very solid mortar. The peach-palm trunk is hollow, that is to say, it has a very hard shell filled with soft pith that can be scraped out with little difficulty.[110]Some of these mortars are of great size. Spruce gives the measurements as five to six feet high, but none I saw were more than four feet.
Not only are mortars and troughs made from the tree trunks, but bark is cut into long strips to make smaller vessels, shallow concave trays not unlike the Arunta hardwoodpitchi.[111]The method is ingenious by which the barkis stripped from the trunk, or the tree is felled, for the principle in each case is the same. Round the trunk of the selected tree a number of small holes are made, or, if only a portion is to be removed, the trunk is notched at the required distances. The edge of the stone axe is inserted in the notch, and the slip of wood is levered up with it until it splits away at the lower notch; or, if the tree is to be felled, the holes are widened into grooves that are deepened round the trunk till it gives way—a somewhat slow process, but a sure one.
In this fashion the Indians cut down the trees from which their boats are to be made. A tree is felled, preferably a cedar,[112]and the trunk is hollowed out for the length required, which varies, but may be as much as 20 feet, though the breadth will not exceed 18 inches. To hollow the trunk the Indians bore holes in the wood in order to secure the proper thickness, and then slit off pieces with their stone axes. These are kindled into a fire to which logs of wood are added. This burns out the required cavity, and when the trunk is very hot the burning embers are scraped away and the burnt trunk is forced apart, which is done by gradually inserting longer logs that are hammered into place. This is a job that needs to be done deftly and quickly, or the cooling wood will soon either contract too much or break at the strain. The heat also causes the ends to curve upwards, so that the bow and the stern of the boat will rise higher than the centre. Such a “dug-out” is a heavy concern, often with a specific gravity greater than that of water.
These boats belong to the community, and are not many in number. They are never left on the bank, nor are they kept in themaloka, but are hidden in the bush near the river-banks. The paddles, however, are kept in the house, stored overhead on the rafters.
All the tribes of the Issa and Japura valleys make these rather clumsy craft, but it is possible that the original idea is not indigenous, and that the autochthonic boat is the temporary canoe made from the hollowed trunk of the bulge-stemmed palm.[113]These canoes can be fashioned in an hour or two. The soft pulp is removed easily with a knife, or even may be crushed up with the fingers, but the bark is very hard, and the bulging portion of the trunk is shaped already for the craft. The ends are stiffened with clay, and the improvised canoe is ready for use, and is quite sufficient for casual purposes—to cross a river when too deep to ford or too wide to bridge,—and being of no permanent value it may be left to drift away down-stream when used.[114]
Spruce mentions tribes who cannot make canoes, and have to construct rafts to cross any main river;[115]but rafts are not used on the Issa or Japura streams except by the rubber-workers. They make them of trunks of light wood lashed with liana or withes, with a rail at the side, but such a construction is unknown to those Indians who have not met with the “civilized” invaders from the Rubber Belts. The Catanixi, so Wallace states, make canoes of the bark of trees stripped off in one sheet,[116]but I never saw anything approaching the “birch-bark” canoe, though some of the “civilized” Indians use amontaria, a built boat that is certainly not indigenous.
The canoes are propelled with paddles from four to five feet long, cut from the solid block of wood, elongated in the blade, not rounded, as is universal on the main Amazon river. They may be decorated with roughly painted designs. Indians always paddle in unison, sometimes on alternate sides, sometimes three together on one side and three on the other. They face the way they are going, as one would in a “Canadian” or “Rob Roy,” and the man in the bow steers. When two men paddle a large canoe both will sit forward and paddle from the bow.
Agriculture—Plantations—Preparation of ground in the forest—Paucity of agricultural instruments—Need for diligence—Women’s incessant toil—No special harvest-time—Maize the only grain grown—No use for sugar—Manioc cultivation—Peppers—Tobacco—Coca cultivation—Tree-climbing methods—Indian wood-craft—Indian tracking—Exaggerated sporting yarns—Indian sense of locality and accuracy of observation—Blow-pipes—Method of making blow-pipes—Darts—Indian improvidence—Migration of game—Traps and snares—Javelins—Hunting and fishing rights—Fishing—Fish traps—Spearing and poisoning fish.
Agriculture—Plantations—Preparation of ground in the forest—Paucity of agricultural instruments—Need for diligence—Women’s incessant toil—No special harvest-time—Maize the only grain grown—No use for sugar—Manioc cultivation—Peppers—Tobacco—Coca cultivation—Tree-climbing methods—Indian wood-craft—Indian tracking—Exaggerated sporting yarns—Indian sense of locality and accuracy of observation—Blow-pipes—Method of making blow-pipes—Darts—Indian improvidence—Migration of game—Traps and snares—Javelins—Hunting and fishing rights—Fishing—Fish traps—Spearing and poisoning fish.
