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THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS
THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS
BORO MEDICINE MAN, WITH MY RIFLE THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS NOTES OF SOME MONTHS SPENT AMONG CANNIBAL TRIBES BY THOMAS WHIFFEN F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I. Captain H.P. (14th Hussars) NEW YORK DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 1915 Printed in Great Britain TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE Dr. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, O.M. THESE NOTES ARE DEDICATED...
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PREFACE
PREFACE
In presenting to the public the results of my journey through the lands about the upper waters of the Amazon, I make no pretence of challenging conclusions drawn by such experienced scientists as Charles Waterton, Alfred Russel Wallace, Richard Spruce, and Henry Walter Bates, nor to compete with the indefatigable industry of those recent explorers Dr. Koch-Grünberg and Dr. Hamilton Rice. Some months of the years 1908 and 1909 were passed by me travelling in regions between the River Issa and the
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
In the spring of 1908, having been among the Unemployed on the Active List for nearly two years on account of ill-health, and wearying not only of enforced inactivity but also perhaps of civilisation, I decided to go somewhere and see something of a comparatively unknown and unrecorded corner of the world. My mind reverted to pleasant days spent in the lesser known parts of East Africa, and at this moment I happened to come across Dr. Russel Wallace’s delightful Travels on the Amazon and Rio Neg
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Topography—Rivers—Floods and rainfall—Climate—Soil—Animal and vegetable life—Birds—Flowers—Forest scenery—Tracks—Bridges—Insect pests—Reptiles—Silence in the forest—Travelling in the bush—Depressing effects of the forest—Lost in the forest—Starvation. Although the Amazons have been known to Europe for fully four hundred years, exploration has been confined almost entirely to the main river and its great tributaries. Little addition has been made to the information possessed by Sir Walter Raleigh
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
The Indian homestead—Building—Site and plan of maloka —Furniture—Inhabitants of the house—Fire—Daily life—Insect inhabitants—Pets. Out of the silence and gloom of the forest the traveller will emerge into the full light of a clearing. Though it is the site of a tribal headquarters there is no village, no cluster of huts, except among some of the tribes on the lower Apaporis. There is but one great house, thatched and ridge-roofed like a gigantic hay-rick, standing four-square in the open. This i
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Classification of Indian races—Difficulties of tabulating—Language-groups and tribes—Names—Sources of confusion—Witoto and Boro—Localities of language-groups—Population of districts—Intertribal strife—Tribal enemies and friends—Reasons for endless warfare—Intertribal trade and communications—Relationships—Tribal organisation—The chief, his position and powers—Law—Tribal council—Tobacco-drinking—Marriage system and regulations—Position of women—Slaves. Given equal conditions, similar environment,
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
Dress and ornament—Geographical and tribal differentiations—Festal attire—Feather ornaments—Hair-dressing—Combs—Dance girdles—Beads—Necklaces—Bracelets—Leg rattles—Ligatures—Ear-rings—Use of labret—Nose pins—Scarification—Tattoo—Tribal marks—Painting. Judged by some of the pictures in books purporting to give accounts of the South American Indians, the photograph adjoining ( Plate VIII. ) would represent an Indian chieftain decked in his best to welcome the newly-arrived traveller, instead of wh
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Occupations—Sexual division and tabu—Tribal manufactures—Arts and crafts—Drawing—Carving—Metals—Tools and implements—No textile fabrics—Pottery—Basket making—Hammocks—Cassava-squeezer and grater—Pestle and mortar—Wooden vessels—Stone axes—Methods of felling trees—Canoes—Rafts—Paddles. Life in Amazonia to the man is occasionally strenuous, frequently a veritable dolce far niente ; to the woman it is a ceaseless round of toilsome duties, broken only by the excitement of preparation for, and partic
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Agriculture—Plantations—Preparation of ground in the forest—Paucity of agricultural instruments—Need for diligence—Women’s incessant toil—No special harvest-time—Maize the only grain grown—No use for sugar—Manioc cultivation—Peppers—Tobacco—Coca cultivation—Tree-climbing methods—Indian wood-craft—Indian tracking—Exaggerated sporting yarns—Indian sense of locality and accuracy of observation—Blow-pipes—Method of making blow-pipes—Darts—Indian improvidence—Migration of game—Traps and snares—Javeli
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CHAPTER VIII
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
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
The food quest—Indians omnivorous eaters—Tapir and other animals used for food—Monkeys—The peccary—Feathered game—Vermin—Eggs, carrion, and intestines not eaten—Honey—Fish—Manioc—Preparation of cassava—Peppers—The Indian hot-pot—Lack of salt—Indian meals—Cooking—Fruits—Cow-tree milk. Food is the dominant problem of an Indian’s existence. The food quest is to him no indefinite sociological issue of future “food control,” but an affair of every day. Living, it would seem, in the midst of plenty, s
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Drinks, drugs, and poisons: their use and preparation—Unfermented drinks— Caapi —Fermented drinks— Cahuana —Coca: its preparation, use, and abuse— Parica —Tobacco—Poison and poison-makers. If the Indian eats but little during the day, he drinks to excess whenever opportunity offers. In the early morning a beverage somewhat akin to tea, but colourless, made from an infusion of bitter herbs, is taken. It has some tonic properties, and when I drank it seemed always to have a slight taste of pepperm
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
Small families—Birth tabu—Birth customs—-Infant mortality—Infanticide—Couvade—Name-giving—Names—Tabu on names—Childhood—Lactation—Food restrictions—Child-life and training—Initiation. Though so recognised an authority as Bates is responsible for the statement that the fecundity of the Amazonian Indians is of a low degree, [224] because as many as four children in one family are rarely found, it is open to doubt whether he and his successors have not in this instance confounded effect and cause.
