CHAPTER VIII

The Indian armoury—Spears—Bows and arrows—Indian strategy—Forest tactics and warfare—Defensive measures—Secrecy and safety—The Indian’s science of war—Prisoners—War and anthropophagy—Cannibal tribes—Reasons for cannibal practices—Ritual of vengeance—Other causes—No intra-tribal cannibalism—The anthropophagous feast—Human relics—Necklaces of teeth—Absence of salt—Geophagy.

The armoury of the Indian contains, for the most part, weapons designed for primitive hand-to-hand encounter with either man or beast. The sixty or more feet a blow-pipe dart will carry; the two hundred feet, which is the outside range of an arrow from the most powerful of his bows, would be futile in any country less enclosed than these dense woodlands. Even here success in intertribal conflict is a matter of personal dexterity rather than mechanical accomplishment. It is true that the Witoto near the rubber districts have ordinary muzzle-loading scatter-guns. Other tribes have a few, a very few rifles, and some Brummagem fowling-pieces, usually with single barrels. But the rifle cannot be said to have won its way into unchallenged favour. When an Indian does possess a gun he is exceedingly chary of using it; his chief idea is to save his powder and shot. The Menimehe have neither rifles nor scatter-guns; they consider that firearms frighten the game, and prefer their own throwing-javelins, their bows, and their arrows.

The Indian weapons of offence may be said then to consist of the sword, the bow, and the spear. There is no difference between war spears and arrows and those used against the larger wild animals. For defence the Menimehe carry a small club, or life-preserver, and the Jivaro and some of the tribes near the Napo river, use a circular shield covered with tapir hide like the Uaupes river Indians.[148] The Menimehe also have large round shields made with tapir skins. From two to five hides are superimposed one on the other to make a shield, and when finished these will turn any arrow or spear, and are impenetrable to other than a nickel-cased bullet of high velocity. The Yahuna on the other side of the Apaporis do not use a shield, nor do any of the tribes south of the Japura.

The Indian’s club is like a quarter-staff made of hard red-wood—which is the heaviest kind known to them—and is used simply as a personal weapon of offence or defence. It is not a war weapon. The Indian sword is made of red-wood or black iron-wood, and is from thirty to thirty-six inches long, polished quite plainly. It is used by the attacker to aim blows at the thighs of his antagonist, the object being so to hit him as to bring him to the ground. Once this is done his head can be easily smashed. As a weapon of defence the Indian uses it to protect himself from the throwing of javelins. Holding the handle in one hand and the point in the other, he can ward off such missiles with the greatest dexterity, thus in a way obviating the necessity of carrying a shield.

A diversity of spears, or javelins, is constructed by all these tribes. Chonta wood is universally employed for spears and arrow-heads, the weapon differing in accordance with its purport, the chonta spear for tapir, the blunt arrow for birds, and so forth. These wooden weapons are scraped smooth with the file-like jaw of the pirai fish, and a final polish is put on with the leaves of the Cecropia peltata, which are rough enough to be effective substitutes for sand-paper. The spears are thickest at the head, and taper nearly to a point at the butt. The head is made of a separate piece of chonta some three inches long, bound into the grooved end. A poisoned palm spine is always fixed in the point of a spear, as in the lighter throwing-javelin. About two or three inches down, the head is filed nearly through, in order that it shall break off in the wound, and so be the more difficult to extract. The poisoned point is protected with a reed sheath.

PLATE XXX.

Arrow-heads also are half filed through. This is done with the fish-jaw attached to the quiver immediately before use. The tips are made of chonta and are poisoned.[149] The bows are of various kinds of wood, and of many sizes, strung with fibre made thicker and stronger as desired. The arrow shaft is without feathers, and has no nock for the bowstring. The arrows are carried in quivers of wicker or of wood. The Menimehe, the most skilful bowmen of these regions, are famous for their quivers as well as for their pottery. They make the quivers out of bamboo, the elementary ones being merely scraped-out sections cut so that there shall be a joint or a knot for the end; the more elaborate specimens are made of strips of bamboo bound together. The arrow poison is carried in a small pot or calabash. The vegetable poisons that are used for birds and small game give place to a mixture of strychnos and poison obtained from decomposed animal or human matter when the weapon is employed against men or the bigger beasts. Its effect on a human being is said to be almost instantaneous.