To me they were a great curiosity. The entire family was crowded in their small canoe, the old grandfather with a gray tinge to his hair although with bright eyes and strong muscles, as his paddling showed; his son, son’s wife, their son, who was quite a youth; two younger boys and several babies. Then there were several tame parrots, a large blue and yellow macaw that croaked incessantly and a worried little flea-bitten dog much mauled by the babies.
And packed in about them in their none too safe canoe I saw a dozen chunks of smoked meat, lying about like so much firewood to be walked over, a dozen or more very stiff and black smoked fish, several baskets of queer vegetables, a bunch of small bananas, bows and arrows, blowpipes and bundles of the dangerous poisoned blowpipe arrows with tips wrapped, fish spears, game spears and a large iron pan which was originally used for washing gold, but used by this Indian family—who prized it above all their worldly goods—as a kettle, stove, frying pan and griddle.
In the center of the boat on a large piece of wet and noninflammable bark, lay a heap of glowing coals, to be used for their cooking fire wherever they might camp or upon their return to their home. From this I figured it out that matches in the jungle were not to be had for the asking.
We gave each man cigarettes, which at once made us friends. The captain began to dicker with the men about securing game for us, and as they talked I made a study of them. One thing is certain, they are not bothered by the high price of clothing. I looked at the big boy, he was about sixteen I should judge—about the age when I got into long trousers and had plenty of difficulties in keeping them pressed, when I worried about the right style and fit of collars and the proper tie to go with my shirt, when collar buttons and scarf pins and cuff links were important to me and I craved silk socks and kept my shoes polished and my clothes brushed. It was a serious matter in those days, as every boy knows, getting up in the morning, getting properly dressed and off to school in time. And I looked at this big boy. He wore a red loin cloth which was about a foot long, suspended from a “belt” made of some wild vine. That was all the clothing that he possessed in the world, all that he needed and I’m sure every boy will envy him his comfort, if nothing more. The men, too, wore loin cloths, red, and about two feet long, tucked into vine belts.
THE FIRST JUNGLE INDIANS WE SAW
AN INDIAN FISHERMAN
The women wore smaller loin cloths, called an apron or “queyu.” These were decorated with beads and held on by a string of beads instead of vines. The smaller children wore nothing at all. Some of the women wear necklaces made of shells, animal teeth or beads or all three. Some have bright dried beans for beads and most of them wear strings of beads around their legs just below the knees.
The men seemed fairly well built. Their light, copper-colored skin was smooth and remarkably clean. Their hair was jet black and as straight as that of our own North American Indians, and their features slightly resembled those of our Indians at home, although not so strong and picturesque. Some of them, men and women, are tattooed and also decorated with “beena,” done by cutting into the arm and letting the scars heel deeply in queer designs. This “beena,” I learned, is believed by them to be a charm against all sorts of evil and, on the women’s arms (women mostly use this “decoration”), they think that it helps them to weave hammocks and to make their everlasting cassava bread.