The Naturalist on the River Amazons

by Henry Walter Bates

We walked about two miles along a well-trodden pathway, through high caapoeira (second-growth forest). A large proportion of the trees were Melastomas, which bore a hairy yellow fruit, nearly as large and as well flavoured as our gooseberry. The season, however, was nearly over for them. The road was bordered every inch of the way by a thick bed of elegant Lycopodiums. An artificial arrangement of trees and bushes could scarcely have been made to wear so finished an appearance as this naturally decorated avenue. The path at length terminated at a plantation of mandioca, the largest I had yet seen since I left the neighbourhood of Pará. There were probably ten acres of cleared land, and part of the ground was planted with Indian corn, water-melons, and sugar-cane. Beyond this field there was only a faint hunter’s track, leading towards the untrodden interior. My companion told me he had never heard of there being any inhabitants in that direction (the south). We crossed the forest from this place to another smaller clearing, and then walked, on our road home, through about two miles of caäpoeira of various ages, the sites of old plantations. The only fruits of our ramble were a few rare insects and a Japú (Cassicus cristatus), a handsome bird with chestnut and saffron-coloured plumage, which wanders through the tree-tops in large flocks. My little companion brought this down from a height which I calculated at thirty yards. The blow-gun, however, in the hands of an expert adult Indian, can be made to propel arrows so as to kill at a distance of fifty and sixty yards. The aim is most certain when the tube is held vertically, or nearly so. It is a far more useful weapon in the forest than a gun, for the report of a firearm alarms the whole flock of birds or monkeys feeding on a tree, whilst the silent poisoned dart brings the animals down one by one until the sportsman has a heap of slain by his side. None but the stealthy Indian can use it effectively. The poison, which must be fresh to kill speedily, is obtained only of the Indians who live beyond the cataracts of the rivers flowing from the north, especially the Rio Negro and the Japurá. Its principal ingredient is the wood of the Strychnos toxifera, a tree which does not grow in the humid forests of the river plains. A most graphic account of the Urarí, and of an expedition undertaken in search of the tree in Guiana, has been given by Sir Robert Schomburgk.[^[2]]

[2] Annals and Magazine of Natural History, vol. vii. p. 411.

When we returned to the house after mid-day, Cardozo was still sipping cauim, and now looked exceedingly merry. It was fearfully hot; the good fellow sat in his hammock with a cuya full of grog in his hands; his broad honest face all of a glow, and the perspiration streaming down his uncovered breast, the unbuttoned shirt having slipped half-way over his broad shoulders. Pedro-uassú had not drunk much; he was noted, as I afterwards learned, for his temperance. But he was standing up as I had left him two hours previous, talking to Cardozo in the same monotonous tones, the conversation apparently not having flagged all the time. I had never heard so much talking amongst Indians. The widower was asleep; the stirring, managing old lady with her daughter were preparing dinner. This, which was ready soon after I entered, consisted of boiled fowls and rice, seasoned with large green peppers and lemon juice, and piles of new, fragrant farinha and raw bananas. It was served on plates of English manufacture on a tupé, or large plaited rush mat, such as is made by the natives pretty generally on the Amazons. Three or four other Indians, men and women of middle age, now made their appearance, and joined in the meal. We all sat round on the floor: the women, according to custom, not eating until after the men had done. Before sitting down, our host apologised in his usual quiet, courteous manner for not having knives and forks; Cardozo and I ate by the aid of wooden spoons, the Indians using their fingers. The old man waited until we were all served before he himself commenced. At the end of the meal, one of the women brought us water in a painted clay basin of Indian manufacture, and a clean coarse cotton napkin, that we might wash our hands.

The horde of Passés of which Pedro-uassú was Tushaúa or chieftain, was at this time reduced to a very small number of individuals. The disease mentioned in the last chapter had for several generations made great havoc amongst them; many had also entered the service of whites at Ega, and, of late years, intermarriages with whites, half-castes, and civilised Indians had been frequent. The old man bewailed the fate of his race to Cardozo with tears in his eyes. “The people of my nation,” he said, “have always been good friends to the Caríwas (whites), but before my grandchildren are old like me the name of Passé will be forgotten.” In so far as the Passés have amalgamated with European immigrants or their descendants, and become civilised Brazilian citizens, there can scarcely be ground for lamenting their extinction as a nation; but it fills one with regret to learn how many die prematurely of a disease which seems to arise on their simply breathing the same air as the whites. The original territory of the tribe must have been of large extent, for Passés are said to have been found by the early Portuguese colonists on the Rio Negro; an ancient settlement on that river, Barcellos, having been peopled by them when it was first established; and they formed also part of the original population of Fonte-boa on the Solimoens. Their hordes were therefore, spread over a region 400 miles in length from cast to west. It is probable, however, that they have been confounded by the colonists with other neighbouring tribes who tattoo their faces in a similar manner. The extinct tribe of Yurimaúas, or Sorimóas, from which the river Solimoens derives its name, according to traditions extant at Ega, resembled the Passés in their slender figures and friendly disposition. These tribes (with others lying between them) peopled the banks of the main river and its by-streams from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Peru. True Passés existed in their primitive state on the banks of the Issá, 240 miles to the west of Ega, within the memory of living persons. The only large body of them now extant are located on the Japurá, at a place distant about 150 miles from Ega: the population of this horde, however, does not exceed, from what I could learn, 300 or 400 persons. I think it probable that the lower part of the Japurá and its extensive delta lands formed the original home of this gentle tribe of Indians.