Apart from the industries already dealt with, the occupations of the South American Indians of these parts consist in agricultural pursuits, hunting, fishing, making war, and holding festival. They are not a pastoral people and have no cattle; even the domestic pig is unknown, fowls are never seen, and dogs only exist in their wild state in the forest. There they are numerous enough, dun in colour, with ears erect. These Indians do not keep or train them, though some of the tribes away from this district have hunting dogs.[117]
PLATE XXVI.1. INDIAN PLANTATION CLEARED BY FIRE PREPARATORY TO CULTIVATION2. VIEW ON AFFLUENT OF THE KAHUINARI RIVER
PLATE XXVI.
1. INDIAN PLANTATION CLEARED BY FIRE PREPARATORY TO CULTIVATION
2. VIEW ON AFFLUENT OF THE KAHUINARI RIVER
The greater part of the agricultural work falls, as has been seen, to the lot of the women, though the preliminaries—the heavier work of clearing, cutting, and breaking up the untouched soil—are undertaken by the men. Each tribal house stands in the midst of a small clearing. In front is the big dancing ground, for though the dancing proper takes place inside themaloka, this outer dance clearing is used for the purpose of assembly, and for effective entries. Near by are the cultivated plots that belong to the chief. The Indian with his own private lodging in the bush, orany married Indian,—and all marry when they come to man’s estate—has his special plantation patch by his country-house, if he has one, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the tribal house if he is content with only his quarters therein. But no plantations are made actually surrounding themaloka; they are perhaps half a mile away, for, as a rule, the house stands alone. Sometimes a man’s plantation will be two days’ journey from the house of assembly, in which case a “country-house” is a necessity. The tribal plantations belong to the chief, as he, having all the unattached women, is better able to cultivate them.
To prepare the plots of ground the smaller trees are felled, the larger ones are burnt. The stumps of trees, cut about four feet above the ground, decay with some rapidity, and, directly the branches are dry enough to burn, fire is brought out and the clearing made into a gigantic bonfire, or rather series of bonfires, for the always damp wood will never do more than smoulder, but it is sufficient to destroy the brushwood and the tangle of creeping plants. There is then a savannah, a clearing such as is shown in the illustration (Plate XXVI.), a wilderness of charred posts and vegetable ashes which make most excellent manure. The ground is then broken up with wooden clubs, and therewith the men’s labour is at an end.[118]Henceforward their women take charge of the plantation—ikethe Witoto call it before it is planted; it isakphoafter planting.
The Indian plantation is no orderly market-garden. To begin with, the women have nothing but the roughest wooden implement, a wedge-shaped stake, with which to dig, and rake, and hoe. The ground is always uneven and broken; the charred remnants of the original vegetation are left to crumble beside the young growth, and the cultivated seedlings have to struggle for space and air with quick-growing wild things, forest growths and creepers that encroach on every side, and would speedily reclaim any cleared portions of the unconquerable bush were it not for the incessant diligence of the women. They go there daily straight fromthe morning bath, and keep up a constant chattering as they plant the cuttings of manioc, or tend to the pine-apples and the sugar-cane, while the men take to their canoes, or go a-hunting in the bush in company. I have never seen single Indians hunting or walking in the forest. For obvious reasons they never venture far afield by themselves, or even in very small parties.
Sowing is done during the rainy season, but beyond the fact that things then grow faster than when it is comparatively drier, there is no especial harvest time. Crops grow and ripen all the year round. The Indians are not grain-growing people. Rice is unknown,[119]and the only grain that is sown at all is maize. This, though much cultivated by the Kuretu, and by tribes on the Tikie, is not grown in any quantity by Indians south of the Japura. What there may be is very small. Coca, manioc, and tobacco are the most universally cultivated. The Witoto grow a little sugar-cane and it is occasionally found growing wild, but in very few places. Originally, I imagine, it was imported. The Indians do not use it for sugar, as sweet things do not seem to appeal to their palates, and “beer” is unknown. Half-wild pumpkins and plantains are to be found in most plantations; pines,[120]bananas, yams, papaws, sweet potatoes, and mangoes are found cultivated more or less. The yellow fruit of the guaraná is prized by these Indians, especially the Boro, and is used here by them in the preparation of a stimulating drink[121]similar to that in use on the Rio Negro.[122]The wild cacao,[123]though not common, is seen about here, but the tribes do not cultivate it. Manioc, which is also known as cassava,[124]is a plant that grows throughout the tropical regions of America, and in the West Indies. It is known also inAfrica, and has been introduced by the white man into some of the Pacific Islands.
