PLATE XXXIV.BORO WOMEN MAKING CASSAVA
PLATE XXXIV.
BORO WOMEN MAKING CASSAVA
Spruce mentions a manioc oven,[185]but this is quite unknown to me. All the tribes I visited cooked their cassava on large earthenware plates on an open fire. Nor could they prop their cooking utensils on stones, for—as has been noted—stones there are none in these districts. The pot is put simply on the three logs that compose the fire where their ends meet. The hot embers in the centre give plenty of steady heat, and if more be required the pot must be placed on a tripod of branches and the embers fanned with a palm-leaf to a flame.
Among the Andoke manioc is peeled by the women with their teeth, and then washed. The roots are pulped with a grater, and the starch is washed out by adding water to them in a basket suspended on a tripod over a calabash. The partially prepared manioc is left till required for use and will keep in this state for a week at a time. When they wish to use it the grated pulp is strained in a cassava-squeezer, then mixed with starch and sifted through a sieve. The fine stuff is baked immediately, and the water that was drained off in the wringer is boiled up at once to make a sweet-tasting drink. The starch will keep for a month.
Among the Boro and Witoto the manioc water is boiled till it thickens, and is then used as a sauce into which the cassava is dipped before it is eaten. Another way of eating cassava is to dip it in soup. The Boro on the Japura concoct a sauce of the consistency of paste by seasoning the manioc water with peppers and fish.[186]
Though the tuber is the most valuable portion of the plant it is not the only part used for food. The leaves may be eaten as a vegetable. They are boiled till quite soft; pounded very fine with a pestle; fish, worms, frogs, ants and peppers are added as seasoning, and this brew is eaten with cassava bread and with meat. Another method of preparation is to take the leaves and cook them in the water squeezed out of the roots in the wringer. This sauceis boiled in an earthenware pot suspended from a cross-beam, or placed like the earthenware pan on a triangle of sticks, over a slow fire, until the leaves become a paste. This is carried in a palm-leaf as an emergency ration by an Indian when going into the bush.
Cassava, then, is the Indian’s “staff of life.” Its complement is the hot-pot, or pepper-pot, which is a “generous” soup supercharged with meat that forms the staple, while the liver and so forth are added to enrich the brew. It is a standing dish with the aborigines. Each family has a big pot that simmers constantly over the special fires. Into this go all things, and it is replenished daily from the proceeds of the kill. Portions of animals that may not be eaten—blood, brains, intestines—can be utilised in the stew; and everything is very highly qualified with peppers, the chief stimulant in native diet.
Wallace has suggested that the excessive use of peppers is due to the lack of salt.[187]This very serious need is not without considerable influence on the Indian, and it is possible—as has been suggested—that it is at the root of more than over-indulgence in pepper. Mineral salt is not to be had,[188]except by barter, throughout the middle Issa-Japura regions; and what little the tribes can obtain is chiefly secured by burning certain plants with saline qualities.[189]
On account of its rarity salt is much sought after, and a present of salt is always highly appreciated.
PLATE XXXV.WITOTO CASSAVA-SQUEEZERBORO MANIOC-GRATER WITH PALM-SPINE POINTS
PLATE XXXV.
WITOTO CASSAVA-SQUEEZER
BORO MANIOC-GRATER WITH PALM-SPINE POINTS
The Indian feeds at sunrise after he has had his drink of “tea” and his first bath. This morning meal is an informal one of cold cassava cake, and any meat that may have been left uneaten overnight, or a dip in the hot-pot. He eats sparingly, and never takes much of a meal if a day’s march or a hunt is in prospect. Nor does he carry foodwith him, unless he be going on a journey. Coca, which of course is but a stimulant, is sufficient sustenance in his opinion. Still, he will eat a little at any time it may be possible, and there is usually no lack of fruit for the taking in the bush.
