Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has sown thepika[325]in theemie?[326]Wife.I have sown thepikalong, long ago.Themaica[327]is sown with young shoots.Chorus.We have sown thepikalong, long ago.Themaicais sown with young shoots.Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has cut thepikain theemie?Wife.I, even I myself, have cut themaica.Themaicais cut in theemie.Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have cut themaica.Themaicais cut in theemie.Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has soaked themaicafor themao?[328]Wife.I, even I myself, have soaked themaica.I have soaked themaicafor themao.Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have soaked themaica.We have soaked themaicafor themao.
Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has sown thepika[325]in theemie?[326]Wife.I have sown thepikalong, long ago.Themaica[327]is sown with young shoots.Chorus.We have sown thepikalong, long ago.Themaicais sown with young shoots.Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has cut thepikain theemie?Wife.I, even I myself, have cut themaica.Themaicais cut in theemie.Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have cut themaica.Themaicais cut in theemie.Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has soaked themaicafor themao?[328]Wife.I, even I myself, have soaked themaica.I have soaked themaicafor themao.Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have soaked themaica.We have soaked themaicafor themao.
Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has sown thepika[325]in theemie?[326]
Chief.
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has sown thepika[325]in theemie?[326]
Wife.I have sown thepikalong, long ago.Themaica[327]is sown with young shoots.
Wife.
I have sown thepikalong, long ago.
Themaica[327]is sown with young shoots.
Chorus.We have sown thepikalong, long ago.Themaicais sown with young shoots.
Chorus.
We have sown thepikalong, long ago.
Themaicais sown with young shoots.
Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has cut thepikain theemie?
Chief.
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has cut thepikain theemie?
Wife.I, even I myself, have cut themaica.Themaicais cut in theemie.
Wife.
I, even I myself, have cut themaica.
Themaicais cut in theemie.
Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have cut themaica.Themaicais cut in theemie.
Chorus.
We, even we ourselves, have cut themaica.
Themaicais cut in theemie.
Chief.I am old and weak and my belly craves food.Who has soaked themaicafor themao?[328]
Chief.
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has soaked themaicafor themao?[328]
Wife.I, even I myself, have soaked themaica.I have soaked themaicafor themao.
Wife.
I, even I myself, have soaked themaica.
I have soaked themaicafor themao.
Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have soaked themaica.We have soaked themaicafor themao.
Chorus.
We, even we ourselves, have soaked themaica.
We have soaked themaicafor themao.
The whole process of growing, harvesting, and preparing the manioc for cassava is thus related, then the chief will ask:
Who has made themaothat I may eat?That my belly may swell withmao?Wife.I, even I, have made themao,And my belly will swell withmao.Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have made themao.We will all eat that our bellies may swell,That our bellies may swell withmao.Chief.Ina? ina?[329]that your bellies are swollen?Who has eaten themaofrom thepika—Thepikain theemie?
Who has made themaothat I may eat?That my belly may swell withmao?Wife.I, even I, have made themao,And my belly will swell withmao.Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have made themao.We will all eat that our bellies may swell,That our bellies may swell withmao.Chief.Ina? ina?[329]that your bellies are swollen?Who has eaten themaofrom thepika—Thepikain theemie?
Who has made themaothat I may eat?That my belly may swell withmao?
Who has made themaothat I may eat?
That my belly may swell withmao?
Wife.I, even I, have made themao,And my belly will swell withmao.
Wife.
I, even I, have made themao,
And my belly will swell withmao.
Chorus.We, even we ourselves, have made themao.We will all eat that our bellies may swell,That our bellies may swell withmao.
Chorus.
We, even we ourselves, have made themao.
We will all eat that our bellies may swell,
That our bellies may swell withmao.
Chief.Ina? ina?[329]that your bellies are swollen?Who has eaten themaofrom thepika—Thepikain theemie?
Chief.
Ina? ina?[329]that your bellies are swollen?
Who has eaten themaofrom thepika—
Thepikain theemie?
The suggestion is obviously that the women have stolen and eaten the cassava of the chief, but it is made solely to bring in the sexual suggestion. The women deny the imputation, and declare that their bellies are empty, or that they are great with child, not swollen withmao. The chief will then ask why, or when, the belly fills with child, and so the song continues on the lines of the sexual ideas introduced until the finale is reached, when the chief would sing:
Imine, imine,The women are good women,Imine.[330]
Imine, imine,The women are good women,Imine.[330]
Imine, imine,The women are good women,Imine.[330]
Imine, imine,
The women are good women,
Imine.[330]
PLATE XLVI.MUENANE DANCE
PLATE XLVI.
MUENANE DANCE
The Muenane, who occupy a part of the central Issa-Japura watershed, between the Andoke and the Resigero, possess a dance of their own, which has travelled into many of the other tribes south of the Japura, and has become very popular.[331]This is a combination of a riddle and an animal dance. The figure is formed as in the pine-apple dance, but the centre is taken by a warrior who has gained a reputation as a wit. His business is to ask a riddle, which will in all probability be an original one, and he asks it after the manner of a chant. Naturally a man with at least the indigenous sense of wit is loudly applauded and received with shrieks of laughter from the outset. The dancers take up the chanted question as they rotate round the questioner. At the end of the measure the dance stops, and the riddler rushes frantically round the circle with a lighted torch, looking, like Alcibiades, for a man—to answer his riddle. He stops suddenly, thrusts his torch into the face of a performer, and, peering into his eyes to seek for some sign of answering intelligence, repeats his question. The answer, if in the negative, is given—whatever the tribe dancing may be—in the tongue of the originators of the dance, Muenane—“Jana” (I do not know). The dancer thereupon, having failed to reply correctly, is then impressed to be a follower of the questioner, and must rush after himand imitate all his antics, which are apparently to give the clue to the riddle. In a short time a long single file of these failures is engaged in presenting a burlesque of the habits of the animal whose name is the answer required. The first performer who guesses correctly becomes the questioner in turn, and the dance starts afresh.
It may be pertinent here to relate an incident which tends to convey at least an insight into the Indian character, the lack of altruism, the love of discomfiture of others. On one occasion the questioner—evidently to take a rise out of a stranger, and being intoxicated, if not with coca at least with the dancing mania—thrust his torch into my face, nearer than would be tolerated in the usual way. I quickly placed my foot on his chest, with the resultant back-somersault of torch and man. The shrieks of laughter lasted a considerable time. I was the hero of the hour, and custom decreed that the victim should laugh at his own discomfiture.
All Indians are clever mimics, and the fidelity with which they reproduce the actions of jaguars, tapirs, monkeys, parrots, and other familiar animals of the bush is remarkable. The riddles are nearly always concerned with animals, and the test of wit is the amount of sexual suggestion contained in the reply.[332]A typical query is, “When is a howler-monkey not a howler?” The answer would be, “When he is covering his mate.” The dumb show of the actors delights the audience, and leaves no small characteristic to the imagination. The riddles may defy translation, but the actions are certainly not beyond interpretation.
