PLATE XXIX.ANDOKE BAMBOO CASE WITH DARTS FOR BLOWPIPE AND GOURD FULL OF COTTON
PLATE XXIX.
ANDOKE BAMBOO CASE WITH DARTS FOR BLOWPIPE AND GOURD FULL OF COTTON
A shallow pan of water is the Indian bait for ground vermin. Round it they dig a ring of holes, about a foot across, on which are lightly spread grass and leaves. Rats, mice, frogs, and small snakes venturing to drink fall throughinto the holes that are deep enough to hold them captive till the trapper comes round and secures his catch. For larger animals the hunters dig a line of pits, with a sharpened stake fixed upright at the bottom of each. The game, corralled and driven over these, falls in through the sticks and leaves that hide the opening, and is impaled on the stake. The Karahone arm their pits with poisoned arrows, and dig a succession of these death-traps down a forest avenue.[142]A more complex contrivance is made with carefully poised logs. This description of trap is set in a forest run, the brushwood on either side is twisted and plaited into a rough fence, and the trap erected in the opening. The slightest pressure on the footboard releases the weight, and brings the heavy trunk down with a crash on the intruder. A trap of this kind will catch anything from a squirrel to a jaguar.
A tapir is sometimes killed with a throwing javelin, which the Indians use with much dexterity, though when they throw anything they do it with an over-arm action, with a jerk as a girl would. Their skill with these javelins is not surprising when one remembers that they hunt two or three days a week from boyhood, and so are continually throwing them at animals. The javelin is a light spear with a poisoned palm spine at the point. A man carries seven of these in his hand, and seven more in reserve in a bamboo case—fourteen in all. These javelins are about six feet long, and an Indian can throw one a distance of thirty yards. Sometimes only five are carried in the hand, but seven is the more usual number. Though long they are very thin and light. The haft is usually made of chonta, or similar hard straight-grained woods. A spine is always fixed in the point, which is filed almost through so that it will break off in the body of the wounded animal. These spines are poisoned with animal putrefying poison. Of the heavier spears more anon.
Koch-Grünberg noted that tribes on the Tikie have well-definedand recognised hunting and fishing rights, but that when travelling any such rights are avoided. This is common to all Indians. They will even erect barriers in the bush and on the rivers, and they keep strictly to their own localities, otherwise quarrels would arise and war be the upshot.
The sporting proclivities of the tribes vary considerably. The Tukana are fishers, but not hunters. The Boro, on the other hand, though great hunters do not fish, at least I do not remember ever having been given fish in a Boro house. Certainly they are not such fishermen as the Witoto or the Okaina, who are the most skilful of all the fishing tribes.
Fish are taken with hook and line, in nets and traps, by poisoning the water, by spearing, and by shooting with bows and arrows. For fish-hooks these tribes have hardly anything but those that they contrive for themselves from wood, bone, or spines, and civilised metal hooks are greatly sought after by all of them. Napo Indians make hooks of bone.[143]The Witotofakwasiis a fish-hook made of wood or palm spine. A spine is fastened to a fine stick, and this is baited with grubs, and used with a fibre line, or with apihekoa, a rod and a line. Fish are caught to some extent with bait and laid lines.
Hand nets are made ofchambiripalm-fibre in the same way that hammocks are made, but with a finer mesh; larger ones are constructed by fixing fences of wattle across the stream before the rivers rise. In the dry season the Witoto use nets to drag the pools in the river-bed. They also catch fish with baited nets, the bait being larvæ, or some fruit attractive to fish, such as that of thesetico, or the drupes of certain laurels. In the dry season they bale out the water from the shallower pools with gourds till the fish can be captured by hand.
Some of the fish traps are most cleverly designed. There is one known on the Uaupes as thematapi, which is simply a basket open at one end, but without sufficient space for fish of any size to turn round in. As fish are not able toswim backwards without the room to turn they cannot escape once in the trap. On the Napo the Indians spear fish most expertly, but other Indians depend largely on these and similar traps for their supply.
Fish are speared with a wooden trident or, rather, caught between its prongs, or stabbed with a bamboo spear that has a double-edged blade. Some of the civilised Indians of the lower Amazons have harpoons with detachable heads that they use for hunting the manatee, or river dolphin, but, in these upper waters, dolphins, if seen,—and that is rarely—are speared with tridents; the Indians have no harpoons, and the only thing that resembles a detachable head is the partly filed-through javelin. The Menimehe shoot fish with the bow and arrow.
