Odd people

by Mayne Reid

It may be remarked that this terrible ordeal of the Mundrucus, though, perhaps, peculiar among South-American Indians, has its parallel among certain tribes of the north,—the Mandans and others, as detailed by Catlin, one of the most acute of ethnological observers.

The scalp trophy, too, of the Northern Indian has its analogy in a Mundrucu custom—that which distinguishes him most of all, and which has won for him the terrible title of “Beheader.”

This singular appellation is now to be explained.

When a Mundrucu has succeeded in killing an enemy, he is not, like his northern compeer, satisfied with only the skin of the head. He must have the whole head, scalp and skull, bones, brains, and all! And he takes all, severing the head with his knife by a clean cut across the small of the neck, and leaving the trunk to the vulture king. With the ghastly trophy poised upon the point of his lance, he returns triumphant to the malocca to receive the greetings of his tribe and the praises of his chief.

But the warlike exploit requires a memento—some token by which he may perpetuate its fame. The art of printing does not exist among the Mundrucus, and there is no friendly pen to record the deed. It has been done,—behold the evidence! much clearer than often accompanies the exploits of civilised heroes. There is the evidence of an enemy slain; there is the grim, gory voucher, palpable both to sight and touch—proof positive that there is a dead body somewhere.

Of course, such evidence is sufficient for the present; but how about the future? As time passes, the feat may be forgotten, as great deeds are elsewhere. Somebody may even deny it. Some slanderous tongue may whisper, or insinuate, or openly declare that it was no exploit after all—that there was no dead man; for the vultures by this time would have removed the body, and the white ants (termites) would have equally extinguished all traces of the bones. How, then, are the proofs to be preserved? By preserving the head! And this is the very idea that is in the mind of the Mundrucu warrior. He is resolved not to permit his exploit to be buried in oblivion by burying the head of his enemy. That tongue, though mute, will tell the tale to posterity; that pallid cheek, though, perhaps, it may become a little shrivelled in the “drying,” will still be smooth enough to show that there is no tatoo, and to be identified as the skin of an enemy. Some young Mundrucu, yet unborn, will read in the countenance of that grinning and gory witness, the testimony of his father’s prowess. The head, therefore, must be preserved; and it is preserved with as much care as the cherished portrait of a famous ancestor. The cranial relic is even embalmed, as if out of affection for him to whom it belonged. The brains and eye-balls are removed, to facilitate the process of desiccation; but false eyes are inserted, and the tongue, teeth, and ears, scalp, skull, and hair, are all retained, not only retained, but “titivated” out in the most approved style of fashion. The long hair is carefully combed out, parted, and arranged; brilliant feathers of rock-cock and macaw are planted behind the ears and twisted in the hanging tresses. An ornamental string passes through the tongue, and by this the trophy is suspended from the beams of the great malocca.

It is not permitted to remain there. In some dark niche of this Golgotha—this Mundruquin Westminster—it might be overlooked and forgotten. To prevent this it is often brought forth, and receives many an airing. On all warlike and festive occasions does it appear, poised upon the point of the warrior’s lance; and even in peaceful times it may be seen—along with hundreds of its like—placed in the circular row around the manioc clearing, and lending its demure countenance to the labours of the field.

It is not a little singular that this custom of embalming the heads of their enemies is found among the Dyaks of Borneo, and the process in both places is ludicrously similar. Another rare coincidence occurs between the Amazonian tribes and the Bornean savages, viz in both being provided with the blow-gun. The gravitana of the American tribes is almost identical with the sumpitan of Borneo. It furnishes a further proof of our theory regarding an original connection between the American Indians and the savages of the great South Sea.

The Mundrucu is rarely ill off in the way of food. When he is so, it is altogether his own fault, and chargeable to his indolent disposition. The soil of his territory is of the most fertile kind, and produces many kinds of edible fruits spontaneously, as the nuts of the pupunha palm and the splendid fruits of the Bertholetia excelsa, or juvia-tree, known in Europe as “Brazil-nuts.” Of these then are two kinds, as mentioned elsewhere, the second being a tree of the genus Lecythys,—the Lecythys ollaria, or “monkey-pot” tree. It obtains this trivial name from the circumstance, first, of its great pericarp, almost as large as a child’s head, having a movable top or lid, which falls off when the fruit ripens; and secondly, from the monkeys being often seen drawing the seeds or nuts out of that part of the shell which remains attached to the tree, and which, bearing a considerable resemblance to a pot in its shape, is thus very appropriately designated the pot of the monkeys. The common Indian name of the monkey-pot tree is sapuçaia, and the nuts of this species are so called in commerce, though they are also termed Brazil-nuts. They are of a more agreeable flavour than the true Brazil-nuts, and not so easily obtained, as the Lecythys is less generally distributed over the Amazonian valley. It requires a peculiar soil, and grows only in those tracts that are subject to the annual inundations of the rivers.

The true Brazil-nuts are the “juvia” trees of the Indians; and the season for collecting them is one of the harvests of the Mundrucu people. The great pericarps—resembling large cocoa-nuts when stripped of the fibres—do not open and shed their seeds, as is the case with the monkey-pot tree. The whole fruit falls at once; and as it is very heavy, and the branches on which it grows are often nearly a hundred feet from the ground, it may easily be imagined that it comes down like a ten-pound shot; in fact, one of them falling upon the head of a Mundrucu would be very likely to crush his cranium, as a bullet would an egg-shell; and such accidents not unfrequently occur to persons passing imprudently under the branches of the Bertholetia when its nuts are ripe. Sometimes the monkeys, when on the ground looking after those that have fallen, become victims to the like accident; but these creatures are cunning reasoners, and being by experience aware of the danger, will scarce ever go under a juvia-tree, but when passing one always make a wide circuit around it. The monkeys cannot of themselves open the great pericarp, as they do that of the “sapuçaia,” but are crafty enough to get at the precious contents, notwithstanding. In doing this they avail themselves of the help of other creatures, that have also a motive in opening the juvia shells—cavies and other small rodent animals, whose teeth, formed for this very purpose, enable them to gnaw a hole in the ligneous pericarps, hard and thick as they are. Meanwhile the monkeys, squatted around, watch the operation in a careless, nonchalant sort of way, as if they had no concern whatever in the result; but as soon as they perceive that an entrance has been effected, big enough to admit their hand, they rush forward, drive off the weaker creature, who has been so long and laboriously at work, and take possession of the prize.