The first duty of the morning is a visit, as has been said, to the bathing-place. Thither troop the old and the young, both male and female, to wash and revive in the water. They do not attempt to rub their bodies dry, but are content to let the moisture evaporate when they emerge from the stream. When on a march or out hunting Indians will always bathe in any water available on the route. They go in streaming with perspiration, but seem to suffer no ill-effects. Bates has described them as “taking merely a sitz-bath” like a dog,[430] but they seemed to me to bathe as any ordinary person would who went into the water to get cool.
After returning from war the Indians bathe scrupulously before they re-enter the house. It is in the nature of a ceremonial washing, and possibly is a subconscious act of purification, though the Indians, when asked the reason, told me only that it was pia, our custom. In fact lustration with the Indian is too frequent an action to keep any ceremonial significance it may ever have had.
It follows as a matter of course with people so familiar with water that one and all are expert swimmers. The Indian of the Amazons invariably swims as naturally as he walks, and with as little tuition. From the hour of his birth he has been conversant with the river, and in a climate where the temperature of the water varies but little from 75° to 80° or more, he regards a dip as his chief solace. He never passes a stream without taking advantage of its proximity to bathe, and the fact that he may have recently fed, or that he is perspiring freely, does not hinder him from a plunge, and makes no difference to his enjoyment.
In swimming the Indian paddles like a dog, and does not attempt to attain to anything approaching the breast-stroke of the European, nor does he extend the legs widely. He flexes the legs sharply upon the trunk, and, suddenly stretching them in a straight line, drives the body forward. The stroke is not a tiring one, and the native is capable of undergoing long immersion without suffering exhaustion, but the speed he can acquire is not remarkable. For that matter there are no reasons why the Indian should desire to make rapid progression. Swimming to him is an adjunct to bathing, or a means to cross a stream; its finer developments trouble him not at all. In the muddy rivers of the Amazons there is nothing to tempt the native to dive, nor are there suitable places to jump off the banks. The Indian slips in as best suits the occasion, and does not aspire to exhibition feats, or to water games.
PLATE LIV.
WITOTO TYPES
WITOTO WOMAN WITH LEG LIGATURES
When bathing the Indian is exposed to a certain element of danger from fish that inflict varying degrees of injury. There is the stinging eel, and skate of some sort and another stinging fish,[431] the caneiro, and the piranha. Electric fish are less common in the upper rivers than in the main streams, and I never noticed one Indian of the Issa-Japura tribes take any special precaution against them, though elsewhere the natives will beat and prod the water with rods before they bathe, to discover, if possible, whether any eels are lurking in the vicinity. The caneiro’s method of attack is by suction, not shock. They are very plentiful in all these rivers, and their power of suction is most extraordinary. I am not likely to forget the first time I made acquaintance with one of these voracious little fish. It suddenly attacked, or rather attached itself with its sucker-like mouth, to the inner side of my leg. The sensation was most alarming. I made with all possible speed to land. The caneiro certainly sucks up the flesh rapidly and painfully, but I am doubtful if it really “tears off pieces of the skin and flesh,” as it is said to do.[432] The piranha, though quite a small fish,[433] is even more ferocious. It will attack anything, and is said to be capable of reducing a large animal to a skeleton in the space of a few minutes. There is a story, repeated elsewhere, that one very small fish is actually a human parasite. The Indians aver that it will enter the body of a man when bathing. Orton mentions this fish, which according to him is “a slender silurid fish (Vandellia)” but remarks that he never met “with one confirmatory case.”[434] Neither did I. But I found that all Indians take precautions against it when bathing.