The great meal of the day is towards sundown when the hunt is over, the quarry killed and cooked.[190]Then all the men, squatting round their private family fires in the big house, help themselves from their hot-pot and eat to the limit of its contents. An Indian will not take a bite at his food; he tears whatever he is eating into small pieces with his fingers. Among the Issa-Japura tribes, as with the Tukana, men and women do not eat together, and the children feed with the women. None of the tribes have any special observances or purifications before or after eating, so far as I am aware, nor are there any general restrictions, except so far as carrion and the intestines are concerned. But even these may at a pinch be made use of without prejudice, by resorting to the simple expedient of blowing, or rubbing with a magic stone, the two antidotes for all evils with the Indian. There are temporary food tabu for women, and certain prohibitions for children. These will be dealt with later.
The usual method of cooking is to rest the pot as described on the fire-logs themselves. Sometimes the pot is placed, like the pan for baking cassava, on lumps of clay, or on a triangle of sticks roughly made for the occasion. The sticks must be long in comparison to the height from the ground that is required, and are not tied, but merely so adjusted that each supports and locks the others. Such a tripod makes a firm seat, though never employed by the Indians for that purpose. I have never seen pots hung. The pot is covered with a single leaf, and the soup is stirred with any stick that comes to hand at the moment; there are no special ones, nor are any fashioned for use as ladles. Meat is almost invariably put in the hot-pot, but occasionally it is toasted over the fire.
When the women have cooked the food the men help themselves from the pot; they are not waited upon by their women. An Indian will help himself from the hot-pot at any time the fancy may seize him, or, for that matter, from any hot-pot, so long as the owner thereof is present. The tribal or chief’s fire carries the tribal hot-pot, which is open to all, as all contribute to it, at least all the unmarried warriors must do so. This is the hot-pot which always remains, and the fire that never dies out. The family hot-pot and fire is the concern of each individual family only.
Fruit is to be had in plenty, and throughout the year in this country of endless summer. Not being a botanist, and aware that some of the most tempting fruits held latent poison under an alluring exterior, I was most chary of eating fruit unknown to me, and never touched any until quite satisfied of its wholesomeness from its effects on the Indians; nor, mindful of the fact that the Indian will, and apparently can, eat anything, would I venture to eat many fruits the Indians partook of as a matter of course. Sweet and ripened fruit is rarely eaten by them; they prefer a bitter taste, and, as mentioned in connection with sugar-cane, have no particular use for anything sweet. The Indian will gather fruit and bring it to the house, though the usual custom is to pluck and eat it in the bush. So far as I was concerned especially, it was brought in as a present to denote good-will.
One fruit the Indians grow in the plantations resembles and tastes like grapes.[191]It is very plentiful, particularly in the old plantations, and the Indian will often return to one of these in order to obtain this fruit. Another fruit, also found growing in old plantations, is the colour of a lemon, and the size and shape of an orange. It is very good eating, extremely sweet when ripe, with huge black pips, and the part immediately under the skin is gummy, like rubber latex, and sticks to the mouth.
A fruit we knew as the mauve berry is found at the top of trees. In size it approximates to a red currant, and itgrows in large bunches. The colour is a light pinky mauve. It is intensely sweet, and according to popular report has an intoxicating effect upon the eater. It certainly appears to have very heady properties.
Various palms furnish palatable fruits. There is a small edible palm from which the Indians strip the bark after they have cut it down, and remove the cylinder of hardened sap which is of the same consistency as a hard woody apple. It is heavy but rich-flavoured and good eating. Then there is the cabbage palm, not to mention the pupunha.
Nuts and seeds abound. There is a large oval seed in a fleshy envelope that birds feed on freely, and another fruit with a large stone is the wild alligator pear. The stone of this is more than one-half the size of the whole fruit. It is delicious in taste, and is looked upon by both whites and natives as a great delicacy. In shape it resembles a pear, and in colour it varies from green to yellow or russet.
Drinks, drugs, and poisons: their use and preparation—Unfermented drinks—Caapi—Fermented drinks—Cahuana—Coca: its preparation, use, and abuse—Parica—Tobacco—Poison and poison-makers.