By far the most wholesale and general way in which fish are obtained is through the use of poison.[144]The Indians procure this from the root of an evergreen bush, thebabasco,[145]which they pound very fine. They dam the stream with a wattle fencing and then throw the mashedbabascoin above this fish weir. The fish frequently jump out of the water, gasping as though they were being strangled, and the Indians secure those distressed fish in outspread palm leaves. Sometimes the dead fish drop down into a net, spread beside the dam to catch them; or the Indian fisherman will simply spear them when they are sufficiently narcotised. Dead fish will be found floating in the vicinity many hours afterwards. The Napo Indians put the crushedbabascoin a basket and stir the water with this below the dam—so that the fish cannot escape upstream.[146]Witoto and other Issa-Japura tribes merely throw the roots into the stream, and the dam is made more to prevent the dead fish being washed away than to stop the live ones escaping. The poison works almost instantaneously on the smaller fish. The Indians on the Tapajos make use of a poisonous lianacalledtimbo.[147]Its action is similar though not so immediate as that of thebabascoroot, and consequently it is of little use in quick-flowing waters. Neitherbabasconortimboaffect the fish injuriously for human food.
The Indian armoury—Spears—Bows and arrows—Indian strategy—Forest tactics and warfare—Defensive measures—Secrecy and safety—The Indian’s science of war—Prisoners—War and anthropophagy—Cannibal tribes—Reasons for cannibal practices—Ritual of vengeance—Other causes—No intra-tribal cannibalism—The anthropophagous feast—Human relics—Necklaces of teeth—Absence of salt—Geophagy.
The Indian armoury—Spears—Bows and arrows—Indian strategy—Forest tactics and warfare—Defensive measures—Secrecy and safety—The Indian’s science of war—Prisoners—War and anthropophagy—Cannibal tribes—Reasons for cannibal practices—Ritual of vengeance—Other causes—No intra-tribal cannibalism—The anthropophagous feast—Human relics—Necklaces of teeth—Absence of salt—Geophagy.
The armoury of the Indian contains, for the most part, weapons designed for primitive hand-to-hand encounter with either man or beast. The sixty or more feet a blow-pipe dart will carry; the two hundred feet, which is the outside range of an arrow from the most powerful of his bows, would be futile in any country less enclosed than these dense woodlands. Even here success in intertribal conflict is a matter of personal dexterity rather than mechanical accomplishment. It is true that the Witoto near the rubber districts have ordinary muzzle-loading scatter-guns. Other tribes have a few, a very few rifles, and some Brummagem fowling-pieces, usually with single barrels. But the rifle cannot be said to have won its way into unchallenged favour. When an Indian does possess a gun he is exceedingly chary of using it; his chief idea is to save his powder and shot. The Menimehe have neither rifles nor scatter-guns; they consider that firearms frighten the game, and prefer their own throwing-javelins, their bows, and their arrows.
The Indian weapons of offence may be said then to consist of the sword, the bow, and the spear. There is no difference between war spears and arrows and those used against the larger wild animals. For defence the Menimehe carry a small club, or life-preserver, and the Jivaro andsome of the tribes near the Napo river, use a circular shield covered with tapir hide like the Uaupes river Indians.[148]The Menimehe also have large round shields made with tapir skins. From two to five hides are superimposed one on the other to make a shield, and when finished these will turn any arrow or spear, and are impenetrable to other than a nickel-cased bullet of high velocity. The Yahuna on the other side of the Apaporis do not use a shield, nor do any of the tribes south of the Japura.
The Indian’s club is like a quarter-staff made of hard red-wood—which is the heaviest kind known to them—and is used simply as a personal weapon of offence or defence. It is not a war weapon. The Indian sword is made of red-wood or black iron-wood, and is from thirty to thirty-six inches long, polished quite plainly. It is used by the attacker to aim blows at the thighs of his antagonist, the object being so to hit him as to bring him to the ground. Once this is done his head can be easily smashed. As a weapon of defence the Indian uses it to protect himself from the throwing of javelins. Holding the handle in one hand and the point in the other, he can ward off such missiles with the greatest dexterity, thus in a way obviating the necessity of carrying a shield.
A diversity of spears, or javelins, is constructed by all these tribes.Chontawood is universally employed for spears and arrow-heads, the weapon differing in accordance with its purport, thechontaspear for tapir, the blunt arrow for birds, and so forth. These wooden weapons are scraped smooth with the file-like jaw of thepiraifish, and a final polish is put on with the leaves of theCecropia peltata, which are rough enough to be effective substitutes for sand-paper. The spears are thickest at the head, and taper nearly to a point at the butt. The head is made of a separate piece ofchontasome three inches long, bound into the grooved end. A poisoned palm spine is always fixed in the point of a spear, as in the lighter throwing-javelin. About two or three inches down, the head is filed nearly through, in order that it shall break off in the wound, andso be the more difficult to extract. The poisoned point is protected with a reed sheath.