The Passés are always spoken of in this country as the most advanced of all the Indian nations in the Amazons region. Under what influences this tribe has become so strongly modified in mental, social, and bodily features it is hard to divine. The industrious habits, fidelity, and mildness of disposition of the Passés, their docility and, it may be added, their personal beauty, especially of the children and women, made them from the first very attractive to the Portuguese colonists. They were, consequently, enticed in great number from their villages and brought to Barra and other settlements of the whites. The wives of governors and military officers from Europe were always eager to obtain children for domestic servants; the girls being taught to sew, cook, weave hammocks, manufacture pillow-lace, and so forth. They have been generally treated with kindness, especially by the educated families in the settlements. It is pleasant to have to record that I never heard of a deed of violence perpetrated, on the one side or the other, in the dealings between European settlers and this noble tribe of savages.

Very little is known of the original customs of the Passés. The mode of life of our host Pedro-uassú did not differ much from that of the civilised Mamelucos; but he and his people showed a greater industry, and were more open, cheerful, and generous in their dealings than many half-castes. The authority of Pedro, like that of the Tushaúas, generally was exercised in a mild manner. These chieftains appear able to command the services of their subjects, since they furnish men to the Brazilian authorities when requested; but none of them, even those of the most advanced tribes, appear to make use of this authority for the accumulation of property; the service being exacted chiefly in time of war. Had the ambition of the chiefs of some of these industrious tribes been turned to the acquisition of wealth, probably we should have seen indigenous civilised nations in the heart of South America similar to those found on the Andes of Peru and Mexico. It is very probable that the Passés adopted from the first to some extent the manners of the whites. Ribeiro, a Portuguese official who travelled in these regions in 1774-5, and wrote an account of his journey, relates that they buried their dead in large earthenware vessels (a custom still observed amongst other tribes on the Upper Amazons), and that, as to their marriages, the young men earned their brides by valiant deeds in war. He also states that they possessed a cosmogony in which the belief that the sun was a fixed body, with the earth revolving around it, was a prominent feature. He says, moreover, that they believed in a Creator of all things; a future state of rewards and punishments, and so forth. These notions are so far in advance of the ideas of all other tribes of Indians, and so little likely to have been conceived and perfected by a people having no written language or leisured class, that we must suppose them to have been derived by the docile Passés from some early missionary or traveller. I never found that the Passés had more curiosity or activity of intellect than other Indians. No trace of a belief in a future state exists amongst Indians who have not had much intercourse with the civilised settlers, and even amongst those who have it is only a few of the more gifted individuals who show any curiosity on the subject. Their sluggish minds seem unable to conceive or feel the want of a theory of the soul, and of the relations of man to the rest of Nature or to the Creator. But is it not so with totally uneducated and isolated people even in the most highly civilised parts of the world? The good qualities of the Passés belong to the moral part of the character: they lead a contented, unambitious, and friendly life, a quiet, domestic, orderly existence, varied by occasional drinking bouts and summer excursions. They are not so shrewd, energetic, and masterful as the Mundurucús, but they are more easily taught, because their disposition is more yielding than that of the Mundurucús or any other tribe.

