Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

ON THE ABORIGINES OF THE AMAZON.

Comparing the accounts given by other travellers with my own observations, the Indians of the Amazon valley appear to be much superior, both physically and intellectually, to those of South Brazil and of most other parts of South America; they more closely resemble the intelligent and noble races inhabiting the western prairies of North America. This view is confirmed by Prince Adalbert of Prussia, who first saw the uncivilised Indians of South Brazil, and afterwards those of the Amazon; and records his surprise and admiration at the vast superiority of the latter in strength and beauty of body, and in gentleness of disposition.

I have myself had opportunities of observing the Aborigines of the interior, in places where they retain all their native customs and peculiarities. These truly uncivilised Indians are seen by few travellers, and can only be found by going far beyond the dwellings of white men, and out of the ordinary track of trade. In the neighbourhood of civilisation the Indian loses many of his peculiar customs,—changes his mode of life, his house, his costume, and his language,—becomes imbued with the prejudices of civilisation, and adopts the forms and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion. In this state he is a different being from the true denizen of the forests, and it may be doubted, where his civilisation goes no further than this, if he is not a degenerate and degraded one; but it is in this state alone that he is met with by most travellers in Brazil, on the banks of the Amazon, in Venezuela, and in Peru.

I do not remember a single circumstance in my travels so striking and new, or that so well fulfilled all previous expectations, as my first view of the real uncivilised inhabitants of the river Uaupés. Though I had been already three years in the country, and had seen Indians of almost every shade of colour and every degree of civilisation, I felt that I was as much in the midst of something new and startling, as if I had been instantaneously transported to a distant and unknown country.

The Indians of the Amazon and its tributaries are of a countless variety of tribes and nations; all of whom have peculiar languages and customs, and many of them some distinct physical characteristics. Those now found in the city of Pará, and all about the country of the Lower Amazon, have long been civilised,—have lost their own language, and speak the Portuguese, and are known by the general name of Tapúyas, which is applied to all Indians, and seems to be a corruption of "Tupis," the name applied to the natives of the coast-districts, on the first settlement of the country. These Indians are short, stout, and well made. They learn all trades quickly and well, and are a quiet, good-natured, inoffensive people. They form the crews of most of the Pará trading canoes. Their main peculiarity consists in their short stature, which is more observable than in any other tribe I am acquainted with. It may be as well, before proceeding further, to mention the general characteristics of the Amazon Indians, from which the particular tribes vary but very slightly.

They are, a skin of a coppery or brown colour of various shades, often nearly the tint of smooth Honduras mahogany,—jet-black straight hair, thick, and never curled,—black eyes, and very little or no beard. With regard to their features, it is impossible to give any general characteristics. In some the whole face is wide and rather flattened, but I never could discern an unusual obliquity of the eyes, or projection of the cheek-bones; in many, of both sexes, the most perfect regularity of features exists, and there are numbers who in colour alone differ from a good-looking European.

Their figures are generally superb; and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue, as at these living illustrations of the beauty of the human form. The development of the chest is such as I believe never exists in the best-formed European, exhibiting a splendid series of convex undulations, without a hollow in any part of it.

Some native tribes exist in the rivers Guamá, Capím, and Acarrá, just above the city of Pará, but I could learn little definite about them. High up the rivers Tocantíns and Araguáya, there are numerous tribes of tall well-formed Indians, some of whom I have seen in Pará, where they arrive in canoes from the interior. Most of them have enormously elongated ears hanging down on their shoulders, produced probably by weights suspended from the lobe in youth. On the Xingú are many native tribes, some of whom were visited by Prince Adalbert. On the next river, the Tapajóz, dwell the Mundrucus, and they extend far into the interior, across to the Madeira and to the river Purús; they are a very numerous tribe, and portions of them are now civilised. The Máras, another of the populous tribes, are also partly civilised, about the mouths of the Madeira and Rio Negro; but in the interior, and up the river Purús, many yet live in a totally wild and savage state.

All along the banks of the main streams of the Amazon, Solimões, Madeira, and Rio Negro, live Indians of various races, in a semi-civilised state, and with their peculiar habits and languages in a great measure lost. Traces of these peculiarities are, however, still to be found, in the painted pottery manufactured at Breves, the elegant calabashes of Montealegre, the curious baskets of some tribes on the Rio Negro, and the calabashes of Ega, always painted in geometrical patterns.

Commencing near Santarem, and extending among all the half-civilised Indians of the Amazon, Rio Negro, and other rivers, the Lingoa Geral, or general Indian language, is spoken. Near the more populous towns and villages, it is used indiscriminately with the Portuguese; a little further, it is often the only language known; and far up in the interior it exists in common with the native language of the tribe to which the inhabitants belong. Thus on the Lower Amazon, all the Indians can speak both Portuguese and Lingoa Geral; on the Solimões and Rio Negro, Lingoa Geral alone is generally spoken; and in the interior, on the lakes and tributaries of the Solimoes, the Múra and Jurí tongues are in common use, with the Lingoa Geral as a means of communication with the traders. Near the sources of the Rio Negro, in Venezuela, the Barré and Baníwa languages are those used among the Indians themselves.