PLATE XXX.1. Water Jar, Menimehe (a) Witoto2. Drums (Witoto)3. Pan pipes (Witoto) (a) Boro4. Stone Axe (Andoke)5. Paddle used on main Amazon Stream6. Paddle used on Issa and Japura rivers7. Menimehe Hand Club8. Wooden Sword (Boro)9. Pestle—Coca, etc. (Boro)
PLATE XXX.
Arrow-heads also are half filed through. This is done with the fish-jaw attached to the quiver immediately before use. The tips are made ofchontaand are poisoned.[149]The bows are of various kinds of wood, and of many sizes, strung with fibre made thicker and stronger as desired. The arrow shaft is without feathers, and has no nock for the bowstring. The arrows are carried in quivers of wicker or of wood. The Menimehe, the most skilful bowmen of these regions, are famous for their quivers as well as for their pottery. They make the quivers out of bamboo, the elementary ones being merely scraped-out sections cut so that there shall be a joint or a knot for the end; the more elaborate specimens are made of strips of bamboo bound together. The arrow poison is carried in a small pot or calabash. The vegetable poisons that are used for birds and small game give place to a mixture of strychnos and poison obtained from decomposed animal or human matter when the weapon is employed against men or the bigger beasts. Its effect on a human being is said to be almost instantaneous.
Indian strategy makes for concealment both in attack and defence. A tribe will never rush precipitately into open and aggressive war with a neighbour. Plans for the campaign are no affairs of a hurried minute; no impulse of uncontrolled anger. They are, on the contrary, well matured and much deliberated. After many a tobacco palaver, when war is determined on for any good and sufficient reason—usually revenge for some real or fancied wrong—the tribal warriors muster, and it may be that a friendly tribe will assemble with them. Attack will be stealthy, silent, and never by any chance frontal. These are the true tactics of the forest denizen. A noiseless flank approach, a sudden rush, and then, if the foe be takenunawares, a furious onslaught. But surprise is essential to success. With the utmost caution they approach the enemy’s head-quarters, the big tribal house, probably when a dance is taking place and the hostile warriors are occupied with matters other than possible war. The invaders wait for night; creep in under cover of darkness; and if possible cut up the unprepared revellers when asleep after the feast. Should the victorious attackers be in a blood-thirsty mood, every soul will be killed and the house burnt. But the Indian is no Berserker when fighting. He is as careful of his own skin as he is anxious to destroy his foe—possibly even more so; a living enemy may be slain in the future, but if he be killed himself ultimate vengeance is no longer for him.
As regards defence, the Indian never attempts any effective fortification of his home. The only defensive action taken by the tribes is to prepare a series of pitfalls in the forest avenues, after the fashion described for game, with poisoned stakes to impale any foe who may unwittingly stray into them. Death in such a trap comes very speedily. These pits, as I have already noted, are always dug by the Karahone.
It appeared to me that the Indians depended mainly on the secrecy of the tribal dwelling, ensured by the absence of direct footways; for though their houses are not built on defensive—or even defendable—lines, the hostility between various language-groups is rampant, as has been already shown, and internecine strife is unending. The Indian has been called docile and gentle. He may be, if to fear an enemy as much as he is hated be docility. “Do not wait for the first blow but deal it: if you cannot deal it with impunity now wait till you can—but wait securely hidden”: there is the whole text-book of the Indian’s science of war.
PLATE XXXI.BAMBOO CASES, FILLED WITH DARTS FOR BLOWPIPE—SHOWING FISH-JAW SCRAPER, AND GOURD FILLED WITH RAW COTTON. ONE DART HAS TUFT OF COTTON PLACED READY FOR USE. THESE ARE ANDOKE WORK
PLATE XXXI.
BAMBOO CASES, FILLED WITH DARTS FOR BLOWPIPE—SHOWING FISH-JAW SCRAPER, AND GOURD FILLED WITH RAW COTTON. ONE DART HAS TUFT OF COTTON PLACED READY FOR USE. THESE ARE ANDOKE WORK
If it can be done with due regard to personal safety the Indian warriors like to take prisoners. A prisoner is tangible evidence of successful achievement and personal valour. There is, as a rule, no mutilation of the dead, or of a prisoner; whatever does occur is due to personal brutality on the part of some individual. Prisoners are bound withpalm-fibre, and so long as they walk quickly enough, when the victorious band returns from the fray, they are not ill-treated. But there must be no delay. Every moment adds to the dangers that threaten the marauders. Vengeance accomplished, they must hurry back to the comparative safety of their own locality. If a prisoner lag he endangers his captors, and in self-defence they would slay him. Prisoners are sometimes sold, but as a rule they are killed and eaten at the big feast arranged to commemorate the event, unless they are young enough to be kept as slaves without risk of their running away to tell tribal enemies of the secret roads through the bush. The consumption of a dead foe at least guarantees his harmlessness—as a warrior, if not as a comestible.
