In the Wilds of South America

by Leo E. Miller

Our visit to Tumatumari was supposedly at the end of the wet season; notwithstanding this, it rained copiously nearly every day, and invariably each night. We spent the evenings on the wide veranda of our habitation, preparing specimens or writing notes. Myriads of insects, attracted by our bright lamps, fluttered in and out of the darkness and settled on the white walls. Our two colored assistants, whom we had brought from Georgetown, were trained and enthusiastic entomologists, having been employed by Doctor Rodway of the Georgetown Museum, and spent several hours each night with net and cyanide bottle. Frequently they caught several hundred specimens in a short time. They also prepared cages of fine wire netting in which caterpillars were imprisoned and carefully fed, and glass boxes, or “incubators” for cocoons; in this work they were most successful, and a number of moths of rare and desirable species were reared to a state of perfection. Sometimes the downpour was so heavy that it disturbed small birds in their sleep in the bushes; on several occasions finches (Sicalis) fluttered up to the lamp in a dazed or bewildered manner, when we caught them easily and placed them in a cage, liberating them the next morning.

Numbers of Indians of the Patamona tribe live in the surrounding forest. They are a friendly though primitive people, and some of them speak or understand a few words of English. We accompanied the Protector of Indians, a British official living at Tumatumari, to one of the Indian dwellings one day. It seems that a negro had promised to marry a Patamona woman, then ran away, when she promptly married a man of her own tribe. Learning of this, the former suitor had written a letter to the officer demanding either his bride or damages. The official spent a very bad hour trying to explain the situation to the woman in the limited Patamona vocabulary at his command, while she sat stolidly in a hammock. When he had finished, she calmly remarked, “Well, you tell him I think he is a damn fool,” in perfect English!

This tribe of Indians has a curious custom of torturing themselves in various ways, which performance is called “beena.” It is supposed to insure success in any undertaking. A favorite method is to insert tough, pliable creepers into the nostrils and draw them out through the mouth. Another consists of slashing the breast, arms, and legs, and rubbing into the wounds the acrid juice of a plant. The official to whom I have previously referred had an Indian in his employ whose duty it was to supply the table with fresh meat. He hunted daily in the forest, bringing in deer, peccaries, agoutis, and other game in abundance; but on one occasion fortune conspired against him. Thereupon he tried his favorite beena, but it failed to bring him luck; every other means of mutilation known to the man was then resorted to in rapid succession, but still his long tramp and careful stalking yielded no meat. He became greatly discouraged and told his employer that he would make one more attempt at hunting, and should he fail in this would use his weapon upon himself. The officer thought it unwise to permit the discouraged man to return to the forest on the day following this declaration, so ordered him to cut weeds in his back yard. This the Indian reluctantly consented to do, but scarcely had he begun when he cut down a bush containing a wasps’ nest and was severely stung. He immediately took his gun and hurried away, saying that a new “beena” had been sent to him, and that at last the evil spell was broken. Strange to relate, that night he returned laden with game.

A daily launch service is maintained from above the falls at Tumatumari to Potaro Landing, a day’s journey up-stream. The boat’s crew are all negroes, and are ordinarily a careless, slovenly lot. A short time before, they had failed to make proper allowance for the strength of the current when approaching the landing, and the launch, together with its thirty or more occupants, was swept over the falls and lost. Accidents such as this have caused the government to make wise and stringent rules regulating navigation on all streams, and applying to all craft, even canoes, containing passengers other than the owner; as a result accidents are now of rare occurrence.

One day’s time is required to reach Potaro Landing, the end of launch navigation, from Tumatumari. Tourists who visit the justly famous Kaieteur Falls proceed overland from this point, a distance of seven miles, and then embark in canoes manned by full-blooded Patamona Indians. There are other but shorter portages farther up the river, though as a whole the journey is not difficult and well worth making.

