Fire-making is unknown to the tribes on the south of the Japura, but on the north of that river fire is obtained by friction in a groove.[32] I never saw it done, but was told that ants’ nests were often used for tinder. On one occasion I made a fire by firing cartridges into a mass of leaves and wood chips, having first extracted the bullets and replaced them with cotton wool. The leaves flamed up after fourteen rounds. Matches are sheer magic in the Indian’s eyes, and a box is a most valuable gift. He may blaze one, just to be certain that the white man has passed on some of his own magical powers along with the wonderful little box of sticks, but never more than one is sacrificed at a time.
Fig. 6.
What with the heavy dews and the incessant rain the bush is always in a condition of reeking damp, so bush fires are impossible. Therefore, when they cannot make fire, the Indians must keep the family fire burning night and day, and its preservation is the very serious business of every member of the tribe. Not only do they depend on it for warmth and cooking, but the fitful glow of the smouldering fires is on ordinary occasions the only light in the Indian house. Torches of resinous wood are used at dances and such-like festivals only. When the tribesmen go into the bush they always carry fire over their shoulders. This is done by means of a strip of some resinous bark, about two feet long, which they hold in their hands. The bark smoulders slowly, and can at any time be blown into a flame.
The fire is always arranged after a definite pattern. Three young trees are placed together on the ground endways, in the form of a triskeles. The fire is kindled in the centre, and once alight it will last for as long as a week at a time. All day when people pass, even the little children, they will give a kick to a log to keep the fire together, and during the night it is fed continually in the same fashion.
The natives sleep with no more covering than they have worn in the daytime. The hammocks of the father, the mother, and the children are slung, as has been said, in a triangle, with the fire between them. As the fire dies down one or other will rise and push the wood more closely together, blow a little at the hot embers, and then return to rest, till about the hour before sunrise, when it is coldest. Then every one gets up, and when the fire has been blown into a blaze they wait for dawn.
Dawn is the signal for all to repair to the river for the first bath of the day. The girls come back with big jars full of water on their heads, held in position by their uplifted hands. The women go to work in the plantations, the men may hunt and fish. As day advances into evening the women return again from the plantation, the mothers, naked and shining from the evening bath, with their children seated astride their left hips; while those not encumbered carry up the pine-apples, the plantains, and the manioc, packed in baskets that are slung from their foreheads. Those who have sought provision in the forest bring back lizards and snakes—it may be a frog, for nothing seems amiss for the hot-pot of the Indian. The hunters come in from the bush with a capybara, a curassow, or a monkey; the men who preferred the river bring fish. Soon there is a savoury smell from the cooking of cassava cakes, the boiling of meat, and the pungent odour of yarakue. There is not much talk, and none of the homely clatter of dishes, for leaves serve as plates and napkins, fingers for eating utensils. The naked women crouch on their heels about the fires; the men stretch languidly in their hammocks; and so the Indian day passes by imperceptible degrees again to night.
So much for the human inhabitants of the tribal household. There are others of less pleasing character. Spiders are there, some of an extraordinary size, not forgetting the deadly tarantula. One day I placed my hand carelessly on one of the posts in an Indian house, and only just withdrew it in time, for it had been within an inch or two of a large mygale. Scorpions also lurk in crannies of the thatch, but they never bothered me in the least, and although the swelling was considerable in the one or two cases of bite I noted, there were no after-consequences.