Drinks, drugs, and poisons: their use and preparation—Unfermented drinks—Caapi—Fermented drinks—Cahuana—Coca: its preparation, use, and abuse—Parica—Tobacco—Poison and poison-makers.
If the Indian eats but little during the day, he drinks to excess whenever opportunity offers. In the early morning a beverage somewhat akin to tea, but colourless, made from an infusion of bitter herbs, is taken. It has some tonic properties, and when I drank it seemed always to have a slight taste of peppermint. This herb infusion is the first meal of the day. It is drunk out of half-gourds, after the morning bath, before the members of the household disperse to their varied avocations. I am under the impression that this decoction is made from a species of grass, and not theIlex paraguayensisfrom whichmate, or Paraguay tea, is made. It is probably the lemon grass mentioned by Simson.[192]The Indians also scrape the seeds of thecapana, mix in some cassava flour, and wrap up the mass in plantain leaves. This is left to ferment in water, till it is the colour of saffron; then it is dried in the sun. This is drunk as a bitter tea in the morning when diluted in water.
The Indian drinks enormous quantities of water, or unfermented liquor, at times, and afterwards can abstain like a camel for a considerable period. He never drinks when eating, but afterwards. At a feast or a dance when he is unable to drink more he simply pokes his fingers down his throat, with the result that room is made for renewed doses of his non-alcoholic beverage.
PLATE XXXVI.ONE OF THE INGREDIENTS OF THE FAMOUS CURARE POISON
PLATE XXXVI.
ONE OF THE INGREDIENTS OF THE FAMOUS CURARE POISON
The principal unfermented drinks made by these tribesare prepared from manioc, and from various fruits. The first is made from the grated manioc by merely squeezing out and boiling the water, and is thus a by-product of cassava in the making. This leaves a sweet drink, which is certainly insipid and is not considered to be healthy. The moisture squeezed out of the “squeezer” is boiled and boiled again into a rather thick drink. This is used more as a sauce into which cassava is dipped than as a “clean” drink. It still contains, I believe, a minute percentage of hydrocyanic acid.
Another beverage is prepared from roasted pines. The juice is squeezed out, and this liquid extract is ready to drink without further process. Plantains, bananas, and other fruits, grated and mixed with starch obtained from the manioc tubers, are boiled and flavoured with local spices to make another concoction. A thick yellow liquid prepared from thePatanapalm is the national drink of all these Indians, except the Menimehe and Kuretu, who make fermented drinks from pine fruit. ThePatanafruit is boiled and broken with the hand in water, so as to mix up the pulp and allow the heavy skins to fall to the bottom of the pot. These and any fleshy remainder are strained away in a sieve, and cassava flour is added to the liquid, which is drunk while warm. This drink is known aspatana-yukisein lingoa-geral. There is a vegetable milk that is consumed by the Indians, which I take to be the cow-tree milk mentioned by other travellers.[193]I do not think it is very plentiful in these regions, and for my own part never saw nor tasted it. It is a creamy, sticky fluid, obtained by lacerating the bark, that can be drunk when fresh. I am certain these tribes do not use it for any cooking purposes, and do not think it is ever stored in their houses, but is only drunk in the forest from the tree.
There are intoxicating drinks among the Menimehe and the tribes north of the Japura, but among some of these northern tribes the men drinkcaapi,[194]which is strongly erotic.I would suggest thatcaapiis unknown to the tribes south of the Japura, except probably to their medicine-men. It would account for the frenzy of the latter when diagnosing disease, and so forth, which quite corresponds with the descriptions given by Spruce of the effect ofcaapi.[195]
The plant from whichcaapiis prepared is grown in plantations by Indians on the Uaupes and Issanna rivers,[196]and by other Rio Negro tribes. The drink is made from the stem, mixed in a mortar by the Uaupes Indians with the roots of the painted caapi.[197]The pounded mass is rubbed through a sieve, and water is then added. Women are not even allowed to touch the vessel that contains thecaapi. This intoxicating liquor is unknown to me, but I heard that the Karahone and other tribes had this strong drink. Though known on the Uaupes to all the tribes it is said to have only a confined use on the Rio Negro.