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
Marriage regulations—Monogamy—Wards and wives—Courtship—Qualifications for matrimony—Preparations for marriage—Child marriages—Exception to patrilocal custom—Marriage ceremonies—Choice of a mate—Divorce—Domestic quarrels—Widowhood. At the beginning of my stay among the tribes, I thought, as many have asserted, that polygamy was common among the Indians. The reason for this belief is simply the fact that it is extremely hard to distinguish at first between wives, concubines, and attached women—wo
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Sickness—Death by poison—Infectious diseases—Cruel treatment of sick and aged—Homicide—Retaliation for murder—Tribal and personal quarrels—Diseases—Remedies—Death—Mourning—Burial. Indians, like most coloured races, are abject cowards in pain or disease. They will bear torture stoically enough when deliberately inflicted, but should they suffer from any, to them, mysterious reason, in their ignorance of natural causes they at once ascribe their affliction to witchcraft. To this possibly may be du
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
The medicine-man, a shaman—Remedies and cures—Powers and duties of the medicine-man—Virtue of breath—Ceremonial healing—Hereditary office—Training—Medicine-man and tigers—Magic working—Properties—Evil always due to bad magic—Influence of medicine-man—Method of magic-working—Magical cures. The medicine-man of the South American Indian tribes has been described as “the counterpart of the shaman type.” [292] There would seem to be hardly need for any qualification—he is a shaman. The word has attai
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Indian dances—Songs without meaning—Elaborate preparations—The Chief’s invitation—Numbers assembled—Dance step—Reasons for dances—Special dances—Dance staves—Arrangement of dancers—Method of airing a grievance—Plaintiff’s song of complaint—The tribal “black list”—Manioc-gathering dance and song—Muenane Riddle Dance—A discomfited dancer—Indian riddles and mimicry—Dance intoxication—An unusual incident—A favourite dance—The cannibal dance—A mad festival of savagery—The strange fascination of the A
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Songs the essential element of native dances—Indian imagination and poetry—Music entirely ceremonial—Indian singing—Simple melodies—Words without meaning—Sense of time—Limitations of songs—Instrumental music—Pan-pipes—Flutes and fifes—Trumpets—Jurupari music and ceremonial—Castanets—Rattles—Drums—The manguare —Method of fashioning drums—Drum language—Signal and conversation—Small hand-drums. In considering the native dances it must be remembered that the accompanying songs are essential elements
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
The Indians’ magico-religious system—The Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit—Names of deities—Character of Good Spirit—His visit to earth—Question of missionary influence—Lesser subordinate spirits—Child-lifting—No prayer or supplication—Classification of spirits—Immortality of the soul—Land of the After-Life—Ghosts and name tabu—Temporary disembodied spirits—Extra-mundane spirits—Spirits of particularised evils—Spirits of inanimate objects—The jaguar and anaconda magic beasts—Tiger folk—Fear of unkn
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Darkness feared by Indians—Story-telling—Interminable length of tales—Variants—Myths—Sun and moon—Deluge traditions—Tribal stories—Amazons—White Indians tradition—Boro tribal tale—Amazonian equivalents of many world tales—Beast stories—Animal characteristics—Difference of animal characteristics in tale and tabu—No totems—Indian hatred of animal world. Darkness is full of mysterious horrors to the Indian, nor can one wonder that he fills with imaginary demons the weird and terrifying solitudes of
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Limitations of speech—Differences of dialect—Language-groups—Tribal names—Difficulties of languages—Method of transliteration—Need of a common medium—Ventral ejaculations—Construction—Pronouns as suffix or prefix—Negatives—Gesture language—Numbers and reckoning—Indefinite measure—Time—No writing, signs, nor personal marks—Tribal calls—Drum-language code—Conversational repetitions—Noisy talkers—Ventriloquists—Falsetto voice—Conversational etiquette. In speech, as in everything else, the forest In
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