The appeal of Potaro Landing was irresistible to us, so we decided to remain a week or two. Unfortunately, Sproston’s maintains no rest-house here, as touring-parties continue to Kangaruma, at the other end of the portage, to spend the night. However, we found a good-natured Chinaman, who operates a store in the one lonely building at the landing, and he permitted us to use half of his barn; he had to remove his horses in order to supply even these limited quarters.

A good cart-road leads through the forest a distance of eighteen miles to the mining country on Minnehaha Creek, and many negro miners passed along this way each day; the greater part of them are what is locally known as “pork-knockers,” because they live largely on salt pork and knock about from one place to another. They secure a small stake from the government with which to buy a pick and shovel, and then go into the interior to prospect. If, as frequently occurs, they strike a rich pocket, or find a nugget of considerable size, they immediately drop their implements and rush back to Georgetown to spend their newly acquired wealth. Carriages are engaged by the day, servants employed, and clothes of a bright and flashy nature are purchased in quantities. For a short time they revel in luxury and live in contempt of their erstwhile companions. Quite naturally their wealth soon disappears, and the tawdry finery is pawned to provide money for more necessary things; but there is an end even to this resource. Soon they again seek the stake of a few dollars and hie themselves back to the wilderness to once more try their luck as ordinary pork-knockers. To strangers the negroes are courteous and obedient, but among themselves they are quarrelsome, unfeeling, and even cruel. I heard of an instance where a number of them had been commanded to take a very sick companion down the river in search of medical treatment. As they paddled along the pilot frequently called to the man nearest the sufferer: “Ain’t dead yet?” The person addressed roughly turned the sick man over with his paddle to inspect him, and then answered with a curt “No.” “My! dat man dead hard,” replied the pilot. They were most eagerly awaiting his death because it would save them a long trip, and they had planned to divide among themselves his possessions the moment life departed.

We met an American at the landing, who had experienced several unpleasant encounters with the negroes. He was engaged in searching for diamonds and had many of the colored folk in his employ. So far all the stones discovered had been of small size, but one day two of his men found a gem of good proportions. They immediately entered into an argument as to whether or not it was a real diamond, and to settle the dispute placed it on an anvil and hit it repeatedly with a sledge-hammer. “If it a diamond, it can’t broke,” was the gist of their theory. However, it was a real diamond, and it also broke; their outraged boss found the worthless particles a short time later. On another occasion this same man was confined in a hospital at Georgetown with a severe attack of fever. One night the colored head nurse swept in majestically, gave him a short, condescending look, and then directed his private nurse as follows: “Look through Mr. M.’s drawer to see if he’s got a white shirt to bury him in!”

At frequent intervals throughout the day we heard a deep, powerful note coming from the forest. It was a long-drawn Wow that lasted eight or ten seconds, and exactly resembled the sound made by a circular saw cutting its way through a log. This we found was made by the bald-headed cotinga (Gymnocephalus), a bird the size of a crow, and of a dark-brown color; the head is entirely devoid of feathers, like a vulture’s. Invariably several of these curious creatures were together, fluttering about among the lower branches and making the woods ring with their queer, outlandish cries. Another species of cotinga (Xipholena) was very rare; it was of smaller size and of the deepest wine color, with long, graceful wing-coverts and white primaries. When several were together in some tall tree-top they kept up a continuous quacking like a flock of ducks. If a skin of this bird is exposed to heat the color rapidly fades to a sickly bluish-gray.

One day an Indian hunter brought in a very small red howler monkey, and as I was aware that the species had not been known to live in captivity more than a few weeks, I was very eager to see if I could rear it. On account of its small size it had, of course, to be fed on milk (condensed), which it soon learned to take from the point of a fountain-pen filler. While it thrived and grew rapidly, it was always a sad little fellow and made no attempt to play or show signs of great friendliness. The only advance it ever made was to come up to me occasionally when I spoke to it, and feel of my face with its little black hands. After a time it was given full liberty about the camp, when it would spend hours sitting quietly beside a basin of water gazing at its reflection. After two months, and just as I was congratulating myself on having raised it past the danger-point of its existence, it climbed to a high shelf and ate a quantity of the arsenic compound used in preparing specimens.