Man, Past and Present

by A. H. Keane

The Cashibo.

But even in the more favoured regions of the Parana and Amazon basins many tribes are met which yield little if at all to the Fuegians of the early writers in sheer savagery and debasement. Thus the Cashibo or Carapache of the Ucayali, who are described as "white as Germans, with long beards[941]," may be said to answer almost better than any other human group to the old saying, homo homini lupus. They roam the forests like wild beasts, living almost entirely upon game, in which is included man himself. "When one of them is pursuing the chase in the woods and hears another hunter imitating the cry of an animal, he immediately makes the same cry to entice him nearer, and, if he is of another tribe, he kills him if he can, and (as is alleged) eats him." Hence they are naturally "in a state of hostility with all their neighbours[942]."

The Pano Family.

These Cashibo, i.e. "Bats," are members of a widespread linguistic family which in ethnological writings bears the name of Pano, from the Pano of the Huallaga and Marañon, who are now broken up or greatly reduced, but whose language is current amongst the Cashibo, the Conibo, the Karipuna, the Setebo, the Sipivio (Shipibo) and others about the head waters of the Amazons in Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, as far east as the Madeira. Amongst these, as amongst the Moxo and so many other riverine tribes in Amazonia, a slow transformation is in progress. Some have been baptized, and while still occupying their old haunts and keeping up the tribal organisation, have been induced to forego their savage ways and turn to peaceful pursuits. They are beginning to wear clothes, usually cotton robes of some vivid colour, to till the soil, take service with the white traders, or even trade themselves in their canoes up and down the tributaries of the Amazons. Beyond the Rubber Belt, however, many tribes are quite untouched by outside influences. The cannibal Boro and Witoto, living between the Issa and Japura, are ignorant of any method of producing fire, and their women go entirely nude, though some of their arts and crafts exhibit considerable skill, notably the plaitwork and blow-pipes of the Boro[943].

Ethnical Relations in Amazonia.

In this boundless Amazonian region of moist sunless woodlands fringed north and east by Atlantic coast ranges, diversified by the open Venezuelan llanos, and merging southwards in the vast alluvial plains of the Parana-Paraguay basin, much light has been brought to bear on the obscure ethnical relations by the recent explorations especially of Paul Ehrenreich and Karl von den Steinen about the Xingu, Purus, Madeira and other southern affluents of the great artery[944]. These observers comprise the countless Brazilian aborigines in four main linguistic divisions, which in conformity with Powell's terminology may here be named the Cariban, Arawakan, Gesan and Tupi-Guaranian families. There remain, however, numerous groups which cannot be so classified, such as the Bororo and Karaya of Matto Grosso, while in the relatively small area between the Japura and the Waupes Koch-Grünberg found two other language groups, Betoya and Maku in addition to Carib and Arawak[945].

The Caribs.

Hitherto the Caribs were commonly supposed to have had their original homes far to the north, possibly in the Alleghany uplands, or in Florida, where they have been doubtfully identified with the extinct Timuquanans, and whence they spread through the Antilles southwards to Venezuela, the Guianas, and north-east Brazil, beyond which they were not known to have ranged anywhere south of the Amazons. But this view is now shown to be untenable, and several Carib tribes, such as the Bakaïri and Nahuqua[946] of the Upper Xingu, all speaking archaic forms of the Carib stock language, have been met by the German explorers in the very heart of Brazil; whence the inference that the cradle of this race is to be sought rather in the centre of South America, perhaps on the Goyaz and Matto Grosso table-lands, from which region they moved northwards, if not to Florida, at least to the Caribbean Sea which is named from them[947]. The wide diffusion of this stock is evidenced by the existence of an unmistakably Carib tribe in the basin of the Rio Magdalena beyond the Andes[948].

In the north the chief groups are the Makirifare of Venezuela and the Macusi, Kalina, and Galibi of British, Dutch, and French Guiana[949] respectively. In general all the Caribs present much the same physical characters, although the southerners are rather taller (5 ft. 4 in.) with less round heads (index 79.6) than the Guiana Caribs (5 ft 2 in., and 81.3).

The Arawakan Family.