No individualism—Effect of isolation—Extreme reserve of Indians—Cruelty—Dislike and fear of strangers—Indian hospitality—Treachery—Theft punished by death—Dualism of ethics—Vengeance—Moral sense and custom—Modesty of the women—Jealousy of the men—Hatred of white man—Ingratitude—Curiosity—Indians retarded but not degenerate—No evidence of reversion from higher culture—A neolithic people—Conclusion. We find in all savage races, peoples of the lower cultures, that there is no differentiation of ind
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APPENDIX I PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
APPENDIX I PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Physically, as may be judged from the accompanying tables, there is a wide margin for dissimilarity among these tribes. Their appearance is nearly as varied as their speech, more so in fact, in that there is much diversity of type even among individuals of the same speaking-group. I have seen a Boro as dark as a Witoto, while his fellow-tribesmen may be yellow as a Chinaman. It is, of course, possible that the darker Boro are sons of Witoto women. The custom prevalent in all the tribes of adopti
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APPENDIX II MONGOLOID ORIGIN
APPENDIX II MONGOLOID ORIGIN
On the vexed question of original Asiatic extraction what little evidence I have to offer is in general support of the theory that some at least of the ancestral stock probably found their way hither from Asia, or—what is more in accordance with the laws of migration as so far ascertained—spread from the American to the Asiatic continent. There is undeniably a marked prevalence of what are recognised as Mongoloid traits among these peoples. I fully accept Ratzel’s dictum, “We may hold firmly to
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APPENDIX III DEPILATION
APPENDIX III DEPILATION
All tribes south of the Japura remove hair, except that on the head. Tukana depilate body hair. Tuyuha men depilate armpits, not pudenda: women depilate pudenda. Kuretu—all depilate. Purakato, according to Koch-Grünberg, do not depilate. Karahone are said not to depilate. This (see text) is debatable. I believe that they pluck out the hair of the chin and whiskers, but leave eyebrows and moustache. Bara—women only depilate. Menimehe—all depilate, but the women are not so careful about it as the
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APPENDIX IV COLOUR ANALYSIS AND MEASUREMENTS
APPENDIX IV COLOUR ANALYSIS AND MEASUREMENTS
( Vide Colour Curve. Tintometer.) Robuchon gives the colours of the Witotos as brown-copper colour, varying between twenty-nine and thirty of the chromatic scale of the Anthropologicas of Paris. Mean average attempted by means of colour markings and identified according to Lovibond’s tintometer scale. There was practically no tribal differentiation of pigmentation in the units of these groups, as far as the unexposed part of the body is concerned. This is understandable. The palm of the nigger’s
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APPENDIX VI NAMES OF DEITIES
APPENDIX VI NAMES OF DEITIES
Many writers have stated that the Indians of the Upper Amazon forests have no words in their languages to express a Supreme Being. (See, for example, Bates, i. 162; Wallace, p. 354; Nery, p. 273; Orton, p. 316; Bates, ii. 137, 162-3; Markham.) It therefore seemed to me worth while to make the following list of words expressive of some idea of a superior, non-human being, good or bad....
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APPENDIX VII VOCABULARIES AND LISTS OF NAMES
APPENDIX VII VOCABULARIES AND LISTS OF NAMES
Note re Pronunciation. —Vowels as in Italian and consonants as in English. The system adopted by the Anthropological and Geographical Societies has been followed....
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LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO
LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO
Alcock, Frederick , F.R.G.S. André, Eugene , F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., M.S.A. Bancroft, Hubert Howe. Bancroft, Edward , and Stedman . Bates, Henry Walter. Brazilian Year Book. 1908. Brinton, Daniel G. Clough, R. Stewart. Crevaux, Dr. J. Darwin, Charles. Deniker, Joseph, Sc.D. Paris. Enoch, C. Reginald , F.R.G.S. Fountain, Paul. Hardenburg, W. E. History of South America , by an American. 1899. Humboldt. im Thurn, Sir Everard F. , K.C.M.G. Joyce, Thomas A. Koch-Grünberg, Dr. Theodor. Markham, Sir Clement
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