In this connection it is well to refer again to the subject of dance intoxication. The excitement due to rhythmic motion struck me very forcibly. It should be remembered too that the men are heroic cocainists, and this stimulant, in forcing the imagination, undoubtedly for the moment—quaalcohol—has an aphrodisiacal tendency. The sexual innuendoes of the songs, though not of the dance, increase the effect. It must also be borne in mind that five days and nights is not an uncommon limit to one dance. It may cease at sunrise for a short space, and individuals,of course, rest and sleep as nature may dictate, but never, to my knowledge, for any length of time.
PLATE XLVII.OKAINA DANCE
PLATE XLVII.
OKAINA DANCE
On one occasion I was witness to the most remarkable salacity on the part of an individual. In my innocence I considered it part of the dance, and was satisfied with the idea that I had at last happed upon the indigenous counterpart of the coition and parturition dances of the East. It was not until the man was restrained by order of the chief that the true facts were realised.[333]But this was exceptional. The dance is carried on with frenzy and excitement, but with nothing beyond that. It never touches eroticism.[334]The dance never ends, as we know ending. It dwindles to cessation.
Another dance, much appreciated by the tribes between the Issa and the Japura, is not very dissimilar in essentials from the musical chairs of our childhood. The dancers form into a line, or two parallel lines, and, headed by the song-leader, carry out the customary step in single file. At the leader’s mention of a certain word, or perhaps a certain subject, previously agreed upon, the whole line must right-about turn, and pick up the step again without losing a beat. Those who fail are withdrawn from the line. The dance continues until the fittest alone remain, and is productive of general amusement.
But there are more tragic inspirations for a dance than the guessing of riddles or the garnering of the crops. I refer to the triumphant home-coming of tribal warriors, laden with booty from the war-path, with a band of doomed prisoners. The treatment of the latter and their disposal at the feasthave been already dealt with. But the cannibal ritual of insult is not the end. When the orgy of blood and gluttony is over, the warriors must dance. Only the men may take part in the feast, so only the men may participate in this dance. The music is chiefly that of the drums, and to their gloomy rolling—according to Robuchon’s account—the warriors lurch portentously, drunk already with victory, and excited by dancing. They break apart frequently to stir the great troughs of liquor with the forearms of their dead enemies, and to quaff deep calabashes full of drink. Then they stagger back to the wild intoxication of the dance. Their songs become shrieks, demoniacal, hellish. For eight days this horrible dance of triumph continues, while the captive boys and girls, young enough to be saved from the fate of the earthen pot, cower in the darkness of themalokaand suffer, perforce in silence, the gibes of the women. But this scene defies description.
Set against the darkly impressive background of the forest any tribal dance gives an amazing effect of kaleidoscopic light and colour when, with nightfall, by the flare of great fires and the glow of torches, the performance begins. The chosen soloist of the tribe jangling his circlets of nuts, sounding his gourd rattle, in a falsetto voice sings the ancient air of the dance. The warriors follow the melody in canon. Then slowly the great line of naked men, arms interlocked about each other’s necks, surges forward two steps in perfect time, pauses a moment, then recedes two steps. In a little while the whole earth shakes with the swing of the movement. It is like the flowing and ebbing of mighty waves upon a shore. It intoxicates with the recurrence of the accentuation. Slowly round the bigmalokathe procession passes, swaying in unison. The streaked and banded women dance uniformly in an opposite direction. The fires splutter and blaze. The torches cast strange shadows. The flutes, the pan-pipes, and the drums blare, bleat, and boom their barbaric accompaniment.
PLATE XLVIII.OKAINA DANCE
PLATE XLVIII.
OKAINA DANCE
It is a mad festival of savagery. The naked men are wildly excited; their eyes glare, their nostrils quiver, but they are not drunk. The naked women abandon themselvesto the movement of the dance; they scream their chorus to the tribal dance-song; but they are not lewd. There is about it an all-pervading, illimitable delirium. The wild outburst affects even the stranger in their midst. Forgotten cells in his brain react to the stimulus of the scene. He is no longer apart, alien in speech and feeling. He locks arms in the line of cannibals, sways in rhythm with them, stamps as solemnly, and sings the meaningless words as fervently as the best of them. He has bridged an age of civilisation, and returned to barbarism in the debased jetsam of the river banks. It is the strange fascination of the Amazons.
Songs the essential element of native dances—Indian imagination and poetry—Music entirely ceremonial—Indian singing—Simple melodies—Words without meaning—Sense of time—Limitations of songs—Instrumental music—Pan-pipes—Flutes and fifes—Trumpets—Jurupari music and ceremonial—Castanets—Rattles—Drums—Themanguare—Method of fashioning drums—Drum language—Signal and conversation—Small hand-drums.
Songs the essential element of native dances—Indian imagination and poetry—Music entirely ceremonial—Indian singing—Simple melodies—Words without meaning—Sense of time—Limitations of songs—Instrumental music—Pan-pipes—Flutes and fifes—Trumpets—Jurupari music and ceremonial—Castanets—Rattles—Drums—Themanguare—Method of fashioning drums—Drum language—Signal and conversation—Small hand-drums.
In considering the native dances it must be remembered that the accompanying songs are essential elements of the entertainment: they mark the character of the dance; and equally, in considering the songs, it must be remembered that the imagination of the native never goes beyond the relation of the sexes. The Indian’s poetry is an inverted form of romanticism. Instead of seeking to give rhythmical expression to an idealisation, to find in the beauties of Nature an analogy to the realities of Life, he reverses the process. For instance, he views a ripe fruit, and it only suggests to him a pregnant woman. In all such natural phenomena as he recognises he notes but the crude, if possibly the scientific, origin. In the most ordinary conversation he refers to conditions that appear indecent in common print; they are, however, undetachable from him.
So it is that in his songs he debases idealism, does not elevate realism. His poetry is on a par with that of the music-hall comedian who conceals a mass of filth under avowedly innocent words—but the intention is very different. The Indian possesses no other verbal vehicle, knows no other source of inspiration. His imagination is bound by his vocabulary, as his vocabulary is limited by his imagination. Curiously enough the effect upon his audience is gained by the same means as those employed by the red-nosed singerin the places of entertainment south of the Bridges, and is almost identical in degree. Some of the Londoners of the County Council schools have advanced ethically but little beyond their naked brothers of the Amazonian bush.
These Indians cannot be said to love music for its own sake. The use of music in any form is almost entirely ceremonial. They neither sing nor play instruments as a rule merely for pleasure. On the occasions of their festivals and dances, though, they give evidence of the possession of voices of considerable flexibility. They also display much ingenuity in the manufacture of their instruments, and, next to their weapons, the pan-pipes, flutes, and drums are most carefully fashioned and preserved. In fact, these take precedence over all domestic implements, and even most ornaments.