Other drinks that are to be found north of the Japura are prepared from fermented maize, and manioc.[198]Caxiri, or manioc beer, is used by the Menimehe, the Ticano and Kuretu. Tribes on the Napo drinkmasato, which is also made from manioc that has been partly masticated by the women and then left to ferment.[199]They make another fermented drink from bananas, but pines are principally employed as they contain more sugar for fermenting purposes.
Before a dance the women of the Issa-Japura region prepare great store ofkawana, a drink made from the yellow pulp of a pear-shaped fruit,[200]not unlike a mango, with a large black seed in the centre.[201]The liquid is stored in the large vessels made by the primitive process of stripping off a sheet ofbark and setting it end up on the hard ground. These are usually to be found at the chief’s end of the tribal house. One of these impromptu vats will hold as much as thirty gallons.
By far the most important of the stimulants taken by these peoples are the preparations made from the leaves of the common coca shrub.[202]Coca is the mescal of the Indian,[203]and possibly a heritance from the Inca invaders of bygone centuries.[204]The use of coca is habitual, not intermittent. An Indian will take as much as two ounces a day.[205]All Indians use it, the Bara in especial being heroic coca-takers.
To prepare coca for use the sage-green leaves are carefully picked and fire-dried. They are then pounded with other ingredients in mortars made from small tree-trunks. The pestle shown in the illustration is made of mahogany. Beside the coca leaf the Indian pounds up lime that is procured by reducing to ashes certain palm leaves,[206]baked clay that is scraped from underneath the fire, and some powdered cassava flour. Whether these leaf-ashes are a form of calcium I do not know. In the Sierra powdered coca is mixed with pulverised unslaked lime, or with the ashes of theChenopodium Quinoa. As this latter is one of the distinctive Sierra flora, I presume the Indians of the forest have found some substitute in the bush. The drug is carried in a bag, or beaten-bark pouch, that is worn suspended round the neck. The clay and palm-leaf ashes certainly neutralise the bitterness of the pure leaf, and it is possible that in these foreign ingredients the Indians have discovered an antidote, if such there be, to the worst effects of the drug.
The Indian by means of a folded leaf shoots the powder into the cheeks on one or both sides. This when moistened forms a hard ball, and with such a wad stuffed betweenthe cheek and the teeth he can go without sleep, food, or drink, for several days. Coca is not swallowed, but gradually absorbed and passed down with the saliva.[207]
As to cocainism, we know that the Indians are veritable cocaino-maniacs, or rather coca-maniacs. It is a matter of great regret to me that I was unable to make observations—may I say psycho-medical observations—on Indians under the influence of this drug. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it was not possible to observe one not to some extent under its influence, for it must be remembered that the use of the drug is so continuous that it is difficult—one has hardly the opportunity—to differentiate. Whether coca permanently injures the higher brain centres, as has been suggested,[208]is unknown to me, as unknown as the Indians themselves before they developed the heroic use of the drug. The evidences of its effect are contradictory in the extreme, and vary in individual cases. In my own case hunger and thirst were eliminated, but I was unable to establish a tolerance for the drug, and after many vain attempts gave it up, except when food was scarce and anything was preferable to the pangs of hunger. I was certainly able to make greater efforts without food, but its effects were evanescent in the extreme, and were soon followed by acute vomiting and cramp in the stomach. The nausea may have been due to the foreign substances with which the powdered leaves are mixed and not to the coca, but on that point only a trained opinion could be of value.
Even on the question of its influence on the appetite it is difficult to give any clear ruling. My own experience was that it utterly destroyed the appetite. Possibly the Indians’“tolerance” accounted for the fact that despite the use of the drug they invariably eat heartily when opportunity permits.
