A Journey in Brazil

by Louis Agassiz; Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz

Tout à vous,

L. Agassiz.[^[69]]

Mr. Agassiz has already secured quite a number of the singular type of Acarà, which carries its young in its mouth, and he has gathered a good deal of information about its habits. The fishermen here say that this mode of caring for the young prevails more or less in all the family of Acarà. They are not all born there, however; some lay their eggs in the sand, and, hovering over their nest, take up the little ones in their mouth, when they are hatched. The fishermen also add, that these fish do not always keep their young in the mouth, but leave them sometimes in the nest, taking them up only on the approach of danger.[^[70]]

Our household is now established on a permanent basis. We had at first some difficulty in finding servants; at this fishing season, when the men are going off to dry and salt fish, and when the season for hunting turtle-eggs and making turtle-butter is coming on, the town is almost deserted by the men. It is like haying-time in this country, when every arm is needed in the fields. Then the habits of the Indians are so irregular, and they care so little for money, finding, as they do, the means of living almost without work immediately about them, that even if one does engage a servant, he is likely to disappear the next day. An Indian will do more for good-will and a glass of cachaça (rum) than he will do for wages, which are valueless to him. The individual, who has been supplying the place of indoors man while we have been looking for a servant, is so original in his appearance that he deserves a special description. He belongs to a neighbor who has undertaken to provide our meals, and he brings them when they are prepared and waits on the table. He is rather an elderly Indian, and his dress consists of a pair of cotton drawers, originally white, but now of many hues and usually rolled up to the knees, his feet being bare; the upper part of his person is partially (very partially) concealed by a blue rag, which I suppose in some early period of the world’s history must have been a shirt; this extraordinary figure is surmounted by an old straw hat full of holes, bent in every direction, and tied under the chin by a red string. Had he not been a temporary substitute, we should have tried to obtain a more respectable livery for him; but to-day he gives place to an Indian lad, Bruno by name, who presents a more decent appearance, though he seems rather bewildered by his new office. At present his idea of waiting on the table seems to be to sit on the floor and look at us while we eat. However, we hope to break him in gradually. He looks as if he had not been long redeemed from the woods, for his face is deeply tattooed with black, and his lips and nose are pierced with holes, reminding one of the becoming vanities he has renounced in favor of civilization.[^[71]] Besides Bruno we have a girl, Alexandrina by name, who, by her appearance, has a mixture of Indian and black blood in her veins. She promises very well, and seems to have the intelligence of the Indian with the greater pliability of the negro.

September 29th.—One of the great charms of our residence here is, that we have so many pleasant walks within easy reach. My favorite walk in the early morning is to the wood on the brow of the hill. From the summit, the sunrise is lovely over the village below, the lake with its many picturesque points and inlets, and the forests on the opposite shores. From this spot a little path through the bushes brings one at once into a thick, beautiful wood. Here one may wander at will, for there are a great many paths, worn by the Indians, through the trees; and one is constantly tempted on by the cool, pleasant shade, and by the perfume of moss and fern and flower. The forest here is full of life and sound. The buzz of insects, the shrill cry of the cicadas, the chattering talk of the papagaios, and occasionally busy voices of the monkeys, make the woods eloquent. The monkeys are, however, very difficult of approach, and though I hear them often, I have not yet seen them on the trees; but Mr. Hunnewell told me that the other day, when shooting in this very wood, he came upon a family of small white monkeys sitting on a bough together, and talking with much animation. One of the prettiest of the paths, with which my daily walks made me familiar, leads over an igarapé to a house, or rather to a large thatched shed, in the forest, used for preparing mandioca. It is supplied with four large clay ovens, having immense shallow pans fitted on to the top, with troughs for kneading, sieves for straining, and all the apparatus for the various processes to which the mandioca is subjected. One utensil is very characteristic; the large, empty turtle-shells, which may be seen in every kitchen, used as basins, bowls, &c. I suppose this little establishment is used by a number of persons, for in my morning walks I always meet troops of Indians going to it, the women with their deep working baskets,—something like the Swiss “hotte,”—in which they carry their tools, on their backs, supported by a straw band fastened across the forehead, and their babies astride on their hips, so as to leave their hands perfectly free. They always give me a cordial morning greeting and stop to look at the plants and flowers with which I am usually laden. Some of the women are quite pretty, but as a general thing the Indians in this part of the country do not look very healthy, and are apt to have diseases of the eyes and skin. It is a curious thing that the natives seem more liable to the maladies of the country than strangers. They are very subject to intermittent fevers, and one often sees Indians worn to mere skin and bone by this terrible scourge.