The native singing voice is loud, high, and shrill. The male leader—as a rule it is a man who is appointed, and he may be any one who knows the old songs—sings the solo, to give the chorus their cue, in a high falsetto which is very penetrating, and marks both time and tune for the others to follow in canon. The song is started softly, and gradually increases both in volume and speed. According to the circumstances, the subject, and the occasion, the men sing alone, the women sing alone, or the men and women combine as in the tribal dances. Most of the singing is done in unison, with a regular drone accompaniment from those not actually articulating the words. The songs are sung in regular time, to the accompaniment of stamping, but not with hand-clapping. The melodies are simple, and in the definite tribal songs consist of little more than a single phrase that seems to admit of no variation, and is repeatedad libitum, as, for example,Mariana Keibeio, a Boro tribal song. The tune of this, notated from memory, and in part from a phonograph record, runs approximately, so far as it can be rendered in our notation:
Musical score
What this implies no Indian now knows, for with alltribal songs the natives offer no explanation of their meaning or their origin. They are the songs that their fathers sang, and one can find no evidence of the amendation or emendation of the score on the part of their descendants. These tribal lays are so old that the words are obsolete and no longer understood by the singers; what is of importance is the rhythm, and to that, as is common with uncivilised peoples, the music is largely subordinated. It is but an accompaniment to the dancing. “The sense of time” in the Indian, as Stevenson noted among the South Sea Islanders, “is extremely perfect,” and one might complete the quotation and add, “I conceive in such a festival that almost every sound and movement fell in one.”[335]It is not an easy matter to discuss, because the English and the Indian standpoint are so diametrically opposite. So far as I could judge the tunes are usually in a minor key, both melody and harmony being of the simplest.
There are no love-songs among the Indians, for the poetic conception of love does not exist. Sacred songs and nursery songs are equally lacking. A mother never croons to her baby; she does not understand a lullaby. War-songs are merely the expression of the war-dance; they depend for their significance upon the words and for their ferocity upon the grim accentuation of the chorus.
At the time of the harvest of pine-apples, when the great dance is held, the men sing the challenge, and the women reply in their own defence. The songs are similar to that sung at the manioc-gathering dance, and I have previously tried to give some idea of such a song.
Apart from the traditional songs of the tribes, which are sacred and unchangeable, the Indians are very fond of a form of song which is really a game rather than a musical effusion. More correctly, perhaps, it should be called a ballad.[336]A leader of acknowledged fertility of imagination and fluency of expression is appointed, as for the Muenaneriddle dance, and will collect the members of the tribe for what is actually an impromptu dance. He, or she, will chant to an improvised air with a simple rhythm, while the chorus repeat each line or its burden as a refrain. Such songs give opportunity for all the wit of the tribe. They are designed either to honour or to ridicule the subject of the ballad. In reality a composition of this description takes hours to sing. The first wit propounds the question, the chorus repeat it, and the second wit then suggests the answer, which is again repeated by all amid much laughter, and the repetition is continued not once but twenty times, until the first wit breaks in with a new query. This is a very favourite game among the women.
The following is an attempt to suggest the song-words of a dance performed by some Witoto for my benefit, though I do the Indians too much justice, give too great an idea of continuity, in this version. There is no cohesion in their productions, and reiteration is the salient feature of all. The sound and the rhythm suggested to me at the time the metre ofHiawatha, so I give this song in an attempt at Hiawathian measure. But the adaptation is really too varied for the Indian original. I was outside themalokawhen the women started—no men took part—and they danced in front of me. After a time I went inside, and the performers promptly followed me, and continued to dance in the central space of the house. Naturally not one word would have been sung if these dancers had known it would be interpreted to me.
To our tribe there comes a stranger,Comes a welcomed, honoured stranger.And whence comes to us this stranger?From what far and foreign country?Wherefore comes this friend among us?What the quest that brings him hither?Are there in his native countryEmpty fields and unkind women,That he comes to seek among us.So to satisfy his wishes?By what name is called the stranger?Tell us what his people call him.Call him Whiffena Ri-e-i;Call him Whiffena, the White Man.Partly, too, his name’s Itoma.But—his friends and bosom cronies—Tell us, how do they address him?He is nicknamed by his croniesEi-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard.Ei-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard,Is this, then, the name endearingThat his lovers whisper to himWhen of him they grow enamoured?No, not good! The Turkey BuzzardIs a bird with beak of scarlet,Yes, a long sharp beak of scarlet.And a loose and hanging wattle.No, his name is not Ei-fo-ke.Let his love-name be Okaina!
To our tribe there comes a stranger,Comes a welcomed, honoured stranger.And whence comes to us this stranger?From what far and foreign country?Wherefore comes this friend among us?What the quest that brings him hither?Are there in his native countryEmpty fields and unkind women,That he comes to seek among us.So to satisfy his wishes?By what name is called the stranger?Tell us what his people call him.Call him Whiffena Ri-e-i;Call him Whiffena, the White Man.Partly, too, his name’s Itoma.But—his friends and bosom cronies—Tell us, how do they address him?He is nicknamed by his croniesEi-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard.Ei-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard,Is this, then, the name endearingThat his lovers whisper to himWhen of him they grow enamoured?No, not good! The Turkey BuzzardIs a bird with beak of scarlet,Yes, a long sharp beak of scarlet.And a loose and hanging wattle.No, his name is not Ei-fo-ke.Let his love-name be Okaina!
To our tribe there comes a stranger,Comes a welcomed, honoured stranger.And whence comes to us this stranger?From what far and foreign country?Wherefore comes this friend among us?What the quest that brings him hither?Are there in his native countryEmpty fields and unkind women,That he comes to seek among us.So to satisfy his wishes?
To our tribe there comes a stranger,
Comes a welcomed, honoured stranger.
And whence comes to us this stranger?
From what far and foreign country?
Wherefore comes this friend among us?
What the quest that brings him hither?
Are there in his native country
Empty fields and unkind women,
That he comes to seek among us.
So to satisfy his wishes?
By what name is called the stranger?Tell us what his people call him.Call him Whiffena Ri-e-i;Call him Whiffena, the White Man.Partly, too, his name’s Itoma.But—his friends and bosom cronies—Tell us, how do they address him?He is nicknamed by his croniesEi-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard.
By what name is called the stranger?
Tell us what his people call him.
Call him Whiffena Ri-e-i;
Call him Whiffena, the White Man.
Partly, too, his name’s Itoma.
But—his friends and bosom cronies—
Tell us, how do they address him?
He is nicknamed by his cronies
Ei-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard.
Ei-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard,Is this, then, the name endearingThat his lovers whisper to himWhen of him they grow enamoured?No, not good! The Turkey BuzzardIs a bird with beak of scarlet,Yes, a long sharp beak of scarlet.And a loose and hanging wattle.No, his name is not Ei-fo-ke.Let his love-name be Okaina!
Ei-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard,
Is this, then, the name endearing
That his lovers whisper to him
When of him they grow enamoured?
No, not good! The Turkey Buzzard
Is a bird with beak of scarlet,
Yes, a long sharp beak of scarlet.
And a loose and hanging wattle.
No, his name is not Ei-fo-ke.
Let his love-name be Okaina!
This went onad nauseam. The true object in all such songs is to bring in and discuss sexual matters, and no song has advanced far before it has become essentially carnal in idea and thoroughly licentious in expression.