The dilation of the pupil caused by the use of the drug is marked in the Indian, and gives a curious expression to the eye. On account of the darkness of the iris this is not so markedly noticeable as would be the case with grey-eyed peoples.
The Tuyuka and other tribes north of the Japura use as a stimulantparicaorniopo, a wonderful snuff which is a strong narcotic, and very similar in its effects to coca.[209]It is made from the dried seeds of a mimosa,[210]and, like coca, is mixed with quicklime,[211]and baked clay.[212]The seeds are roasted, and then pounded in a shallow wooden mortar, and the snuff when made is packed in snail-shells[213]and is inhaled through hollow bird-bones inserted in both nostrils. It is used for curative purposes by the Uaupes Indians.[214]
The Menimehe and Yahuna tribes take snuff, but they neither smoke nor lick tobacco. The Uaupes Indians smoke enormous cigars,[215]but none of the tribes south of the Japura smoke their tobacco; it is only licked. After the tobacco leaves are gathered they are soaked, and then pounded in a mortar by the men. Tobacco, it must not be forgotten, is tabu to the women in any form, and it may be noted here that tabu on drink and drugs is far stricter than any tabu on food. The latter are intermittent, enforced only in special cases, or at certain times or ages; but the tabu on coca, aya-huasca, caapi and tobacco is always bindingon all women. A little thickened cassava starch is added, which makes the mixture into a stiff dark liquid, to be used either privately or ceremonially, as already described. The tobacco-pot shown in the accompanying illustration is made of a thick and hard nut-shell, with apparently natural holes that are stopped with pitch.[216]Two artificial holes have been bored through for the string. It is about two and a half inches long, by one and five-eighths wide. The oval hole at the top is five-eighths of an inch across, and through it the point of a stick is inserted when the tobacco is to be taken.
The ingenuity with which the Indians prepare cassava flour, their staple provender, from a poisonous root, though notable, is ordinary in comparison with the intricate processes which the poor Indian’s “untutored mind”[217]has elaborated for the preparation of various poisons. Natural poisons abound in the forest. There is one tree known as the poison-tree and credited with most deadly properties.[218]On the Issa and Japura an arrow-poison is made from putrefying animal matter mixed with strychnos. Good poison is very rare, and very much in demand. The most potent preparation is made by the Karahone, who have great knowledge of poisons and are by far the cleverest toxicologists. The Menimehe understand poisons to some extent, but are not the equals of the Karahone, from whom most of the tribes obtain their poisons by barter. But poison of some sort is always manufactured by every medicine-man.
PLATE XXXVII.INCISED GOURDS1. TOBACCO POT (WITOTO)2.””(BORO)3. RATTLE (OKAINA)4.”(BORO)5.”(WITOTO)
PLATE XXXVII.
INCISED GOURDS
The most important poison is thecurare.[219]It is made from two plants, called by the Witotoramuandpanirespectively.[220]The complicated recipe is a treasured hereditary possession.[221]The wood of theStrychnos toxiferais themost necessary ingredient in the manufacture ofcurare. It is pounded in a mortar, and the sap, mixed with water, is strained and boiled with peppers, ants, and a variety of more or less noxious material.[222]When it is sufficiently inspissated it is put into the small pots, about an inch and a half in diameter, in which these Indians carry it round their necks, in readiness to smear on the palm-spine points of their darts, arrows, and javelins.[223]
Small families—Birth tabu—Birth customs—-Infant mortality—Infanticide—Couvade—Name-giving—Names—Tabu on names—Childhood—Lactation—Food restrictions—Child-life and training—Initiation.
Small families—Birth tabu—Birth customs—-Infant mortality—Infanticide—Couvade—Name-giving—Names—Tabu on names—Childhood—Lactation—Food restrictions—Child-life and training—Initiation.