If the morning walk in the woods is delightful, the evening stroll on the beach in front of the house is no less so, when the water is dyed in the purple sunset, and the quiet of the scene is broken here and there by a fire on the sands, around which a cluster of Indians are cooking their supper. As Major Coutinho and I were walking on the shore last evening we came on such a group. They were a family who had come over from their home on the other side of the lake, with a boat-load of fish and turtle to sell in the village. When they have disposed of their cargo, they build their fire on the beach, eat their supper of salted or broiled fish, farinha, and the nuts of a particular kind of palm (Atalea), and then sleep in their canoe. We sat down with them, and, that they should not think we came merely out of curiosity, we shared their nuts and farinha, and they were soon very sociable. I am constantly astonished at the frank geniality of these people, so different from our sombre, sullen Indians, who are so unwilling to talk with strangers. The cordiality of their reception, however, depends very much on the way in which they are accosted. Major Coutinho, who has passed years among them, understands their character well, and has remarkable tact in his dealings with them. He speaks their language a little also, and this is important here where many of the Indians speak only the “lingua geral.” This was the case with several of the family whose acquaintance we made last evening, though some of them talked in Portuguese fluently enough, telling us about their life in the forest, their success in disposing of their fish and turtle, and inviting us to come to their house. They pointed out to us one of the younger girls, who they said had never been baptized, and they seemed to wish to have the rite performed. Major Coutinho promised to speak to the priest about it for them. So far as we can learn, the white population do little to civilize the Indians beyond giving them the external rites of religion. It is the old sad story of oppression, duplicity, and license on the part of the white man, which seems likely to last as long as skins shall differ, and which necessarily ends in the degradation of both races.

October 4th.—On Saturday morning at four o’clock, Major Coutinho, Mr. Agassiz, and myself left Teffé in company with our neighbor and landlord Major Estolano, on our way to his “sitio,” a rough sort of Indian lodge on the other side of the Solimoens, where he goes occasionally with his family to superintend the drying and salting of fish, a great article of commerce here. It had rained heavily all night, but the stars were bright, and the morning was cool and fresh when we put off in the canoe. When we issued from Teffé lake it was already broad day, and by the time we entered the Solimoens we began to have admonitions that breakfast-time was approaching. There is something very pleasant in these improvised meals; the coffee tastes better when you have made it yourself, setting up the coffee-machine under the straw-roof of the canoe, dipping up the water from the river over the side of the boat, and cooking your own breakfast. One would think it a great bore at home, with all the necessary means and appliances; but with the stimulus of difficulty and the excitement of the journey it is quite pleasant, and gives a new relish to ordinary fare. After we had had a cup of hot coffee and a farinha biscuit, being somewhat cramped with sitting in the canoe, we landed for a walk on a broad beach along which we were coasting. There is much to be learned on these Amazonian beaches; they are the haunts and breeding-places of many different kinds of animals, and are covered by tracks of alligators, turtles, and capivari. Then there are the nests, not only of alligators and turtles, but of the different kind of fishes and birds that lay their eggs in the mud or sand. It is curious to see the address of the Indians in finding the turtle-nests; they walk quickly over the sand, but with a sort of inquiring tread, as if they carried an instinctive perception in their step, and the moment they set their foot upon a spot below which eggs are deposited, though there is no external evidence to the eye, they recognize it at once, and, stooping, dig straight down to the eggs, generally eight or ten inches under the surface. Besides these tracks and nests, there are the rounded, shallow depressions in the mud, which the fishermen say are the sleeping-places of the skates. They have certainly about the form and size of the skate, and one can easily believe that these singular impressions in the soft surface have been made in this way. The vegetation on these beaches is not less interesting than these signs of animal life. In the rainy season more than half a mile of land, now uncovered along the margins of the river, is entirely under water, the river rising not only to the edge of the forest, but penetrating far into it. At this time of the year, however, the shore consists, first of the beach, then of a broad band of tall grasses, beyond which are the lower shrubs and trees, leading up, by a sort of gradation, to the full forest growth. During this dry season the vegetation makes an effort to recover its lost ground; one sees the little Imbauba (Cecropia) and a kind of willow-tree (Salix humboldiana), the only familiar plant we met, springing up on the sand, and creeping down to the water’s edge, only to be destroyed again with the next rise of the river. While we were walking, the boatmen were dragging the net, and though not with such astonishing success as the other day, yet it landed not only an ample supply of fresh fish for breakfast, but also a number of interesting specimens. At about eleven o’clock we turned from the Solimoens into the little river on which Mr. Estolano’s fishing-lodge is situated, and in a few minutes found ourselves at the pretty landing, where a rough flight of steps led up to the house. In this climate a very slight shelter will serve as a house. Such a dwelling is indeed nothing but a vast porch; and a very airy, pleasant, and picturesque abode it makes. A palm-thatched roof to shed the rain and keep off the sun, covering a platform of split logs that one may have a dry floor under foot; these, with plenty of posts and rafters for the swinging of hammocks, are the essentials. It was somewhat after this fashion that Major Estolano’s lodge was built. The back part of it consisted of one very large, high chamber, to which the family retired in the hottest part of the day, when the sun was most scorching; all the rest was roof and platform, the latter stretching out considerably beyond the former, thus leaving an open floor on one side for the stretching and drying of fish. The whole structure was lifted on piles about eight feet above the ground, to provide against the rising of the river in the rainy season. In front of the house, just on the edge of the bank, were several large, open, thatched sheds, used as kitchen and living-rooms for the negroes and Indians employed in the preparation of the fish. In one of these rooms were several Indian women who looked very ill. We were told they had been there for two months, and they were worn to skin and bone with intermittent fever. Major Coutinho said they were, no doubt, suffering in part from the habit so prevalent among these people of eating clay and dirt, for which they have a morbid love. They were wild-looking creatures, lying in their hammocks or squatting on the ground, often without any clothes, and moaning as if in pain. They were from the forest, and spoke no Portuguese.