The manioc is planted by the women about July or August, and according to Indian belief manioc can only be propagated by replanting slips of the old growth after it has been lifted up and the tuberous root removed. As it cannot reproduce itself in this fashion in its wild state, presumably it will grow from young tubers, or seed, but, according to Bates, it is not found wild in the Amazon basin.[125]The ground is hoed by the women, and scraped into rough furrows. Cuttings of the manioc plant are set in these in little holes. Eight months after planting the root is ready for use. It is large, fleshy, and very heavy for its bulk, each tuber weighing from half a pound to two or three pounds, and even more. It has been said of the variety known as the great manioc that a root will weigh as much as forty-eight pounds.[126]The ground will only carry two crops, so a fresh patch must be broken up after the second harvest. Indians will, however, always return to plantations no longer in use, on account of the different palm fruits which continue to grow wild there after they have once been cultivated; but the disused plots will never be tilled again for plantation, they are only visited for this purpose of securing the fruit.
Throughout the forest peppers are very common and plentiful. Some of the bushes grow to a height of ten feet. There are many varieties,[127]and peppers are grown, or allowed to grow, in patches on all the plantations.
I have said that the women are the agriculturalists and the cooks; nor do I know of any exception to this rule, for though coca and tobacco are tabu to all women, and their preparation is forbidden to the sex, yet the women grow the tobacco in the plantations, gather the leaf, and dry it in the sun. But the actual making of the black liquid is done by the men alone, and only men prepare the coca for use. Tobacco is not an article of barter amongthese tribes, as all grow it, and its preparation is no secret to any of the tribesmen. Cultivated coca is sown when the rains begin. The young seedlings need both care and attention.[128]It is eighteen months before the slender shrub will yield any harvest, though once grown the supply will continue for three or four decades. The shrub grows to some five or six feet high, into small trees in fact, with lichen-encrusted trunks. Both the common kind and a smaller-leaved variety[129]grow wild in these regions.
Men also must climb the trees to gather such fruits as the papaw and the seeds of the cokerite or the peach palms. Indians climb in what is practically a universal method, with a circling rope and a ring.[130]Their usual way is to secure the legs together about the ankles with a strip of the inner bark of a tree, and then, with arms and feet free, to use a bigger loop adjusted round the tree and hips of the climber for purchase power. For short climbs they will dispense with the bigger loop. Sometimes palm-frond is made into a ring for the toes, but with the forest Indians these are oftener left free to allow of prehensile action. With this simple attachment, made perhaps only of twisted liana, the native will work his way to a perilous height up the barest of tree trunks.[131]
PLATE XXVII.ERYTHROXYLON-COCA
PLATE XXVII.
ERYTHROXYLON-COCA
As a woodsman the Indian is so far in advance of the European traveller as to make all comparison futile.[132]An Indian in the bush is wonderful. From his earliest days he has been taught to watch and note. I have known an Indian stop and tell me that when the sun was in a certainposition, that is to say half an hour previously, seven Indians passed that way carrying a tapir, which had been killed when the sun was there—indicating another position. It was killed a long distance away, and the bag must have been a tapir on account of the evident weight. He took up a leaf on which was a spot of blood, coagulated. He pointed to tracks on the ground, to prove the question of numbers and distance. The men who passed were weary, he knew it by the way their toes had dropped on the ground. The breaking of a twig, the exudation of sap, is enough of a guide for the Indian to judge when the last passer-by came that way. I have been told it was within ten minutes, and shown a leaf. It had begun to rain ten minutes before, and the leaf, overturned by a passing foot, was wet upon both sides. A glance will suffice for an estimate of what animals passed, and when. By some intuitive perception, moreover, he will deduce in a moment whither the game has gone, and will make, not along its trail, but more directly for it. Yet close and accurate as his observation invariably is, when the Indian sportsman begins a tale of the chase it is exaggerated beyond the wildest dreams and liveliest imaginings of the most gifted sporting Munchausen among ourselves.
When an Indian is path-finding he judges both time and distance by the sun. If not attacked by an enemy, he will win his way home from anywhere, always at a jog-trot, and will probably do his fifty miles on nothing more sustaining than coca. A sense of locality is born in him, and from childhood upwards this is trained and developed by continued and varied experiences. To be able to judge by the sky, by the weathered side of trees, by the flight of birds, or the run of animals—above all to have a sense that is greater than all judgment—is a matter of life or death not once but continually. The inept are the unfit, and the forest will show them no mercy.