Although instruments are always employed at the dances they do not seem to be introduced with any idea of organised accompaniment, but only to help swell the body of sound. The natives, being ignorant of the use of metal, have been forced to make their instruments entirely of vegetable substances; the only other material used is bone, human bone,bien entendu, and judging from a specimen presented by Robuchon to the British Museum, the shell of a small land tortoise. Their instruments of percussion are drums, castanets, and rattles: their wind-instruments are flutes and pan-pipes. Very rarely a solitary Indian may be found playing the flute, apparently for his personal amusement and solace. As a rule, it is merely used in combination with its fellows to increase the volume of sound without heed to its proper place in harmony.
PLATE XLIX.PANPIPES
PLATE XLIX.
PANPIPES
The pan-pipes are the simplest of all instruments of Amazonian music to make, and are the most universally popular. They consist of a bundle of reeds—three, five, six, seven, ten, or even seventeen in number—bound togetherwith palm-fibre, or, on the Napo, with finely split cane. Although the pipes are cut to lengths yielding the necessary musical intervals, the number seems to be purely arbitrary. They are used in concert with all other instruments, and mark so much of tune as the Indian orchestra strives to attain. The pan-pipes shown in the accompanying illustration are Witoto instruments contrasted with the neater finish of one made on the Napo. The latter has the greater number of pipes, and all relatively smaller. There is nothing complicated about the make of either set. The cane pipes are cut immediately below the natural joint, and the node is thus made to serve as a stop.[337]
The ubiquitous bamboo also furnishes the material for a larger flute, and flutes or fifes are made out of the arm-bones of prisoners taken in battle. After the victim is killed and eaten the humerus is cleaned, its extremities opened, and the soft matrix scooped out. Finger-holes are bored in the shaft of the bone, usually three in number, but occasionally five. When human bones are not forthcoming the tribesman uses the leg-bone of a jaguar. This is opened at the end and furnished with a wax stop that leaves a small canal open to a three-cornered air-hole. Occasionally one of these flutes is made with both ends open, in which case a square or semicircular hole is cut out from the upper rim. The flute is held against the lower lip, and commonly has three, or more rarely four, sound-holes. Flutes are also made of heron-bones, open at the lower end, with a square air-hole, and generally four sound-holes. These have mouthpieces made of leaves, and their tones are exceedingly shrill. But the most curious instruments of which I have note are flutes made from skulls of animals, by covering them with pitch, and only leaving open the holes of the nose and the occipital bone. One hole is blown through, the other is the sounding-hole. Many of the Indian instruments, especially the bone flutes, are gaily ornamented with elaborate incised patterns that are dyed black and red withvegetable extracts. The flutes are also adorned with tassels of cotton or palm-fibre.
The flute or fife is played from the extremity that is rudely fashioned into a mouthpiece. No native trumpets are provided with sliding tubes like the familiar trombone, and there is no plug in the mouth-hole. Nor are any of the Amazonian wind-instruments fitted with a vibrating reed. There are no bagpipes, and, in the regions I traversed, no stringed instruments. Certain tribes north of the Japura, notably the Desana, use whistles made of clay, which they employ both as alarm signals and as adjuncts to the dance.
Trumpets of bark and bamboo have an irregular distribution. Many tribes dispense with them on all ordinary occasions, and confine their use to Jurupari music. These sacred instruments constitute one of the most profound mysteries of the Amazon. They are lengthy affairs, made from the hollow stem of a palm, and fitted with a trumpet mouthpiece. The note is akin to that of the bassoon. These trumpets are tribal possessions, and are kept concealed at a distance from themaloka, in a hut which the women are never permitted to enter, and where the various secret paraphernalia connected with boy initiation—such as the whips of tapir hide—are stored. It is a capital crime for any woman even to set eyes upon them. The Jurupari trumpet is as tabu to Indian women as the bull-roarer of the Australian native is to his women-folk.[338]The Indian girls are brought up in the belief that the music of the trumpets is an essential element in the exorcism of the evil spirit from the body of the youthful initiate, and that any interference on their part must lead to the eternal residence of such spirit in the novice, to the consequent disaster of the tribe, and this belief holds good all their lives.[339]No sooner is Jurupari music heard approaching themalokathan all the women and uninitiated hurry to the bush, and remain in hiding until the ceremony is concluded and the trumpets have been returned to their tabernacle. What the ceremony may be is held a profound secret, and the punishment for infringement is death.[340]As a rule two of these sacred trumpets are used, and they are tuned to the same pitch, though differing in their tone according to their length. They are only used north of the Japura; south of that river the tribes have no Jurupari music and only know them as employed ceremonially by their neighbours in connection with initiation secrets to frighten their women.
The Tukana when dancing use a trumpet alternately with their rattles; and the Indians north of the Japura have regular castanets, made of blocks of hard wood, which are manipulated with one hand, much in the manner that the nigger-minstrel plays the “bones.” All the tribes make rattles of small gourds by the simple method of partly filling the calabash with dried seeds, or fruit stones, and inserting a wooden handle so that they can be shaken in time to the dance. Some of these are of the roughest, the stick of the handle quite untrimmed; others are more finely finished, and the polished black surface of the gourd may be ornamented with designs in colour, or incised patterns. But these are by no means the only rattles used at a dance. The Indians have them of many kinds and descriptions. The smaller are worn as armlets, wristlets, leglets, and anklets. These are made of nuts, strung with coloured beads on palm fibre, and very carefully fashioned. The leg rattles are frequently handsome ornaments, the rich brown of the glossy nutshell making a splendid contrast with the blue or red of the Brummagem beads. The finest are made from a nut not unlike the Brazil nut of commerce in shape, but less angular. That shown inPlate XLIII.has natural groovings and marks which give the polished sections the appearance of being engraved. A section of the shell is cut off, thoroughly cleaned and polished, then attached by a short string of beads to the main leg- or arm-bandfrom which these nut sections hang bell-like. The arm rattles are made of smaller nuts, some are not unlike an oval hazelnut, flat on one side, cut in half and highly polished. The nut is, roughly speaking, some three-quarters of an inch across and long. These also are hung on threads of beads pendant a quarter of an inch apart from the connecting beaded string. Leg rattles are made of larger nuts, and one variety is made in the form of a bunch, not a band or chain. The beads used for these are blue and red in colour, and the bunch of nuts on their beaded strings is fastened with plaited palm-fibre beneath the knee. The whole effect is most distinctly ornamental. The jangle of two or three of these nutshell bells is not unpleasant: there is almost a tinkle in their clatter, but the volume of sound obtainable from a number of them is remarkable, and so is the precision with which they accentuate the rhythm of movement.