Prisoners are never kept for any length of time, on account of the danger that would follow should they manage to escape. They get no food nor drink, and if never actually tortured, are treated very casually until killed with a heavy wooden sword, not with poisoned javelins, as Robuchon imagined was the ceremonial method of killing for culinary purposes. The captor knocks his prisoner down with blows on the shins and the thigh, and then hacks off the head with his broadsword. Robuchon is also responsible for the statement that the prisoners consider that to be thus killed and eaten is a great distinction and honour. It is true that they make no complaints, but that is simply on account of the fatalistic nature of the Indian.
If killed in war a chief’s body is carried off by his tribe if possible, though the ordinary warriors, dead or wounded, of the beaten faction are left to their fate, for fear of delay and possible surprise during retreat; although that fate be known to be consumption by the enemy.
Among the Boro and other cannibal tribes anthropophagous orgies follow hard on the heels of tribal strife. If it happens to be possible, that is to say if the fight has taken place as an attack on their own house, the corpses of the enemy are eaten; but no Indian ever risks the chance of reprisals being taken by remaining in the vicinity of a hostile house to eat the dead, nor will he ever burdenhimself with food when returning to his own habitation. The cannibal feast thus becomes the prerogative of the conqueror.
Unlike the better-known tribes of Guiana, most, if not all, of the Indians of the upper rivers are indisputably cannibals, especially the Boro, Andoke, and Resigero groups. It has even been asserted by some writers that sundry tribes belong to the lowest grade of cannibals in that they will “eat their own dead children, friends and relatives.”[150]This, however, is incorrect, and why it must be so is very obvious when the main causation of extra-tribal cannibalism is understood.
There are three reasons why these Indians are anthropophagous.
In the first place, and it is not only the first but the most general and important, anthropophagy is looked upon as a system of vengeance, a method of inflicting the supreme insult upon an enemy.[151]It will be seen that the Indian has very definite opinions as to the inferiority of the brute creation. To resemble animals in any way is a matter to be avoided at all costs. Body hair is an animal characteristic, so man must depilate. The birth of twins is a disgrace because it is a descent to bestial levels. What a crowning disgrace then must it be for the dead to share no better fate than that of slaughtered animals. No more absolute vengeance on the dead could be devised. The primary cause therefore is insult.
Secondly, there is a desire to make use of what would otherwise be waste material. Animal food is scarce in the forest. But these tribes do not, as has been asserted of the Cobeu and Arekaine,[152]make war simply with a view to obtaining provision of human flesh. Anthropophagy is the effect, not the cause, of war. But then there remains the fact that meat is hard to come by, and is continually required. The slain and the prisoners provide meat, and atthe same time the degradation, the ignominy of supplying the place of beasts makes vengeance most definite.
PLATE XXXII.WITOTO WAR GATHERING (Some Brummagen Goods)
PLATE XXXII.
WITOTO WAR GATHERING (Some Brummagen Goods)
Finally, and in a still more subsidiary degree, there is the reason most commonly advanced, the supposition that there exists a measure of belief in the assumption of the characteristics of the eaten by the eater; a belief that must give sardonic impulse to the primary reason of all, the desire to degrade the dead. Though this third reason has least weight of any with the Indian, it cannot be entirely absent when the food tabu connected with childbirth is remembered. But I know of no such actually admitted reasons as give rise to anthropophagous feasts elsewhere, as among the Aro, who are said to eat human sacrifices because “those who ate their flesh ate gods, and thus assimilated something of the divine attributes and power.”[153]
The subsidiary reason, that of necessary anthropophagy, has been advanced by some apologists,[154]and with a certain amount of truth. But this reason may be looked upon as very secondary, in my opinion, though, were the food-quest of little importance, there might be less cannibalism. The Indian would, in fact, only eat human flesh ceremonially, as a ritual insult.
From all this it follows that intra-tribal cannibalism would be a criminal outrage by the tribeon itself, and therefore it could never occur that a member of the tribe was eaten, nor would his teeth be extracted even to show an accomplished revenge. This disposes of any such thing as the eating of dead relatives as a sign of respect. These and similar statements are due to misapprehension of facts by the writer, or a too hasty judgment on the part of the explorer.
