CHAPTER XVII
ON THE MARCH AGAIN
BY the time I had watched the cassava cake making process and examined the weapons in the village and noted almost everything of how they lived, the Indians were ready to go on with us. They had been eating all night as I explained. Now they took a hasty farewell drink of that pink stuff, cassiri, and took a large mouthful of cassava cake; their baskets were already packed for travel, and so we started.
But did they carry their baskets?
No indeed! That would have been a disgrace, like a man washing dishes or making a dress for baby. Carrying the luggage was woman’s work. What did each man have a wife for if not to do his work? The men set off with only their weapons, and the women fastened the heavy baskets to their backs by means of vine ropes around their foreheads.
Each man carried various objects in his basket, some tools, hunks of smoked meat, some extra loin cloths with perhaps a ragged old shirt secured from some “pork knocker.” On top of these belongings was placed a stack of the cassava cakes and covered with palm leaves to keep out the rain, for it showed signs of raining when we set out.
The Indians went on ahead. The women followed. They had removed whatever garments they owned—some of them had loose garments, merely for style, made of strips of cotton—and traveled only with those little beaded aprons or queyus. We came last, but after a while the women stepped out of the path and let us go on ahead. I think they wanted to watch us, just as we would like to stay behind and watch something curious walking on ahead.
We thought we had a hard trip getting to the village, but we were in for the hardest traveling afoot that I ever knew. I called it “land swimming.” The mud was literally knee deep. We would put one foot down, then the next one, stand still and pull one foot out with a great effort, step ahead with that, pull the other out with a great sucking sound, and so on. It was only with great endurance that we made this trip through the rain, but even the worst journey must come to an end and finally we reached our own camp. Nothing ever looked more homelike than our shelters, our fires and the boats moored alongside.
Lewis and I made a dash for the boat to get some dry warm clothes. Jimmy, glad to see us back, made some hot tea. Soon we had on lighter shoes, dry woolen underclothes and dry suits and socks, lay back in our hammocks and drank good hot tea and felt none the worse for our journey into the primitive homes of the Indians.
We gave the women plenty to eat and made them presents of sugar, rice, salt and tea to take back with them. They were the happiest women you ever saw and chattered among themselves like kids at a Christmas tree. Then they turned and went back into the forests without a word of leave taking to their husbands, as this toting of their husbands’ baskets was all in their day’s work.