The Indians have no cymbals, gongs, or bells; but the drum is an important factor not only in native music, but in native life. The drum is the telegraph of the Amazons. In fact, the most remarkable of all the native instruments is themanguareor signal drum. Although the primary use of this drum is to signal, it is utilised on great occasions as an addition to the aboriginal orchestra. To make this important adjunct of themalokatwo blocks of hard wood are chosen, some six feet in length, and about twenty-four inches in diameter. These blocks are very carefully hollowed out by means of heated stones that are introduced through a narrow longitudinal slit, and char the interior. Instead of endeavouring, however, as would be the case with an ordinary drum, to contrive as nearly perfect a cylinder as possible, the object of the signal-drum maker is to obtain a husk of varying thicknesses, so as to secure differences in note. Accordingly, with his rude implements, hot stones, capybara-tooth borer, and stone axe, he fashions the interior of the drum in such a manner that the outer shell, the sounding-board, varies in thickness from half an inch to four inches. Two blocks are used; the smaller is called the male, and the larger the female. The ends aresimply the wood of the tree which is not removed, all the hollowing being accomplished by means of the grooved slit. When finished these are suspended by withes at an oblique angle, one end much higher than the other—say six feet and three feet respectively from the ground. They hang from the rafters of themaloka, or from an upright frame, and present the appearance of two barrels surmounted by a narrow slit.[341]
Fig. 9.
Fig. 9.
The musician takes his stand between these drums and, with a wooden mallet headed with a knob of rubber, beats out his message or his tune. Altogether he has a range of four notes—two low ones on the femalemanguare, and two high ones on the male. On these he rings the changes with great rapidity, and produces a sound which, though not startlingly loud, has such penetrating qualities that it can be heard twenty miles away. He beats very quickly in short and long strokes, not unlike the Morse Code. By means of themanguarea skilled signaller can carry on a conversation as accurately as a telegraph operator at St. Martin’s-le-Grand, or a soldier with a heliograph—but how he does it is another secret of the Amazonian bush. When used for its properpurpose as signal drum, the Boro and the Okaina can carry on conversations upon almost any subject within their ken. Other tribes are only able to distinguish between a warning of danger and an invitation to a dance. Brown could use the drum for small matters—he could hurry the bearers out of the bush for example. He said there was no code, but that the signaller tried to represent the sound of words with the drum, and Indians invariably told me that they made the words with the drum. However, with a language dependent on inflection, as theirs unquestionably is, there must be a code of some description.
India-rubber, which has added a new and awful terror to the life of the forest Indian, is only employed by these tribes to make the drum mallet, used with themanguare, and the latex for depilatory purposes. The Witoto call the malletouaki, the drum ishugwe.
These great signal drums have designs worked upon them in which the organs associated with the presumed sex of the instrument are prominent; and, after the manner of the natives, both instruments are invariably distinguished internally with the proper sexual characters, the female drum having two breasts pendant inside.
Even in the construction of a small playing drum much time and ingenuity are expended. First an aeta palm[342]is selected, cut down, and a section of the trunk laboriously hacked off. This section in turn is carefully hollowed, until only a thin shell remains. Some tribes use a section of bamboo in place of the hollowed palm, but these never secure so fine an instrument or so fine a note as the palm trunk makes. Over the two ends of the cylinder dried monkey skin is tightly stretched—preferably that of the howler monkey, as it is popularly supposed to produce a louder and more rolling sound. Some tribes then fasten across one end of this drum a very tight cord, into the centre of which has been tied a fine sliver of wood. By this means two notes are obtained—the open note where nothing interferes with the vibrations of the drumhead, and the closed note where the vibrations of the splinterintersect those of the skin. A very inferior instrument is made with agouti skin over a bamboo cylinder. The drums made on the Napo River look very much like an English child’s toy drum, rather high and narrow, and, of course, made entirely without metal. The sides bulge slightly, and have crossed threads of fibre string. The vellum of the drumhead is kept in its place tautly by a close-fitting ring. These drums are usually decorated, and are objects of barter among many of the tribes. They are played with the fingers only, not with drumsticks or mallet.
The Indians’ magico-religious system—The Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit—Names of deities—Character of Good Spirit—His visit to earth—Question of missionary influence—Lesser subordinate spirits—Child-lifting—No prayer or supplication—Classification of spirits—Immortality of the soul—Land of the After-Life—Ghosts and name tabu—Temporary disembodied spirits—Extra-mundane spirits—Spirits of particularised evils—Spirits of inanimate objects—The jaguar and anaconda magic beasts—Tiger folk—Fear of unknown—Suspicions about camera—Venerated objects—Charms—Magic against magic—Omens.
The Indians’ magico-religious system—The Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit—Names of deities—Character of Good Spirit—His visit to earth—Question of missionary influence—Lesser subordinate spirits—Child-lifting—No prayer or supplication—Classification of spirits—Immortality of the soul—Land of the After-Life—Ghosts and name tabu—Temporary disembodied spirits—Extra-mundane spirits—Spirits of particularised evils—Spirits of inanimate objects—The jaguar and anaconda magic beasts—Tiger folk—Fear of unknown—Suspicions about camera—Venerated objects—Charms—Magic against magic—Omens.
Some travellers and writers have asserted that the Indian has no religion. In the vulgarly-accepted meaning of the word he may have none. There is great variation among the groups, the tribes even—I venture to say—among the individuals. So far as they believe in anything they believe in the existence of supreme good and bad spirits; but their beliefs are always indefinite, only half understood even by themselves. To a certain extent it is open to the medicine-man, the chief priest of their magico-religious system, to vary, or even to disregard any current belief. Among individuals are to be found sceptics of every grade. On the whole their religion is a theism, inasmuch as their God has a vague, personal, anthropomorphic existence. His habitat is above the skies, the blue dome of heaven, which they look upon as the roof of the world that descends on all sides in contact with the earth. Yet again it is a pantheism, this God being represented in all beneficent nature; for every good thing is imbued with his spirit, or with individual spirits subject to him.
In essence the idea of God is not that of a Supreme Being, and not entirely that of a Creator, but rather that of a Superior Being, possessed by an indulgent tolerance for all mankind. But he suggests only the negative idea. Heis a spirit of benevolent passivity. He is good for no other reason than that he is not evil. There is no particularised sanctity in his name, no adoration of his nebulous personality, only an unquestioning acquiescence in his benignity. True, he is held in high esteem, but that is because he permeates all in nature that is not inimical, and thus demonstrates his kindly disposition. If the harvest fails it is due to the malevolence of theirDiabolus, or some of his agents, yet if it be a good one the credit is due not to the Good Spirit, but rather to the medicine-man for having with his magic frustrated the machinations of the Bad Spirit.
This Devil, or Bad Spirit, is affirmative in character, and is always active. He must not be invoked, but he is to be prevented by charms and magic from wreaking his vengeance on mankind, and must be placated at all costs as the supreme author of sickness and misfortunes, and the controlling power of malevolent nature.
Both the Good and the Bad Spirit are attended by lesser spirits with similar characteristics. So far as I could ascertain, there is no suggestion that any of these supernatural beings ever lived in this world, though they influence it so entirely, and can visit it at will.
The Good Spirit may be more potent, but he is certainly more remote than the Bad Spirit—too remote for ordinary people to be brought into any degree of contact with him whatsoever. His influence, his benefits, are, as he is, passive. The Bad Spirit, on the contrary, is of a ceaseless energy. His active influence is invariably present. He is always exerting his power in some definite, some concrete form. Poison, for example, is an active agent. The devil in it works vigorously to the undoing of his victim, definitely exercises a deleterious effect upon his enemy, man. So, too, the rocks that bar the way upstream are more active than passive. They repel, they may defeat the traveller, and, therefore, are to be regarded also as the active agents of a hostile power.