This minuteness and accuracy of observation comes into play again when the Indian is hunting. Death to his quarry from the tiny poisoned dart of the blow-pipe is certain, but not absolutely instantaneous. He also willshoot birds with a blunt-headed arrow that stuns but does no damage to the plumage. The shock appears to kill the bird. Hit with dart or arrow they may flutter a little distance before they fall. I have watched an Indian scores of times when hunting game shoot bird after bird in a tree, mark down where each fell, and eventually never fail to account for every one despite the density of the surrounding bush. Hardly a traveller but has noted and wondered at the same thing.
PLATE XXVIII.1 & 2.—Andoke bamboo cases with darts and cotton3. Dart with cotton attached4. Blowpipe with dart5. Javelins6. Fishing trident7. Spears in bamboo case8. Dance Staff
PLATE XXVIII.
Blow-pipes are only carried by the Indians when hunting. They are weapons of the chase, not of war. Most of the tribes manufacture their own, but the Bara, who neither hunt nor fish, get theirs solely by barter from other tribes. The blow-pipe—obidiakeof the Witoto,dodikeof the Boro—made by these tribes is a heavier weapon than those made by tribes farther north.[133]It is constructed, like those of all tribes south of the Japura, in two sections, bound together with great nicety, and has invariably a mouthpiece made of vegetable ivory or a similar wood that fits round inside the mouth. These blow-pipes are from eight to fourteen feet long, with a quarter-inch tube, the outer mouthpiece being an inch and a half. They are sometimes made from reeds[134]by the Boro and Andoke, and I have seen small Boro boys with a hollow reed pipe, about half the ordinary length. This was merely a plaything. These are the simplest form of blow-pipe, and would appear to be the original type. Though I imagine reeds are always obtainable, for the flora did not seem to vary, as a rule the wood of the chonta palm is employed.[135]On the north of the Japura, the tribes, I believe, mostly make their blow-pipes of palm stems.[136]Twolong strips of this wood are slit off by notching and levering with a stone axe, as already described. The chonta poles are trimmed, rubbed, and grooved with sand and a paca-tooth tool till they form the corresponding halves of a tube, which must fit most exactly. All this entails very careful and tedious work, so it is fortunate that time to an Indian is of no account. These half tubes are then fastened together and the bore polished with what is practically sand-paper. A string is dipped in some gummy substance, and then covered with sand. When dry, a fine polish is secured with this by friction. The blow-pipe is next bound from end to end with fibre-string, or narrow strips of pliant bark.[137]The whole pipe is then coated with some resinous gum, or wax.[138]A small bone is fixed about twelve inches from the mouthpiece, and this acts as a sight. Such a tube will send an arrow a distance of from forty to one hundred and fifty feet, and an expert hunter shoots the smallest birds at twenty yards. The chonta-wood pipe is the heaviest and most lasting, but I do not know if it carries farthest. The Indians’ accuracy of aim is extraordinary. The arrows, or darts, are about nine inches long, no thicker than a small match, and are tufted with fluffy down from the seed vessels of the silk-cotton tree,[139]the tuft being of a size to fit exactly into the bore of the pipe. The arrows are made of the leaf-stem spines of the Patawa palm.[140]They are carried in a quiver of bamboo lined with dried grass or fine rushes that protect the delicate darts. The poisoned points are partly cut through so that they break off in the wound. Once a bird or animal is hit the poison kills them very speedily. The silk-cotton for tipping the arrow is carried in a gourd that is attached to the arrow quiver with strips of cane, and to it is also tied the jawbone of the pirai fish, which is used as a file for the points of the darts. When the arrow is ejected from the blow-pipe there is a slight noise,like a child’s pop-gun, but it is not enough to scare the game.[141]
Indians are no more provident as hunters than as housekeepers. When game is plentiful they will kill and eat, kill recklessly, and eat to repletion. But game is not always plentiful. It may abound to-day and all be gone to-morrow. Even parrots and peccary will fail at times. Birds and beasts wander, and though the hunter can often judge of direction through knowledge of their habits, and—what in this instance probably governs them—which fruits are ripest and where most abundantly to be found, this will not altogether account for the fluctuations in the supply of game. It must also be remembered that in this respect the bush varies greatly, and even where animal life is not scarce it is apt to become so on the advent of man. Even apart from the disturbance caused by the hunter, game in the vicinity of any human settlement tends to disappear. The hunter must go farther and farther afield.
The Indian is an expert trapper. His traps though simple are ingeniously contrived, and seldom fail to act. An empty bag is due more frequently to absence of game than to the inadequate plan of the trap. Monkeys are caught with a running-noose loop snare made of liana, which is adjusted carefully along a fruit-bearing branch of a tree. Any monkey attempting to reach the fruit strangles itself in the noose, exactly as a rabbit does in the wire of an English poacher.