Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

The Uaupés are generally rather tall, five feet nine or ten inches being not an uncommon height, and they are very stout and well formed. Their hair is jet-black and straight, only turning grey with extreme old age. The men do not cut their hair, but gather it behind into a long tail, bound round with cord, and hanging down to the middle of the back, and often to the thighs; the hair of the women hangs loose down their backs, and is cut to a moderate length. The men have very little beard, and that little they eradicate by pulling it out; men and women also eradicate the hair of the eyebrows, the arm-pits, and the private parts. The colour of the skin is a light, uniform, glossy reddish-brown.

They are an agricultural people, having a permanent abode, and cultivating mandiocca (Jatropha Manihot), sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum), sweet potatoes (Convolvulus Batatas), carrá, or yam (Dioscorea sp.), pupunha palms (Guilielma speciosa), cocura (a fruit like grapes), pine-apples (Ananassa sativa), maize (Zea Mays), urucú or arnotto (Bixa Orellana), plantains and banánas (Musa sp.), abios (Lucuma Caimito), cashews (Anacardium occidentale), ingás (Inga sp.), peppers (Capsicum sp.), tobacco (Nicotiana Tabacum), and plants for dyes and cordage. All, even in the most remote districts, have now iron axes and knives, though the stone axes which they formerly used are still to be found among them. The men cut down the trees and brushwood, which, after they have lain some months to dry, are burnt; and the mandiocca is then planted by the women, together with little patches of cane, sweet potatoes, and various fruits. The women also dig up the mandiocca, and prepare from it the bread which is their main subsistence. The roots are brought home from the field in large baskets called aturás, made of a climber, and only manufactured by these tribes; they are then washed and peeled, this last operation being generally performed with the teeth, after which they are grated on large wooden graters about three feet long and a foot wide, rather concave, and covered all over with small sharp pieces of quartz, inserted in a regular diagonal pattern. These graters are an article of trade in all the Upper Amazon, as they are cheaper than the copper graters used in other parts of Brazil. The pulp is placed to drain on a large sieve made of the bark of a water-plant. It is then put into a long elastic cylinder made of the outer rind, or bark, of a climbing palm, a species of Desmoncus: this is filled with the half-dry pulp, and, being hung on a cross-beam between two posts, is stretched by a lever, on the further end of which the woman sits, and thus presses out the remaining liquid. These cylinders, called "tipitis," are also a considerable article of trade, and the Portuguese and Brazilians have not yet introduced any substitute for this rude Indian press. The pulp is then turned out, a dry compact mass, which is broken up, and the hard lumps and fibres picked out, when it is at once roasted on large flat ovens from four to six feet in diameter, with a sloping rim about six inches high. These ovens are well made, of clay mixed with the ashes of the bark of a tree called "caripé," and are supported on walls of mud about two feet high, with a large opening on one side, in which to make a fire of logs of wood. The mandiocca cakes, or "beijú," thus prepared, are sweet and agreeable to the taste; but the Indians generally first soak the roots some days in water, which softens and ferments them, and gives the bread a sour taste, much relished by the natives, but not generally so agreeable to Europeans. The bread is made fresh every day, as when it gets cold and dry it is far less palatable. The women thus have plenty to do, for every other day at least they have to go to the field, often a mile or two distant, to fetch the root, and every day to grate, prepare, and bake the bread; as it forms by far the greater part of their food, and they often pass days without eating anything else, especially when the men are engaged in clearing the forest. For the greater part of the year, however, the men go daily to fish, and at these times they have a good supply of this their favourite food. Meat and game they only eat occasionally; they prefer jabutís, or land-tortoises, monkeys, inambus (Tinamus sp.), toucans, and the smaller species of wild pig (Dicotyles torquatus). But they will not eat the large wild pig (D. labiatus), the anta (Tapirus Americanus), or the white-rumped mutun (Crax globicera?). They consume great quantities of peppers (species of Capsicum), preferring the small red ones, which are of excessive pungency: when they have no fish, they boil several pounds of these peppers in a little water, and dip their bread into the fiery soup thus formed.

The poisonous juice expressed from the mandiocca root, when fermented and boiled in various ways, forms sauces and peculiarly flavoured drinks, of which they are very fond. In making their bread they have a peculiarity, not noticed among the neighbouring tribes, of extracting pure tapioca from the mandiocca, and, by mixing this with the ordinary pulp, forming a very superior cake.

They use plantains extensively, eating them as a fruit, and making a mingau, or gruel, by boiling and beating them into a pulp, which is a very agreeable food. From the fruits of the Baccába, Patawá, and Assai palms (Œnocarpus Baccaba, Œ. Batawa, Euterpe oleracea and allied species), they produce wholesome and nourishing drinks.

Besides these they make much use of sweet potatoes, yams, roasted corn, and many forest fruits, from all of which, and from mandiocca cakes, they make fermented drinks, which go under the general name of "caxirí." That made from the mandiocca is the most agreeable, and much resembles good table-beer. At their feasts and dances they consume immense quantities of it, and it does not seem to produce any bad effects. They also use, on these occasions, an intensely exciting preparation of the root of a climber,—it is called capí, and the manner of using it I have described in my Narrative (page [205]).

The weapons of these Indians are bows and arrows, gravatánas, lances, clubs, and also small hand-nets, and rods and lines, for catching fish.

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 ray-fish: 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 [147]).

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 fish-hooks sold every year in the river Uaupés; yet there are still to be found among them many of their own hooks, ingeniously made of palm-spines. 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.