It is noteworthy in this connection that the Bad Spirit may be materialised sufficiently to be able to carry a child bodily away, or to steal a woman, should she stray out intothe forest by herself.[343]For this reason usually no woman will go alone into the bush, she will take a companion with her, especially at night, for the demon is popularly supposed to be unable to tackle more than one at a time, even if the second be only a young child.[344]Women who run away from their husbands are consequently said by them to have been taken by the devil. This is a favourite theory, as the man may thereby avoid the censure or hostility of the tribe. The men also do not care to be far in the bush alone, and after dark nothing will induce an Indian voluntarily to embark on the risk of adventuring into the forest by himself.
One of the first difficulties met with when dealing in detail with the religion of these peoples is their refusal to use the true name of any spirit or deity. This has root in the same reason that ordains they shall never disclose their own names, nor voluntarily except on rare occasions, that is without questioning, the name of their tribe.
In the Boro language we have the wordNevaas an equivalent for God, the good or sympathetic deity, and the wordNavenafor the Devil, the great evil or antipathetic spirit, in fact the negative of all represented byNeva. But inasmuch asnevastands also for the sun, the dawn, and the morning, whilenavenais used for any spirit however humble—whether the soul-part of a thing, animate or inanimate, or the ghost or disembodied soul of the dead—we have a right to postulate that such are not the true, or supposed self-appellated names of these deities, but those that may be used without offence, and therefore free of the consequent evils that the mention of the true name would entail on the users.
To give another example: In WitotoUsiyamoihas the same meaning as God in ordinary parlance;Taifeis the Devil, whereasTaifenois any bad spirit whatever. But, again, theTaife, the dread of these people, the all-pervading evil genius, is namedApuehana, a word never pronounced above a whisper. Here then we may have reached a true secret name.
The BoroNevaand the WitotoUsiyamoiare theTupanoof the Tupi-Guarani tribes of the east and the Negro River. This we find is theApunchi-Yayaof the Guichua of the west, the Cachimana of the Orinoco.NavenaandTaifeorApuehanaare the same as theJurupariof the north, theIolokiamoof the Orinoco, and theLocazyof the Ticuna.[345]
To return to the personal characteristics of the two regnant powers, the Good and the Bad Spirit, the former, though vague, is yet an omnipotent tempestipresent deity, and, although passive, something more than sympathetic and benevolent. He made the world, or it might be more correct to put it that he permitted it to be created, for his amusement and pleasure. When not otherwise engaged in his mysterious happy hunting-grounds he keeps a watch over earth and over mankind. But so great is he that no prayer or invocation is offered to him, nor, were it offered, could he be thereby influenced.[346]It is because he is so big a Chief that his attitude is entirely passive. Once Neva had forgotten the puny human factor, so he took the guise of a man and came to earth. The open spaces—the natural savannahs or geological outcrops—are where he spoke to the Indians, and it is a sign of his speaking and of his erstwhile presence that these are now open to the sun and the sky. But one Indian vexed Neva, the Good Spirit, and he was wrath with all men, so he went again to sit on the roof of the world. But before he departed he whispered into the ears of all the tigers that they were to kill the Indians and their children, and that is why the tigers to-day are wicked and sometimes are the habitations of the most evil spirits. Before this time the tigers were good to men, and they hunted together like brothers; they lived together in the houses; they ate and drank and licked tobacco in amity round the fire.[347]
Such, so far as I could gather, is the Indian’s belief. The tale was told me by a Boro, but the belief is approximately the same with all these tribes. On the occasion of hearing this story of the visit of the Good Spirit to earth I related, to the best of my ability, the Christian story. The result may be of value in determining the possession of logic by the Indian. After they had listened to my story the tribesmen held a tobacco palavar, which lasted some six hours. Then the chief—the medicine-man was surly and remote—appeared, and this was the burden of his wisdom. His own people were greater than the people from the clouds—the white people—for the Good Spirit, Neva himself, came to the Indians, whereas only the Young Chief visited the clouds. And the Indians were better than the white people, for the white people killed the Young Chief, but the Indians listened to Neva, and only one among them vexed him.
I had heard the story of the Good Spirit’s manifestation before, but doubted its genuineness, until one day when I inquired of a Boro what a savannah was he answered me that it was where Neva spoke to the Indians. When I questioned him further he told me the above. It is impossible to say how far this story may be a genuine folk-tale, how far it is a perverted version of the Biblical account. Tales travel far. They are adopted from one people to another, with resultant variations. We know that the Jesuits penetrated to the Rio Negro as early as 1668-69. There have been missionaries of that Society on the Napo. But I met with no traces of them on the upper waters, nor have any of these peoples anything in the least resembling the Christian symbol in their designs. One might expect to find so simple a figure as a cross reproduced in native art if once known, but it certainly is not. On the face of it we may here be dealing with a variant that haspassed from tribe to tribe, that has trickled through centuries, to reappear now as a tribal tradition among peoples who have never been in any direct contact with Christian influences.[348]
As regards the rule of these supreme spirits over the lesser spirits of good and evil they stand in the relation of great chief. The good spirits are the spirits of trees that bear edible fruits, of the trees from which arrows are made, of theCoca erythroxylon, of the astringent properties of various herbs, of the medicine-man’s magic stones that may be used as a prophylactic. These are not only the subjects of the Good Spirit, they were made by him. He made all the good things of the forest; and he also made the rivers and the skies. The Bad Spirit placed the rocks in the rivers, the poison in the mandiocca and in all noxious growths of the bush. He made the liana to trip the unwary walker, in short all things hurtful. These malevolent elements are the bad spirits which, as the name in Witoto appears to imply—theTaifeno,—are all subject to theTaife. As the Good Spirit lives above the world so the Bad Spirit inhabits the nether regions. The lesser spirits of evil go to him by way of the earth holes,[349]for these are the passages to his kingdom. The visit of the Good Spirit to earth as a corporate being was a unique event never repeated, but the Bad Spirit wanders with his myrmidons in the forest every night. Sometimes he takes the form of a tiger, or other fierce animal; sometimes, as alternative to the tiger-lifting theory, he resembles a man who can disappear at will. He imitates the call of the hunter who has found game, or the call of an animal to be hunted. He entices his victim by these and similar contrivances to venture deeper and deeper into the bush, until the wretched wanderer is utterly lost. Accordingto tribal belief he is then destroyed, or spirited bodily away. As has been said, the Bad Spirit never appears to more than one at a time, and that one is usually spirited away, so can give no account of the appearance, but as confirmation of his real presence an Indian will sometimes whisper the evil name as he points out the track of an abnormal-sized tapir, which is curiously reminiscent to the European of the cloven hoof of his own Devil.
The child-lifting story is a favourite one, and some amount of corroborative evidence is forthcoming, for in the awful loneliness of the bush a child naturally would become half demented with fear and apprehension, and if ever found again would be only too honestly willing to believe he had been in the very real clutches of a very real devil. The juvenile adventurer, answering in this way to leading questions, gives to these simple people all the proof they look for, and adds an immediate and local authenticity to the accepted myth.
