They do not worry about the Indians’ food, and as to the clothes of these unfortunates, they have none, for both men and women live in the most complete nakedness.
All these tribes, fifteen years ago, amounted to over twenty thousand persons; to-day they do not reach ten thousand. Desolation invaded these selvas together with the Aranas, worse even than the cholera morbus and the bubonic, terrible and awful plagues that from time to time leave Asia to traverse other parts of the globe, sowing panic, pain, death, and mourning.
Now, as there are but relatively few male Indians left, they have the cruelty to oblige the women to work at the extraction of rubber. Nor does their sex protect them from the punishments that these barbarous bandits of Arana inflict upon them, for they flog them, torture them, and cut them to pieces.
A certain periodical, subsidised by this criminal company, speaking of some memoirs of the explorer Robuchon,[114] states that he mentions that these Indians are hospitable. From this it is clear that we are not the first to make this assertion, and persons who have been in Puerto Bermudez can form an idea of what these Indians are like by comparing them with the Campas, which is the fiercest tribe. Nevertheless, there in Puerto Bermudez these Campas are in intimate contact with all who pass there, and furnish the traveller with everything in their power.
The appearance of the unfortunate Indians of the Putumayo is ghastly and horrible; thin, cadaverous, and attenuated, they look more like ghosts than human beings. And nevertheless, they go out to meet the employees when these latter pass through their villages, and give them what few fruits they have. These gifts have been rewarded by death, on more than one occasion.
Only very rarely have they rebelled; but this rebellion consists only in fleeing from their villages to emigrate far off, trying to get out of reach of their executioners. They do this only when they are murdered, flogged, burnt, tortured, mutilated, and robbed of their wives and children with more than usual frequency. This is the crime of the Putumayo Indians—trying to hide themselves from their murderers. Well, these villains, enraged beyond all bounds, collect in parties of fifty or more and start in pursuit of the fugitives. They fall upon them at midnight, and after surrounding the huts in which their victims are asleep, set fire to them and shoot all who try to escape.
Is it not reasonable that these unfortunates should defend themselves and their dear ones when attacked in their last possessions? It is here that sometimes, not always, desperate struggles take place, the criminals with their rifles and the Indians with clubs and machetes. As is natural, the latter are always defeated and once more the victims of their torturers, who burn them by hundreds or else again reduce them to slavery.
We believe it right to make known that the rubber there is becoming exhausted, and that to collect even one ounce of it means real sacrifices. It would be well if the English purchasers who have formed a syndicate in order to exploit that region could see that its resources are all imaginary, for Arana & Co. sell what does not belong to them, as slavery does not exist in Peru.
We shall treat of other points in regard to this matter later, for the unfortunate syndicate that has embarked in this adventure should be informed of the real state of affairs and in what difficult conditions things are in, for certain international treaties exist with Colombia which have, at the present time, assumed a most serious and bellicose aspect.
Translated from the “Jornal do Comercio,” of
Manaos, September 14, 1907.