A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,

by Alfred Russel Wallace

Their bows are of different kinds of hard elastic wood, well made, and from five to six feet long. The string is either of the “tucum” leaf fibre (Astrocaryum vulgare), or of the inner bark of trees called “tururi.” The arrows are of various kinds, from five to seven feet long. The shaft is made of the flower-stalk of the arrow-grass (Gynerium saccharinum). In the war-arrows, or “curubís,” the head is made of hard wood, carefully pointed, and by some tribes armed with the serrated spine of the rayfish: it is thickly anointed with poison, and notched in two or three places so as to break off in the wound. Arrows for shooting fish are now almost always made with iron heads, sold by the traders, but many still use heads made of monkeys’ bones, with a barb, to retain a hold of the fish: the iron heads are bent at an angle, so that the lower part projects and forms a barb, and are securely fastened on with twine and pitch. Lighter arrows are made for shooting birds and other small game, and these alone are feathered at the base. The feathers generally used are from the wings of the macaw, and, in putting them on, the Indian shows his knowledge of the principle which is applied in the spirally-grooved rifle-barrel: three feathers are used, and they are all secured spirally, so as to form a little screw on the base of the arrow, the effect of which of course must be, that the arrow revolves rapidly in its onward progress, and this no doubt tends to keep it in a direct course.

The gravatána and small poisoned arrows are made and used exactly as I have already described in my Narrative ([page 215]).

The small hand-nets used for catching fish are of two kinds,—a small ring-net, like a landing-net, and one spread between two slender sticks, just like the large folding-nets of entomologists: these are much used in the rapids, and among rocks and eddies, and numbers of fish are caught with them. They also use the rod and line, and consume an enormous quantity of hooks: there are probably not less than a hundred thousand fishhooks sold every year in the river Uaupés; yet there are still many of their own hooks, ingeniously made of palm-spines, to be found among them. They have many other ways of catching fish: one is by a small cone of wicker, called a “matapí,” which is placed in some little current in the gapó; the larger end is entirely open, and it appears at first sight quite incapable of securing the fish, yet it catches great quantities, for when the fish get in they have no room to turn round, and cannot swim backwards, and three or four are often found jammed in the end of these little traps, with the scales and skin quite rubbed off their heads by their vain endeavours to proceed onwards. Other matapís are larger and more cylindrical, with a reversed conical mouth (as in our wire rat-traps), to prevent the return of the fish: these are often made of a very large size, and are placed in little forest-streams, and in narrow channels between rocks, where the fish, in passing up, must enter them. But the best method of procuring fish, and that which has been generally adopted by the Europeans in the country, is with the Cacoaries, or fish-weirs. These are principally used at high-water, when fish are scarce: they are formed at the margin of rivers, supported by strong posts, which are securely fixed at the time of low-water, when the place of the weir is quite dry; to these posts is secured a high fence of split palm-stems, forming an entering angle, with a narrow opening into a fenced enclosure. Fish almost always travel against the stream, and generally abound more at the sides where the current is less rapid: they are guided by the side-wings of the weir into the narrow opening, from which they cannot find their way out. They are obtained by diving into the weir, and then catching them with the pisá (small net), or with the hand, or sticking them with a knife. In these cacoaries every kind of fish is caught, from the largest to the smallest, as well as river tortoises and turtles. The Indian generally feels about well with a rod before entering a cacoarí, to ascertain if it contains an electrical eel, in which case he gets it out first with a net. The Piránhas, species of Serrasalmo, are also rather dangerous, for I have seen an Indian boy return from the cacoary with his finger bitten off by one of them.

The “Geraú,” is yet on a larger scale than the Cacoarí. It is used only in the cataracts, and is very similar to the eel-traps used at mills and sluices in England. It is a large wooden sieve, supported in the midst of a cataract, so that the full force of the water dashes through it. All the fish which are carried down by the violence of the current are here caught, and their numbers are often so great as to supply a whole village with food. At many of the falls on the Uaupés, they make these geraús, which require the united exertions of the inhabitants to construct them; huge timbers having to be planted in every crevice of the rocks, to withstand the strength of the torrent of water brought down by the winter’s floods.

All the fish not used at the time are placed on a little platform of sticks, over the fire, till they are so thoroughly dried and imbued with smoke, as to keep good any length of time. They are then used for voyages, and to sell to travellers, but, having no salt, are a very tasteless kind of food.

Salt is not so much sought after by these Indians as by many other tribes; for they will generally prefer fishhooks and beads in payment for any articles you may purchase of them. Peppers seem to serve them in place of salt. They do however extract from the fruits of the Inajá palm (Maximiliana regia) and the Jará palm (Leopoldinia major), and also from the Carurú (a species of Lacis very common on the rocks in the falls), a kind of flour which has a saline taste, and with which they season their food. The Carurú indeed has quite the smell of salt water, and is excellent eating, both boiled as a vegetable, or with oil and vinegar as a salad.

All the tribes of the Uaupés construct their dwellings after one plan, which is peculiar to them. Their houses are the abode of numerous families, sometimes of a whole tribe. The plan is a parallelogram, with a semicircle at one end. The dimensions of one at Jauarité were one hundred and fifteen feet in length, by seventy-five broad, and about thirty high. This house would hold about a dozen families, consisting of near a hundred individuals. In times of feasts and dances, three or four hundred are accommodated in them. The roof is supported on fine cylindrical columns, formed of the trunks of trees, and beautifully straight and smooth. In the centre a clear opening is left, twenty feet wide, and on the sides are little partitions of palm-leaf thatch, dividing off rooms for the separate families: here are kept the private household utensils, weapons, and ornaments; while the rest of the space contains, on each side, the large ovens and gigantic pans for making caxirí, and, in the centre, a place for the children to play, and for their dances to take place. These houses are built with much labour and skill; the main supporters, beams, rafters, and other parts, are straight, well proportioned to the strength required, and bound together with split creepers, in a manner that a sailor would admire. The thatch is of the leaf of some one of the numerous palms so well adapted to the purpose, and is laid on with great compactness and regularity. The walls, which are very low, are formed also of palm thatch, but so thick and so well bound together, that neither arrow nor bullet will penetrate it. At the gable-end is a large doorway, about six feet wide and eight or ten high: the door is a large palm-mat, hung from the top, supported by a pole during the day, and let down at night. At the semicircular end is a smaller door, which is the private entrance of the Tushaúa, or chief, to whom this part of the house exclusively belongs. The lower part of the gable-end, on each side of the entrance, is covered with the thick bark of a tree unrolled, and standing vertically. Above this is a loose hanging of palm-leaves, between the fissures of which the smoke from the numerous fires within finds an exit. In some cases this gable-end is much ornamented with symmetrical figures painted in colours, as at Carurú caxoeira.

The furniture consists principally of maqueiras, or hammocks, made of string, twisted from the fibres of the leaves of the Mauritia flexuosa: they are merely an open network of parallel threads, crossed by others at intervals of a foot; the loops at each end have a cord passed through them, by which they are hung up. The Uaupés make great quantities of string of this and other fibres, twisting it on their breasts or thighs, with great rapidity.

They have always in their houses a large supply of earthen pots, pans, pitchers, and cooking utensils, of various sizes, which they make of clay from the river and brooks, mixed with the ashes of the caripé bark, and baked in a temporary furnace. They have also great quantities of small saucer-shaped baskets, called “Balaios,” which are much esteemed down the river, and are the subject of a considerable trade.

Two tribes in the lower part of the river, the Tariános and Tucános, make a curious little stool, cut of a solid block of wood, and neatly painted and varnished; these, which take many days to finish, are sold for about a pennyworth of fish-hooks.