We started on our return to Ega at half-past four o’clock in the afternoon. Our generous entertainers loaded us with presents. There was scarcely room for us to sit in the canoe, as they had sent down ten large bundles of sugar-cane, four baskets of farinha, three cedar planks, a small hamper of coffee, and two heavy bunches of bananas. After we were embarked, the old lady came with a parting gift for me—a huge bowl of smoking hot banana porridge. I was to eat it on the road “to keep my stomach warm.” Both stood on the bank as we pushed off, and gave us their adios: “Ikuána Tupána eirúm” (Go with God): a form of salutation taught by the old Jesuit missionaries. We had a most uncomfortable passage, for Cardozo was quite tipsy, and had not attended to the loading of the boat. The cargo had been placed too far forward, and to make matters worse, my heavy friend obstinately insisted on sitting astride on the top of the pile, instead of taking his place near the stern, singing from his perch a most indecent love-song, and disregarding the inconvenience of having to bend down almost every minute to pass under the boughs of hanging sipós as we sped rapidly along. The canoe leaked, but not, at first, alarmingly. Long before sunset, darkness began to close in under those gloomy shades, and our steersman could not avoid now and then running the boat into the thicket. The first time this happened a piece was broken off the square prow (rodella); the second time we got squeezed between two trees. A short time after this latter accident, being seated near the stern with my feet on the bottom of the boat, I felt rather suddenly the cold water above my ankles. A few minutes more and we should have sunk, for a seam had been opened forward under the pile of sugar-cane. Two of us began to bale, and by the most strenuous efforts managed to keep afloat without throwing overboard our cargo. The Indians were obliged to paddle with extreme slowness to avoid shipping water, as the edge of our prow was nearly level with the surface; but Cardozo was now persuaded to change his seat. The sun set, the quick twilight passed, and the moon soon after began to glimmer through the thick canopy of foliage. The prospect of being swamped in this hideous solitude was by no means pleasant, although I calculated on the chance of swimming to a tree and finding a nice snug place in the fork of some large bough wherein to pass the night. At length, after four hours’ tedious progress, we suddenly emerged on the open stream where the moonlight glittered in broad sheets on the gently rippling waters. A little extra care was now required in paddling. The Indians plied their strokes with the greatest nicety; the lights of Ega (the oil lamps in the houses) soon appeared beyond the black wall of forest, and in a short time we leapt safely ashore.

A few months after the excursion just narrated, I accompanied Cardozo in many wanderings on the Solimoens, during which he visited the praias (sand-islands), the turtle pools in the forests, and the by-streams and lakes of the great desert river. His object was mainly to superintend the business of digging up turtle eggs on the sandbanks, having been elected commandante for the year by the municipal council of Ega, of the “praia real” (royal sand-island) of Shimuní, the one lying nearest to Ega. There are four of these royal praias within the Ega district (a distance of 150 miles from the town), all of which are visited annually by the Ega people for the purpose of collecting eggs and extracting oil from their yolks. Each has its commander, whose business is to make arrangements for securing to every inhabitant an equal chance in the egg harvest by placing sentinels to protect the turtles whilst laying, and so forth. The pregnant turtles descend from the interior pools to the main river in July and August, before the outlets dry up, and then seek in countless swarms their favourite sand islands; for it is only a few praias that are selected by them out of the great number existing. The young animals remain in the pools throughout the dry season. These breeding places of turtles then lie twenty to thirty or more feet above the level of the river, and are accessible only by cutting roads through the dense forest.

We left Ega on our first trip to visit the sentinels whilst the turtles were yet laying, on the 26th of September. Our canoe was a stoutly built igarité, arranged for ten paddlers, and having a large arched toldo at the stern under which three persons could sleep pretty comfortably. Emerging from the Teffé we descended rapidly on the swift current of the Solimoens to the south-eastern or lower end of the large wooded island of Bariá, which here divides the river into two great channels. We then paddled across to Shimuní, which lies in the middle of the north-easterly channel, reaching the commencement of the praia an hour before sunset. The island proper is about three miles long and half a mile broad: the forest with which it is covered rises to an immense and uniform height, and presents all round a compact, impervious front. Here and there a singular tree, called Pao mulatto (mulatto wood), with polished dark-green trunk, rose conspicuously amongst the mass of vegetation. The sandbank, which lies at the upper end of the island, extends several miles and presents an irregular, and in some parts, strongly-waved surface, with deep hollows and ridges. When upon it, one feels as though treading an almost boundless field of sand, for towards the south-east, where no forest line terminates the view, the white, rolling plain stretches away to the horizon. The north-easterly channel of the river lying between the sands and the further shore of the river is at least two miles in breadth; the middle one, between the two islands, Shimuní and Bariá, is not much less than a mile.

We found the two sentinels lodged in a corner of the praia, where it commences at the foot of the towering forest wall of the island, having built for themselves a little rancho with poles and palm-leaves. Great precautions are obliged to be taken to avoid disturbing the sensitive turtles, who, previous to crawling ashore to lay, assemble in great shoals off the sandbank. The men, during this time, take care not to show themselves and warn off any fishermen who wishes to pass near the place. Their fires are made in a deep hollow near the borders of the forest, so that the smoke may not be visible. The passage of a boat through the shallow waters where the animals are congregated, or the sight of a man or a fire on the sandbank, would prevent the turtles from leaving the water that night to lay their eggs, and if the causes of alarm were repeated once or twice, they would forsake the praia for some other quieter place. Soon after we arrived, our men were sent with the net to catch a supply of fish for supper. In half an hour, four or five large basketsful of Acari were brought in. The sun set soon after our meal was cooked; we were then obliged to extinguish the fire and remove our supper materials to the sleeping ground, a spit of sand about a mile off; this course being necessary on account of the mosquitoes which swarm at night on the borders of the forest.