One other cannibal custom noted by Wallace and recently confirmed by Koch-Grünberg, is unknown to me, that of exhuming the bones of the dead, which are then burnt and the calcined remains made into broth.[155]No such custom ever came under my notice, nor did any of the tribes referto such practices in any way in my hearing. The dried human heads prepared by the Jivaro[156]are also unknown in the regions here dealt with. No heads are mummified in this district. But among some of the tribes south of the main Amazon river this repulsive art is carried on, and specimens of these heads, not more than one-fifth their natural size, have been obtained and brought to Europe.[157]Their exportation is now forbidden by the South American governments, as the supply not unnaturally was apt to coincide with the demand.
Though these reduced heads are unknown to the Issa-Japura tribes, the head is not ignored as a trophy. The fleshy parts, the hair and the teeth are removed, and the skull is hung in the plantation patch to be cleaned by ants and other insect scavengers. These will pick one bare in half an hour. Cleaned, and dried in the sun, this memorial of victory is eventually suspended outside, or on the rafters in the house, over the string that carries the top part of the drums. Bates records how the Mandurucu soaked the heads “in bitter vegetable oil,” and then smoked or sun-dried them,[158]but the Issa-Japura tribes subject their dreadful trophies to no other process than the action of the insects, air, and sun in the plantations. These ghastly evidences of Indian vengeance I have often seen in the houses, and in the plantations, the bare skulls gleaming white like so many gourds on a string. Robuchon also mentions that he found skulls hanging from the ceiling ofmalokas, which the natives were quite ready to barter for a large handful of beads, but this does not tally with my experience.
When a feast is to take place the prisoners are knocked down and despatched, their heads removed to be danced with and eventually dried as trophies. The body is then divided and shared among the feasters. Only the legs and arms, and the fleshy parts of the head, are eaten ceremonially, anything like the intestines, brains, and so forth, is regarded as filthy and never touched, nor is the trunk eaten.The male genital organs, however, are given to the wife of the chief, the only woman who has any share in the feast. The hands and feet are regarded as delicacies, for the same reason that civilised man has a preference for calves’ feet, on account of their gelatinous character.
Each portion of flesh is tied to a stick, and every man, according to Robuchon’s account, drops his share in the pot, and places the stick to which it is tied on the ground beside it whilst he watches till the meat is cooked. I was told that the culinary processes were attended to by the old women of the tribe. The flesh, with the required seasoning of peppers, is boiled over a slow fire, while drums are beaten, and the assembled tribe—adorned with full panoply of paint, necklaces, and feathers, and with the gory heads fixed upon their dancing staves—dance round singing a wild song of victory.
The savage orgy will continue for hours, with outbursts of drum-beating, gratulatory orations, and much drinking. I was told that the festival of drink and dance will go on without intermission for eight days.[159]
Only men eat ceremonially, the women, with the exception of the chief’s wife, having no share in the revolting feast, except on occasions, when perhaps the necessity for animal food—the secondary reason—is the cause of the indulgence. What portions of the bodies are not eaten are thrown into the river. I do not know if this is ceremonial, but it is curious to note that the Indian paradise is up river, not down, where, of course, the refuse is carried by the stream. With some tribes the trunk is buried, or it may be merely thrown into the bush to be devoured by the wild dogs. This latter is not infrequent. These methods of disposal are ceremonial in so much as that they are carried out amid organised tribal jeers and insults.
Flutes are made out of the arm-bones of eaten prisoners, the humerus. The radius and the ulna, fleshless and dry,with the fingers of the hand contracted, are fastened to wooden handles and used to stir thekawana. I have seen these, but they are jealously guarded by their owners, and probably no white man has succeeded in obtaining a specimen.
Among the tribes of the Japura and the Issa the teeth are always carefully retained by the slayer, to be made into a necklace, a visible and abiding token of his completed revenge. This removal of the teeth may be held synonymous with the curse of many savage tribes in reference to their enemies—“Let their teeth be broken.” David himself called upon God to “break the teeth” of his foes. Possibly the reason is a reversion in thought to the time when the teeth were man’s only weapon.
It is certainly worth noting in connection with the anthropophagous practices of these tribes that they have almost no salt. In its natural state it is non-existent throughout the Issa-Japura regions, and can only be obtained with difficulty. It is possible that the salt in human blood may be one of the unrealised attractions that lead these peoples to anthropophagous practices. A craving that can be so dominant as to influence race migration, as the salt-craving may do,[160]can hardly be ignored when dealing with the inhabitants of a country where local conditions offer little or nothing to satisfy it.