As there is no prayer to the Good Spirit, so there is no supplication to the Bad. The medicine-man, as I have said, invokes neither; he appeals to neither; but he attempts by magic to force the Bad Spirit into quiescence, to discover some more potent influence that shall make him powerless to hurt, for unless coerced he is all-powerful.
Indefinite as these beliefs in a deity, good or evil, may be, faith as to the after-life of the soul is possibly still vaguer. Yet faith there certainly is, for the existence of the spirits of the dead is an accepted fact, acknowledged in the Indian ritual of burial.
Of spirits there are four kinds:
Permanent disembodied spirits, or the souls of the dead, their ghosts.
Temporarily disembodied spirits, that is to say the souls of living men, with power to send them forth out of their material bodies.
Extra-mundane spirits, or those from other worlds.
Spirits of, or in, all natural objects, animate and inanimate.
Any of these four classes of spirits are good or bad,according as they are benevolently or malevolently inclined.
These Indians all believe in the temporary transmission of the disembodied soul into the form of an animal, bird, or reptile, not a regular and enforced series of such transmissions. This temporary transmission is for the pursuance of a certain aim, perhaps for some indefinite length of time. It appears that the spirit has the power of transmigration into other animal bodies, or back again to its extra-mundane form at will. Whether the animal is human, whether, when so invaded, it incorporates two spirits and becomes dual-souled, the Indian does not relate.
Man’s soul in Indian belief is immortal, that is to say it exists as long as it is felt to exist, whilst it continues to appear in the dreams, in the thoughts of the survivors—for so long, in fact, as it is remembered. Surely this is immortality. A thing forgotten has never existed; and, per contra, the soul of a remembered being lives for ever. The disembodied spirit or ghost lingers near the body after death, in the woods near the house, or may even lodge in the house itself. And then indefinitely, indeterminately, after the body is buried the soul wanders farther afield, and goes at length to the happy grounds of the Good Spirit. Among some tribes this paradise is located above the skies, among others it is away up some river, in the far and mythical distance. The latter heaven is situated, as has already been mentioned, upstream, and that, in this country where the trend of the land is north-west and south-east, is also approximately towards the setting sun.[350]
This land of the After-Life is a diminutive replica of the ordinary world, but with evil things eliminated and joyful things emphasised. All is on a lower scale, stunted forests and pigmy game. This idea of a world in miniature approximates to the Malay conception of a spirit, the “diminutive but exact counterpart of its own embodiment,” appertaining to all animal, vegetable, and mineral bodies.[351]The Indianminiature world would thus be, it seems, constructed of the spirits of the material world. Colour is given to this theory by the fact that individual possessions are buried with the dead, and the Kuretu confess that this is done to prevent the return of the soul in search of them. Were such properties to pass into the possession of survivors the soul part of each object, needed to represent it in the spiritual world, would be detained in the material world. Burial sets it at liberty, presumably, to accompany the soul part of its owner, to take in the miniature world of the After-Life a position corresponding in every detail to that which has been held here on earth. The soul is pictured as the body, in miniature also, visible or invisible at will, for these people, like the majority of many of a higher culture, are unable to imagine the soul except in some material guise.[352]Life in this enigmatic sphere has everything most prized in this world. Hunting is fruitful always; women are beautiful and amenable, and the men are all the old familiar friends of earth. The means of attainment to this desirable state are so vague as to be unassignable. Good and evil have no part in this scheme of heavenly philosophy. Broken tabus, crimes against tribal jurisprudence, apparently bring only temporary evil influences into play. Their punishment is immediate and material. The happy land is open to all the tribe with whom the Good Spirit is not vexed. It is closed to all their enemies.
These lost souls, the spirits of those divinely damned, must still frequent the earthly forests, or perhaps ally themselves with the spirits of evil and wander down the holes in the earth to join the legions of the nether world.
I have heard, but not very definitely, of the Zaparo belief that the good and brave souls will pass into birds of beautiful plumage and feed on the most delicate fruits, while the bad and cowardly are condemned to a future existence in the guise of objectionable reptiles.[353]
This belief in, at least, a partial presence of the spirits of the dead has possibly a bearing on the Indian dislike, to useno stronger term, of mentioning his proper name. In the case of some tribes, as has been noted, the name of a dead man is given as a special honour to his greatest friend among the survivors. With other tribes names of the living may, and probably have once been those of persons now dead. To mention such a name aloud might conceivably be to attract the attention of the defunct erstwhile owner.[354]Therefore the name is only whispered, lest the spirit hearing it might come and bother the speaker or the individual named.[355]There is, of course, the further reason that the knowledge of a man’s name gives an enemy power to work him magical evil. But that is a point already dealt with, except in so far as it argues some identity of the name with the essentialego.
Not only do the Indians hold that a man’s soul leaves his body at death, but, further, they believe that it may do so during life for a limited period. We have examples in sleep, they argue, when the spirit is out of the body and wanders about; for in dreams, they say, the soul passes through the mouth and has adventures in the outer world.[356]Dreams are, in fact, a portion of the man’s real life. His spirit has ventured forth and actually gone through the experience his fancy paints. They realise, therefore, that individuality is not in the body itself, but in the spirit that inhabits the body. So if a man dreams he will not hesitate to declare that he has done what he dreamed he was doing.
This is an example of involuntary disembodiment, differing only from actual death in that it is of temporaryduration. The soul has gone quietly, and will return. But if the soul make a violent effort to escape that apparently entails fatal consequences, for the Indians declare when anybody sneezes it is the soul attempting to leave the body and so cause death.
Voluntary disembodiment is believed to be possible in certain favoured cases.[357]This power is said to be possessed by the medicine-man. He may free his spirit for magical purposes, to fight unseen enemies on better terms, or for the pursuit of some nefarious end. He may either remain disembodied and invisible, or lurk for a time in the form of some animal or object, a tree, a stone—where stones exist—or even in the wind, the rain, or the river. The layman Indian, though perfectly aware that he cannot of his own accord and free-will loose his own soul from its fleshy trappings to adventure in some foreign sort, is quite willing to believe that other more fortunate mortals can accomplish a feat to him so impossible.[358]No alternative explanation offers to his mind to elucidate sundry mysterious happenings.
Quite distinct from these disembodied spirits are the extra-mundane spirits, good and bad, that visit this world and benefit or plague its inhabitants. These may invade all natural objects, and, especially those evilly disposed, will work unceasingly as agents for the supreme powers to whom they owe allegiance. The bad spirits haunt the darkness, they lurk in the recesses of the woods, find a habitation in deep waters, and ride to destruction on the floods. Danger from them threatens the Indian at every turn. He can only be protected by the counter-magic of his medicine-man. For fear of possible mischief at their malicious hands no Indian will bathe at night unless supported by the presence of companions. If he lose his way in the forest it is due to their machinations;[359]and all that goes amiss in this by no means best-of-all-possible worlds is at least in part engineered by them, either at the suggestion of an enemy, or from their own innate badness of heart.