Though so recognised an authority as Bates is responsible for the statement that the fecundity of the Amazonian Indians is of a low degree,[224]because as many as four children in one family are rarely found, it is open to doubt whether he and his successors have not in this instance confounded effect and cause. It is certainly true that the normal number for a family is but two or three, yet that this is not a question of fertility the high percentage of pregnant women would seem to disprove.[225]The numbers are remarkable in view of the fact that husbands abstain from any intercourse with their wives, not only during pregnancy but also throughout the period of lactation—far more prolonged with them than with Europeans. The result is that two and a half years between each child is the minimum difference of age, and in the majority of cases it is even greater.
The main reason why there are these limited families, is, in my opinion, not a diminishing birth-rate, but an enormously high percentage of infant mortality. The test of the survival of the fittest is applied to the young Indian at the very moment of his birth, for the infant is immediately submerged in the nearest stream, a custom that easily leads to infanticide in the case of an unwanted child, or one with any apparent deformity.
Another accepted opinion with which I am not in agreement is that these girls become mothers at a very early age, and that when only fourteen years old themselves may have already had two children, as is said of tribes on the Tikie. My experience has been that these peoples do not arrive at the age of physical maturity even so early as white races, probably owing to lack of nourishing food and perhaps in some degree to the retarding and depressing effect of the forest environment.[226]
These Indians share the belief of many peoples of the lower cultures that the food eaten by the parents—to some degree of both parents—will have a definite influence upon the birth, appearance, or character of the child.[227]Before the birth of an infant the mother has to submit to certain definite food restrictions, which vary with different tribes in some slight degree, but are all rooted in the same idea. Among some tribes all animal food is forbidden to any woman throughout the entire period of pregnancy, and this precludes her from share in the tribal or family hot-pot. Among the tribes of the Tikie and elsewhere tapir flesh is prohibited, not so much because it is considered unhealthy, which on account of its richness it certainly would be,[228]but because if a mother partook of any it would be looked upon as tantamount to allotting the visible characteristics of the animal to the unborn child. From a like cause these Indians imagine that the child would have the teeth of a rodent did the mother eat capybara during the months of her pregnancy; it would be spotted like a paca if she ate that beast; or, if she ate bush-deer flesh, which is tabu to all women after marriage among the Kuretu-language group,the venison would make the infant deformed. Peccary is tabu among many tribes, and with the Witoto during the last month of pregnancy the mother’s food is limited to one kind of small fish, with cassava and fruits.
The belief that ill will befall the unborn infant if the mother do not regularly adhere to dietary laws is strictly held by both men and women. To give birth to a deformed or disfigured child is the most disgraceful calamity that can happen to any woman, and therefore all possible precautions must be taken, and any animals reputed to possess undesirable characteristics are naturally forbidden, lest the unborn child should in any way resemble the appearance or take the characteristics of the animal concerned. The prohibitions are, therefore, definitely tabus, inasmuch as they are believed to entail the penalty of deformed or malignant progeny upon the transgressor, a belief very binding on people who hold that to some extent the consumer absorbs the characteristics of aught that is eaten.
Nor do all these tabus concern the mother only, for the father also among some of the tribes must abstain from meat a short time before, as well as after, the child’s birth.[229]This recognition of a definite connection between the father and the child, a more intimate connection than civilised peoples recognise, is to be noted, and should be borne in mind when considering the curious custom of the couvade, which must be recorded anon.
Whatever the weather may be no accouchement ever takes place within the house.[230]When birth is imminent the expectant mother will go out into the forest with some trusted older woman, or alone, for the Indian wife is quite willing to take full responsibility without any further aid. Among some of the tribes north of the Japura the mother is accompanied to the forest, and assisted while there byother matrons, who have their faces painted red. But the Boro and the Witoto women go unattended or with but one female attendant. Neither the husband nor any other man is permitted to be present whatever the circumstances.