We were received most cordially by the ladies of the family, who had gone up to the lodge the day before, and were offered the refreshment of a hammock, the first act of hospitality in this country, when one arrives from any distance. After this followed an excellent breakfast of the fresh fish we had brought with us, cooked in a variety of ways, broiled, fried, and boiled. The repast was none the less appetizing that it was served in picnic fashion, the cloth being laid on the floor, upon one of the large palm-mats, much in use here to spread over the uncarpeted brick floors or under the hammocks. For several hours after breakfast the heat was intense, and we could do little but rest in the shade, though Mr. Agassiz, who works at all hours if specimens are on hand, was busy in making skeletons of some fish too large to be preserved in alcohol. Towards evening it grew cooler, and we walked in the banana plantation near the house, and sat under an immense gourd-tree on the bank, which made a deep shade; for it was clothed not only by its own foliage, but the branches were covered with parasites, and with soft, dark moss, in contrast with which the lighter green, glossy fruit seemed to gain new lustre. I call it a gourd-tree, simply from the use to which the fruit is put. But it goes here by the name of the Cuieira-tree (Crescentia Cajeput), the cup made from the fruit being called a Cuia. The fruit is spherical, of a light green, shiny surface, and grows from the size of an apple to that of the largest melon. It is filled with a soft, white pulp, easily removed when the fruit is cut in halves; the rind is then allowed to dry. Very pretty cups and basins, of many sizes, are made in this way; and the Indians, who understand how to prepare a variety of very brilliant colors, are very skilful in painting them. It would seem that the art of making colors is of ancient date among the Amazonian Indians, for in the account of Francisco Orellana’s journey down the Amazons in 1541, “the two fathers of the expedition declare that in this voyage they found all the people to be both intelligent and ingenious, which was shown by the works which they performed in sculpture and painting in bright colors.”[^[72]] Their paints are prepared from a particular kind of clay and from the juices of several plants which have coloring properties. In an Amazonian cottage one hardly sees any utensils for the table except such as the Indians have prepared and ornamented themselves from the fruits of the Cuieira-tree. I longed to extend my walk into the woods which surrounded us on all sides; but the forest is very tantalizing here, so tempting and so impenetrable. The ladies told me there were no paths cut in the neighborhood of the house.