Another vice which may very possibly have origin in the same lack of a necessary condiment, and to which these Indians are very prone, is the eating of clay.[161]It is not impossible that the clay may have saline properties; in any case among all these tribes geophagy is very common, especially with the non-cocainists, the women and children. As a rule it occurs among the very poorest—the slave clan,—those who are least able to obtain such a luxury as salt, and it is found among the female children most of all. The latter fact is perhaps because the male child, the potential warrior, is the more carefullyguarded, and would be the more severely beaten if discovered eating dirt. I never came across any man who eat clay, though I know of a boy who suffered from this neurotic appetite. The clay, if it cannot be otherwise obtained, will be scraped from under the fireplace, and it is always eaten secretly.
PLATE XXXIII.1. BORO NECKLACE MADE OF MARMOSET TEETH2. ANDOKE NECKLACE OF HUMAN TEETH
PLATE XXXIII.
1. BORO NECKLACE MADE OF MARMOSET TEETH
2. ANDOKE NECKLACE OF HUMAN TEETH
The Indians look upon geophagy as injurious, but it appears to be ineradicable. I cannot help thinking it must be due to some great “want” in Indian diet, a physical craving that the ordinary food of the tribes does not satisfy. It is instinctive. In the manufacture of coca they add clay. This suggests that if taken in small quantities it may have a neutralising and therefore a beneficial effect on some more or less injurious article of daily food. But it rapidly, and invariably, degenerates into a vice; and the habit appears to have a weakening and wasting effect on the whole body.
In some parts of the Amazons, though not with these tribes, the clay is regularly prepared for use,[162]and the vice is shared by other races than the Indian.[163]Children who suffer from this extraordinary craving will swallow anything of a similar character, earth, wax, and Bates even mentions pitch,[164]but they prefer the clay that is scraped from under the spot where the fire has been burning, probably because the chemical processes induced by the heat render it more soluble, easily pulverised, and hence more actually digestive in its action.
It has been suggested that this disease was introduced into America by negro slaves, and is not indigenous. This is a question for the bacteriological expert rather than the traveller to decide, but as it indubitably exists among tribes that have not come in any contact with negroes or negro-influenced natives it would seem to argue on the face of things that the similarity of vicious tastes was due to similarity of causation, rather than to contamination by evil example, unless the ubiquitous microbe is to be held responsible for this ill also.
The food quest—Indians omnivorous eaters—Tapir and other animals used for food—Monkeys—The peccary—Feathered game—Vermin—Eggs, carrion, and intestines not eaten—Honey—Fish—Manioc—Preparation of cassava—Peppers—The Indian hot-pot—Lack of salt—Indian meals—Cooking—Fruits—Cow-tree milk.
The food quest—Indians omnivorous eaters—Tapir and other animals used for food—Monkeys—The peccary—Feathered game—Vermin—Eggs, carrion, and intestines not eaten—Honey—Fish—Manioc—Preparation of cassava—Peppers—The Indian hot-pot—Lack of salt—Indian meals—Cooking—Fruits—Cow-tree milk.
Food is the dominant problem of an Indian’s existence. The food quest is to him no indefinite sociological issue of future “food control,” but an affair of every day. Living, it would seem, in the midst of plenty, starvation is a frequent visitant in an Amazonian household. They are an improvident folk, as I have already stated, and if food be plentiful give no thought to make provision for the morrow, when there may be none to be had.[165]“None” to the man of the forest has a different significance, a more inclusive meaning, than it has to the white man, for it comprehends everything that by the widest stretch of the imagination can be considered possible for human consumption. And it is well for the Indians that they are omnivorous, for the uncertainty of food supply is the most certain factor of life in the Amazonian bush.[166]
To run through the details of the possible provision of meat: there is, to start with, the tapir,[167]though the Witoto consider much tapir is bad, especially for women. The print of its three toes, with a fourth on the forefeet, is very seldom not to be found in the damp soil by stream andriver. The tapir is in fact plentiful throughout these regions, though, thanks to its protective colouring, it may often not be obtrusively present. The young tapir is flecked and dotted with pale yellow spots on its brown coat, an exact imitation of sunlight on the earth through foliage. Gradually these stripes and spots fade to dull greys, only the fully grown animal is entirely without them, and of a uniform dead slaty colour. Young tapir flesh makes an excellent dish, and is like pork in taste, but it must be eaten very fresh, for the meat will not keep sweet many hours on account of its richness. Therefore if a tapir is killed in the water and sinks,[168]it must be eaten immediately it comes to the surface, that is after some hours, during which the gases have generated in the animal’s stomach, and so caused it to rise. But tapir is always considered unhealthy if eaten too frequently, and at certain seasons of the year is said to be quite uneatable, and if taken gives rise to sickness. An old tapir is tough and heavy eating at the best of times. Tapir flesh dried over a smoky fire is excellent eating, though I have never seen the Indians smoke meat for keeping, even when they found I did so myself. Another meat that has been compared with pork is that of the paca.[169]It is rich and fat, but it is eatable, and not so strong in flavour as the flesh of the capybara,[170]a larger animal, found usually in the vicinity of water. In appearance the capybara is not unlike a long-nosed, crop-eared rabbit, while its cousin the agouti,[171]chestnut-coloured and rough-haired, has a rat-like face on a rabbit’s body, though the flesh has nothing in common with the rabbit’s. Both the paca and the agouti are plentiful in the forest. Of the two the latter is more of a forest-dweller, and seeks the streams only to drink.