The shelter of the forest gained, the woman makes a small clearing, and spreads a bed of leaves on which she sits down.[231]Her trouble is not of long duration. When the child is born she ties the umbilical cord with fibre-string, and then bites it through,[232]or cuts it with a wooden knife. This done she at once proceeds to the nearest water and bathes, after which she returns to the house. She wears no covering or bandage.
The infant is taken with her to the river and is washed and ducked. If it survive this drastic treatment its body is covered with what the Witoto callhittagei, that is, rubber latex, over which a brown or red clay is smeared. Hardenburg relates that he was told this was done by the Witoto “in order to keep it warm.”[233]I have often seen the process carried out, but the warmth theory never occurred to me, and none of the Indians suggested it as a possible reason or gave any explanation of the custom.
As I have said, with all these tribes infant mortality is very great. The custom of submerging the new-born child undoubtedly causes an immense increase in the number of deaths. This led me to inquire why they persisted in such a fatal course, but one and all said that if the child was not strong enough to survive it had better die. This is the Indian attitude, and explains much of the seemingly ignorant or harsh treatment to which young children are subjected.
Indians do not care to have large families. To support a number of children would often be a matter of grave difficulty.[234]But fœticide is not practised, and abortion isprobably unknown except to the medicine-men, who would only procure it for their own purposes or protection. Should destruction for any reason be desired, the birth would be allowed to take place, and the child afterwards killed “accidentally” during the subsequent lustration. Bastard children are undoubtedly destroyed, and the second of twins is left in the bush by the mother before immersion; or, among some of the tribes of the Kuretu, if the babies are of both sexes it is the girl that is killed, whichever may have been born first. Otherwise they kill the second, because it is obvious that the second is the transgressor, it had no right to come, and it is a disgrace to bear twins, as these people hold the opinion that to be delivered of more than one child at a birth is to lower themselves to the level of the beasts. The act of killing is performed by the mother secretly, at the parturition if possible, and the body would be concealed by her in the bush.[235]
PLATE XXXVIII.KARAHONE CHILDBORO WOMEN CARRYING CHILDREN
PLATE XXXVIII.
KARAHONE CHILD
BORO WOMEN CARRYING CHILDREN
The act is not due merely to cruel or callous disregard of infant life. If to be sickly and deformed is an undesirable state, the Indian sees no reason why any unfortunate being should be condemned to live in such a condition; and, moreover, the sufferer must handicap others as well as itself in the strenuous race of life. Therefore deformed children are never seen. A child that is discovered to be in any degree abnormal or sickly at birth is allowed to die on immersion, by the very simple method of holding it under water till life is extinct. If, however, the deformity is not discovered till after the child has been brought to the tribal house, the medicine-man is called in to deal with the case. If the mischief be beyond his power to remedy, he declares that it was caused by some evil spiritand may work ill to the tribe,[236]so as a precautionary measure the wretched little creature is taken out and left exposed in the forest, or some tribes go as far as to bury it alive.[237]This is done with no intention to cause unnecessary suffering, but simply that as it had to die it might as well die by suffocation as by any other means.
If there were an epidemic of deformed or sickly cases among the newly born it would most probably lead to a tribal blood-feud, as it would be most assuredly put down to the evil intention and craft of some enemy. Who the latter might be it is the province of the medicine-man to determine.
Except in the above instances intentional infanticide is not common. Unintentionally it would seem to be very frequent. It might further be resorted to in time of famine, if lactation should be difficult or if the mother were to die.[238]I know of one case where a child on the death of the mother was thrown to the dogs—wild dogs are the voracious beasts of the forest. On another occasion the infant was buried with its dead mother, though this would not have been done had any one been willing to adopt it. Both these cases occurred among the Witoto.
Koch-Grünberg found that among the Tuyuka the houses have a small chamber at the end where a man and his wife stay after the birth of a child. There is no such thing among these tribes.