The next morning we were off early in the canoes on a fish hunt; I call it a hunt advisedly, for the fish are the captives of the bow and spear, not of the net and line. The Indians are very adroit in shooting the larger fish with the bow and arrow, and in harpooning some of the veritable monsters of their rivers, such as the Peixe-boi (“fish-cow”), Manatee or Dugon, with the spear. We made two parties this morning, some of us going in the larger canoe to drag a forest lake with the net, while some of the fishermen took a smaller, lighter boat, to be able to approach their larger prey. Our path lay through a pretty igarapé, where, for the first time, I saw monkeys in a tree by the water-side. On coming to the Amazons we expect to see monkeys as frequently as squirrels are seen at home; but, though very numerous, they are so shy that one rarely gets a fair view of them. After an hour’s row we landed at a little point jutting out into the water, and went through the forest, the men cutting the way before us, clearing the path of branches, fallen trees, and parasitic vines which obstructed it. I was astonished to see the vigor and strength with which Dona Maria, the mother-in-law of our host, made her way through the tangled trees, helping to free the road, and lopping off branches with her great wood-knife. We imagine all the ladies in this warm country to be very indolent and languid; and in the cities, as a general thing, their habits are much less vigorous than those of our women. But here, in the Upper Amazons, the women who have been brought up in the country and in the midst of the Indians are often very energetic, bearing a hand at the oar or the fishing-net with the strength of a man. A short walk brought us out upon a shallow forest lake, or, as the Indians call it, “round water.” The Indian names are often very significant. I have mentioned the meaning of igarapé, “boat path”; to this, when they wish to indicate its size more exactly, they affix either the word “assù” (large) or “mirim” (small). But an igarapé, whether large or small, is always a channel opening out of the main river and having no other outlet. For a channel connecting the upper and lower waters of the same river, or leading from one river to another, they have another word, “Paraná” (signifying river), which they modify in the same way, as Paraná-assú or Paraná-mirim. Paraná-assú, the big river, means also the sea. A still more significant name for a channel connecting two rivers is the Portuguese word “fúro,” meaning bore.

The lake was set in the midst of long, reed-like grass, and, as we approached it, thousands of white water-birds rustled up from the margin and floated like a cloud above us. The reason of their numbers was plain when we reached the lake: it was actually lined with shrimps; one could dip them out by the bucketful. The boatmen now began to drag the net, and perhaps nowhere, from any single lake or pond, has Mr. Agassiz made a more valuable collection of forest fishes. Among them was a pipe-fish, one of the Goniodont family, very similar to our ordinary Syngnathus in appearance, but closely related to Acestra, and especially interesting to him as throwing light on certain investigations of his, made when quite a young man. This specimen confirmed a classification by which he then associated the pipe-fish with the Garpikes and Sturgeons, a combination which was scouted by the best naturalists of the time, and is even now repudiated by most of them. Without self-glorification, it is impossible not to be gratified when the experience of later years confirms the premonitions of youth, and shows them to have been not mere guesses, but founded upon an insight into the true relations of things. Wearied after a while with watching the fishing in the sun, I went back into the forest, where I found the coffee-pot already boiling over the fire. It was pleasant to sit down on a fallen, moss-grown trunk, and breakfast in the shade. Presently the fishermen came back from the lake, and we found our way to the boats again, laden with an immense number of fishes. The gentlemen returned to the house in one of the smaller montarias, taking the specimens with them, and leaving me to return in the larger canoe with the Senhoras. It seemed to me strange on this Sunday morning, when the bells must be ringing and the people trooping to church under the bright October sky, in our far-off New England home, to be floating down this quiet igarapé, in a boat full of half-naked Indians, their wild, monotonous chant sounding in our ears as they kept time to their oars. In these excursions one learns to understand the fascination this life must have for a people among whom civilization is as yet but very incomplete; it is full of physical enjoyment, without any mental effort. Up early in the morning and off on their fishing or hunting excursions long before dawn, they return by the middle of the day, lie in their hammocks and smoke during the hours of greatest heat; cook the fish they have brought with them, and, unless sickness comes to them, know neither want nor care. We reached the house in time for a twelve o’clock breakfast of a more solid character than the lighter one in the forest, and by no means unacceptable after our long row. In the course of the day two “Peixe-bois” (Manatees) were brought in, also a Boto (porpoise), and some large specimens of Pirarucu (Sudis). All these are too clumsy to preserve in alcohol, especially when alcohol is so difficult to obtain and so expensive as it is here; but Mr. Agassiz has had skeletons made of them, and will preserve the skins of the Peixe-bois for mounting. He obtained at the same time an entirely new genus of the Siluroid family. It is a fish weighing some ten pounds, called here the Pacamum, and of a bright canary color.