A small species of ant-bear is fairly common, but the large ant-eater is not often found. The latter does exist in the Issa-Japura watersheds, according to Indian accounts; and ant-bear is eaten by the Boro, but has too strong andpungent a taste for the white palate. Armadilloes, when obtainable, are baked in the ashes of the fire, as hedgehogs are roasted in England.
Monkey flesh, though usually tough and invariably insipid, is by no means despised, nor must a traveller in these regions be squeamish over it, horribly suggestive as the body of a cooked monkey very certainly is in appearance, for monkey meat most frequently will be the onlyplaton the dinner menu. It is the most ordinary food of the Indian, though monkey is not the easiest game to collect. The wounded or dying animal is very apt to clutch at the boughs in its agony, and the hand will contract in death and the body remain pendant. Even if it drop it will frequently stick in a forked branch out of reach; so that for one monkey eaten probably several are slain. Monkeys of all sorts, however, abound throughout the forest, and also marmosets, pretty little creatures with something of the squirrel about them.[172]Though I never saw the big-bellied monkey mentioned by Spruce,[173]I noticed a large number of spider-monkeys, with tails so prehensile that they serve as additional hands to convey fruit to their mouths. The supply of monkey flesh depends in the first instance on what provender there may be in the neighbourhood for those animals. Monkeys are wanderers, and when they have cleared one part of the forest of fruit and nuts, they migrate to another. The migration of game is a serious matter for the Indian, for all animals here are subject to periodical movements as noted in the previous chapter. It may result in the abandonment of a homestead when scarcity of animal life in a district drives the human inhabitants away.
When it can be obtained a deer, or a sloth, furnishes a variety for the cooking-pot; and then there is the peccary, so dreaded by the Indian. The peccary,[174]the wild pig ofthe forest, lives in small herds, and the reason proffered by the Indians for their fear of the animal is that when one is wounded it sets up a loud cry, and the rest of the herd promptly come to its aid and join in attacking the aggressor. This story is universal among the tribes. The peccary has a deceptively harmless appearance. They have not all tusks, and in no case are the tusks very prominent; yet, so sharp are they, that the fearless and pugnacious creature can inflict a severe wound. The shoulder and leg are the parts prized for eating. I know of no temporary tabu connected with this animal, though it has been said that at times the flesh is unfit for food on account of a gland in the back.[175]This may, however, be the reason why the body is rarely eaten.
Of birds, parrots are the most plentiful, and the toughest. For a hard, tasteless, and unappetising meal commend me to the carcase of that noisy bird. They require to be stewed for quite twenty-four hours, and that over a slow fire, or else the flesh is impossible to eat. Their chief use is in soup. Macaw, curassow,piuriandpanje, mocking-bird, toucan, and egrets all go to the family pepper-pot of the successful hunter, with the turkey of these parts, pigeons, partridges, herons, ducks, and geese; in fact quite a good assortment of feathered fowl.
The frogs that make night hideous with their croaking provide the Indian epicure with one of his most esteemed dishes, for both frogs and snakes are considered delicacies, so that the traveller who pitied tribes like the Botocudo, because insects and reptiles formed a large part of their diet,[176]would simply be wasting his sympathy. Even the white man does not disdain the delicate flesh of the iguana, ugly though that green-bellied, black-ridge-backed reptile is. Turtles are caught and eaten during the dry season when the rivers are low. The native method of capturing them is to turn the unwieldly creature over on its back when asleep on the sand-banks. This renders the turtles perfectly helpless, though a snap from their powerfuljaws will do serious damage.[177]The eggs also are eaten by these tribes, although none of the Issa-Japura tribes will touch birds’ eggs, for they look upon them as fœtal, and therefore unclean.[178]Further it is beast-like, in their opinion, to eat the liver, kidneys, and other intestines of animals, though these may be made into soup or hot-pot. For the same reason the Indian does not touch carrion.[179]But such niceness is outbalanced by tastes that in our eyes would be equally or even more filthy, for the Indian will eat vermin, and head lice are looked upon as quite abon bouche. Hence a scurf-comb is a most important present, and to comb your neighbour’s hair and eat the “bag” an honour and a luxury.[180]They will also eat the grubs of wasps and bees, in fact any larvæ—nothing comes amiss to them.