The day after her delivery the mother presents the infant to its father, and then, as though nothing had happened, goes back to her work in the plantation, and spends the day toiling in the fields as usual. She will only return to feed the child at night. But the father remains in the house with the baby, for he in his turn must submit to definite tabus, the restrictions and prohibitions of that curious custom known as the couvade, “a live growth of savagepsychology,” as E. B. Tylor calls it.[239]The baby lies in a hammock and the father lounges in his, and there, with some tribes, he will remain for from three to six weeks.[240]The Witoto are more casual in this observance than the Boro. Colour seems to be given to the theory that couvade marks a stage of emergence from matrilineal to patrilineal organisation, by the fact that among those tribes where relationship is counted on the father’s side couvade is apparently practised far less strictly, and only in a limited form, as compared with the descriptions of couvade given by other writers among tribes such as those Sir Everard im Thurn studied in British Guiana, where definitely matrilocal customs are still extant.[241]But, however limited the restrictions, in all cases the father abstains from hunting until the child’s navel is healed. He must not touch his hunting weapons even,[242]nor may he eat the flesh of any animal that has been hunted, which, as regards animal food, is practically the same tabu as exists for the mother before the child’s birth. Fish and cassava form his diet, but coca is not tabu.
Yet, despite his enforced deprivations, the Indian father enjoys himself. He has, in fact, a very easy time of it, which may go to confirm him in his quite genuine belief that his actions are of substantial benefit to the child.[243]Friends will assemble in numbers to express their joy at thehappy event; they will even come from great distances for this purpose. There is much talk, and all exchange coca and lick tobacco. In the midst of the congratulations the medicine-man will arrive to deliver his opinion, given after due consideration, of the points of the new-born. Congratulations will be interspersed with numerous ventral grunts, as signs of assent and approval, with the decisions enunciated, on the part of the proud parent or his visitors. The orations will be interrupted by the ceremonial licking of tobacco between the medicine-man, the father, and his visitors.
After eight days the child will be named by the medicine-man and the assembled family. The name given among all these tribes is generally that of the father’s father, if the child be a boy. With the exception of further ceremonial tobacco-taking there is no ritual.
Boys are called as a rule by the names of animals or birds;[244]girls are given the names of plants and flowers. For instance, among the Boro a common masculine name isPimwe, which is the name of a white water-bird; orEifoikeamong the Witoto,eifoikebeing their name for the turkey-buzzard. My own name among the Witoto wasItoma, which means the sun, that sound being the nearest to Thomas that they knew. The Boro called mePimwe, the white ibis, on account of my white bath-gown.
No Indian ever uses his name, nor is he called by it when spoken to by his companions.[245]One will speak to another astanyabe,[246]that is to say, “brother,” orIero,[246]Moma,[247]that is, “father”; in the case of a woman it would beGwaro,[246]Rinyo,[247]which is “mother,” orTanyali,[246]“sister.” They will never address each other in more direct fashion, and if one of the speakers is not a member of the household, and therefore no relationship exists between them, they will make use of some expression equivalent to our “comrade,”“man,” “girl,” or other generality. The Boro, when they wish to call the attention of a man, cryMupe!of a woman,Muije!As I obviously stood in no relationship to any of my companions, the usual congenital term of address could not be used in my case, and if I chose to run the risk of giving my enemies power over me through knowledge of my name that was my own affair.
This objection to divulging the name is too widespread to need comment.[248]The Indian of the Upper Amazons is on this point not so far removed from our own old-fashioned country-folk.[249]But at the same time, though they would not divulge their own names they were invariably most curious to get hold of mine, and made great efforts to pronounce it.Whiffenawas the usual outcome of such attempts. I also found that the Indians had no objection to making use of any name I might give to them, presumably because, not being their true name, no magical dangers were possibly incurred through its use, such as would be probable did I call one of them by his or her own proper name.[250]
Among some tribes the name of a deceased person will be given to some surviving relative.[251]This is looked upon as an honour to be bestowed on the greatest friend of the deceased,[252]and thereafter this new name is considered his private name, and the one originally his thenceforth ceases to concern him in any way.