Sickness again is a concrete entity. The Indian knows not the microbe of science, but he recognises the existence of a definitely hostile and active enemy in the presence of disease. It is a spirit that wanders about, and at the instigation of an enemy attacks individuals or tribes. The attack is an actual invasion. Illness is due to the presence in the flesh of the sick person of a foreign and inimical body.[360]
Before a thunderstorm the Indian believes that the air is full of spirits, and the medicine-man is requisitioned literally “to clear the atmosphere.” Thunder is the noise of evil spirits making a turmoil and fuss; whilst, according to Bates, any inexplicable noises are made by another of this destructive band, Curupira, the wild spirit of the woods.[361]Thunder probably means that an enemy is sending sickness to destroy the tribe. Therefore if a man is ill a flash of lightning is quite sufficient to kill him through sheer fright and shock.
These extra-mundane spirits may be said to be the spirits of particularised evils, just as theTaife, theNavena, theJurupari, is the supreme spirit of all evil.[362]
With the final division of the spirit world is enwrapped the total philosophy, the innermost meanings, in fact both the whole and the origin of the Indian magico-religious system. As men have souls—so truly felt in all—what is more natural than that animals who move and breathe, who live and die, who in many respects are more powerful,more clever than men, should be assigned souls also by the Indian’s primitive reasoning. I say soul deliberately, for Indian metaphysicians do not differentiate between soul and spirit—they are one and indivisible, the miniature self that may be seen in the pupil of a living eye but has vanished from the eye of the dead. The question of souls other than human is to the Indian too obvious to need elucidation; it admits, indeed, of no argument. There is a degree of belief in a spirit, “a transcendentalx,”[363]in all objects, even those that are inanimate. What lives and grows must have a spirit. What can interfere with, or affect man in any way must possess some occult influence, some mysterious personality, that works for or against him, especially if that object be in any degree unfamiliar or abnormal in appearance. All these things, vegetable growths, rocks, are to the Indian as we have repeatedly seen, active agents in the scheme of things, and as such must also possess the intangibleego, the spiritual essence, that is the soul of all earthly forms. Evidence as to animistic beliefs among the Indians is universal and overwhelming. A point of interest to the psychologist comes in with the problem whether the belief that undoubtedly exists is a belief in a duality of spirits in one envelop, or whether, when the supernatural spirit, or the disembodied spirit of a man, is transmitted into extra-human forms, it being the stronger can oust the natural spirit of the animal or object which is entered, and if so what becomes of the finally evicted spirit. On this point I have unfortunately no information to adduce.
While these beliefs are in the main general among all the language-groups of the Issa-Japura regions, those of the Boro-speaking tribes are the most intricate. They have more definite notions of the spirit-world, a greater range of theories as to the powers and extent of supernatural phenomena. They fear the local devils more, take greater care to appease them and to avoid rousing their hostility. This is the natural result of the increased isolation secured by the Boro tribes. They have been influenced less by theouter world than the Witoto, for example. Both Boro and Andoke tribes invariably keep aloof so far as may be from any stranger.
Two of the forest denizens, the jaguar and the anaconda, occupy outstanding positions in this connection with spirits and magic to all the other beasts of the wild. Any animal may be utilised by a spirit as a temporary abiding-place, but the “tiger” and the great water-snake independently of such spiritual possession are magical beasts. Tales gather round them; differential treatment is their portion. As regards the jaguar this may be due to the fact that it is seldom seen, and therefore the more mysterious in its evil doings. It is also a dangerous beast, bold and fearless, and to be dreaded for this if for no other reason. But the anaconda is no such aggressive enemy of man. Yet, though the Indian is an omnivorous eater, he will never kill either the tiger or the anaconda for food.[364]
The anaconda is looked upon as an evil spirit. It is the embodiment of the water spirit, theYacu-mama,[365]whose coils may bar the passage of the streams, and the Indian goes in terror of it, nor would he bathe in its vicinity, though, so far as my experience went, the gigantic reptile will not attack human beings unprovoked.[366]TheYacu-mama, as the name signifies, is the mother, the spirit of the streams. Among some tribes, though not in my field of exploration, a relationship is held to exist between this water-spirit andJurupari, so it is said.[367]It occupies the place in Amazonian folk-tales filled by the sea-serpent of Europe; while the manatee and the dolphin are the Amazonian mermaids. The cow-fish, or manatee,[368]is an object of wonder on the main stream, but is unknown on the upper rivers. I have never seen one nearer than the mouth of the Issa river. The dolphin also is not found in the higher waters. On the lower rivers itabounds, but, according to Bates, no Indian willingly kills one; and though dolphin fat makes good oil the belief is current that when burnt in lamps it causes blindness.[369]
Tigers are not killed unless they be the aggressors, that is to say they are never killed wantonly. The reason for this is not cowardice, but fear of further aggression on the part of the tiger family, or from the family of the medicine-man who has assumed tiger form. Indians look upon animals as having the same instincts as themselves, and therefore capable of a prolonged blood-feud with humans who may have wronged them. The tribesman is accordingly anxious not to provoke war with the tiger tribe, but if Indians are challenged by the death of one of their number the case is altered, and they will immediately accept combat. To hunt a jaguar without provocation merely for food or for sport would be foolishly to kindle the animosity of the whole tiger family, to rouse the violent enmity of the wandering spirit domiciled for a time in the body of the hunted beast. But when an Indian is killed, or a child lost—and tigers are usually credited with the destruction of any child missing from its home—the medicine-man is called upon, and he proceeds to discover that it was a tribal enemy working in disguise, probably the spirit of a hostile medicine-man, intent to destroy the tribe by thus slaying potential warriors or mothers of warriors. The tiger is in these circumstances to be treated as a human enemy. A big tribal hunt is organised, and if the quarry be secured a feast of tiger-flesh follows, a feast of revenge, very similar in detail to the anthropophagous orgies already described.[370]At no other time does the Indian eat jaguar meat. The tiger-skin becomes the property of the medicine-man, whose magic has thus triumphed over the magic of a rival.
I have already noted that anything abnormal or unknown is regarded with suspicious dread. My camera was naturally endowed by Indian imagination with magical properties, the most general idea among the Boro being that it was an infernal machine, designed to steal the souls ofthose who were exposed to its baleful eye. In like manner my eyeglass was supposed to give me power to see what was in their hearts. When I first attempted to take photographs the natives were considerably agitated by my use of a black cloth to envelop the evil thing; and when my own head went under it they had but one opinion, it also was some strange magic-working that would enable me to read their minds, their unprofessed intentions, and steal their souls away; or rather become master of their souls, and thus make them amenable to my will at any time or in any place. This was undoubtedly due in part to the fact that I was able to reproduce the photograph. The Indian was brought face to face with his naked soul, represented by the miniature of himself in the photographic plate. One glance, and one only, could he be induced to give. Never again would he be privy to such magic. The Witoto women believed that I was working more material magic, and feared should they suffer exposure to the camera that they would bear resultant offspring to whom the camera—or the photographer—would stand in paternal relation.