All the Indians—except the Menimehe, who, as mentioned, keep hives in their houses,—collect wild honey from the hollow trees and other places where the bees nest in the bush. Sometimes these insects make nests of a considerable size, that look like lobster pots full of black pitch hanging on the tree-trunks. The large cells are full of a thin honey that is used by the natives to mix with various drinks. The Indians are very fond of honey, and smoke the bees out to secure it. Bees are more common than wasps in these parts, and fortunately are less dangerous.
Fish abound in all the rivers, though like the plants and animals they are smaller in the upper reaches than in the lower Amazon valleys. Robuchon gave the following as found in the Issa: Silurios of all kinds, that is to sayplatysomas,planiceps,platyrhynchos,leopardus, and the littlecaudirus(Serasalmys),Pygo,Cebras,Piraga(D. costatus et carinatus); also many kinds of needle fish and shark-toothedfish. There is any quantity of skate in the Issa, though its power to inflict a nasty wound does not recommend it to the naked Indian fisherman. Some of the fish are very good eating; none better than theuaracu, which is said to feed on laurel berries.[181]
It is when one turns to the vegetable world that one finds the staple food of the Amazonian native. The manioc is to the Indian the chief necessary of life. The sweet manioc,[182]although known to these Issa-Japura tribes, is never planted, because it is not appreciated by them. They prefer the poisonous species which, as its botanical nameManihot utilissimaimplies, can be put to a multiplicity of uses. To eliminate the poison and render it fit for food, the manioc is subjected to several processes. So far as I could observe, or learn by leading questions, these are roughly as follows:
The women bring the brown tubers of the manioc in baskets from the plantation. On their way up they stop by the river and cleanse the soil from the roots, which are like a small beet in appearance, but white when peeled. The manioc after it has been washed and soaked for a short time is next scraped by means of a sharp wooden knife in order to peel off the thin adhesive skin, similar in substance to that of a potato, but if anything thinner. Sometimes the women instead of using a wooden knife simply scrape the skin off with their teeth. The peeled roots are washed in the river again, and taken up to the house. Each root is then cut longitudinally into three or four sections, which are put in a bowl near the fire and left to soak for twenty-four hours. When, at the end of this time, the manioc is sufficiently softened, they place a piece or two of rotten manioc in the bowl with the fresh stuff. The object of this is to promote fermentation and thus to extract the poison from the fresh root.
The next process is to mash the manioc, and for this purpose it is all—both fresh and rotten—removed from the pan and grated into a large wooden trough, with the special implement that has black palm-spines inserted in the softwood for teeth. The grated pulp is removed from the trough and put into a cylindrical palm-cane wringer, the cassava-squeezer which is used by the Boro, the Andoke, the Resigero, the Okaina, and all tribes to the north. The Witoto and other tribes on the south use a long rectangular palm-fibre wringer, which is twisted to form a cylinder in the same way as a puttee is wound round the leg. In this elastic cylinder it is compressed till all the poisonous juice has been drained away, when the remainder, a coarse kind of flour, is placed in an open pan and left to get thoroughly dry. Afterwards it is rubbed between the hands to make it finer.[183]
The next operation is to sift this flour through a basket sieve. Any coarse stuff that does not rub through the sieve is thrown away. The fine residue is baked in a clay platter, and should be turned over with the hands once during the process. No water is added to the flour before it is baked.
This flour is kneaded with water, put in a pan and cooked over the fire. The result, the cassava bread, is leathery and tough, and when one speaks of “bread” unleavened bread must be understood. It is never allowed to brown, the outer crust is merely hardened, and as a result the cassava cake has always a raw uncooked taste. But I found that if one of these native cakes were cut in small pieces and fried in animal fat till crisply toasted, it was quite good eating, better if anything than ordinary bread.
The Boro leave the starch in the cassava flour, so their bread is more sustaining than Witoto bread, as Witoto women remove the starch and use it for other purposes.[184]Boro bread is also thicker, and when pulled apart is of a stringy consistency.