THE LECCO TRIBE
[Illustration: THESE LECCOS ARE AMONG THE FINEST INDIANS.]
These Leccos are among the finest Indians, or semi-civilized savages, I
have met. They are sturdy and muscular, with a distinctly Malaysian
suggestiveness, and very superior to any of the surrounding savage
tribes of the interior. Yet they have neither religion nor superstition;
they have no legend or tradition, and their only historical recollection
is from the time when quinine bark was the main river commerce instead
of rubber--the time of the "Great Quina" they call it,--about half a
century ago. They are brave and loyal, although not a fighting race, and
have made but a poor showing against the neighboring tribes. Their life
is on the river, chiefly this Rio Mapiri, and they stick close to its
banks. Their sole work is transportation with these balsas and callapos
up and down the river.
For months in the year the stream is virtually closed by reason of the
rains and the impassable cañons. Down stream is simple and finely
exciting, but against the currents up-stream, portaging or hauling the
balsas through the cañons, where there is often barely a hand-hold on
the naked walls of rock, and often vines must be lowered from above,
drenched during the day and sleeping on the sand _playas_ at night, is
the hardest kind of labor. As had happened while they were trying to
reach me on this trip, the food gives out--it is not a game country--and
unless they are near enough to the goal to live on nuts and berries, as
they did for two days on this occasion, they have to go back, replenish,
and start over again, with all the previous labor lost. And there is
scarcely a free Lecco among them; they are always in debt to the rubber
barracas, who by the sale and purchase of their debts pass them as
veritable chattels. With thriftless, unthinking good nature, they accept
this condition and at the end of each trip will squander their
credit-wages on worthless trifles. A Lecco friend of mine once
squandered the wages of a whole hard trip up-stream on a woman's straw
hat and its mass of pink-ribbon bows that he wore for two days in great
pride on the drift down-stream until it was lost overboard in one of the
worst rapids. He watched it whirling off in the spray and foam with a
childish pleasure and no sense of loss, but rather with the calm
complacency of a man who had lost a trifle and could with easy labor
earn another.
The Indians whom I had met before were the Quechuas and the Aymarás, the
great tribes of the high plains; heavy-boned, stocky, and powerful
peoples, who, in feature and color strongly resemble our own Sioux and
Apache type. These Leccos, on the contrary, were slender, well-built
men, with a direct, soft quickness of movement that revealed the perfect
strength that lay behind it. In feature they were absolutely Malay--a
perfect reproduction of any of the Malay tribes that fringe the coast of
Asia.
Other rivers have the balsa and the callapo too, and the long rapids
through narrow gorges, but the Indians of those rivers lie down and
clutch for safety when they go through them. Your Lecco goes into the
boiling smother of a cataract with a grinning yell of pure joy, and
keeps his feet like a Glo'ster skipper in a high gale.
The balsa of the Leccos is a raft made of the light, corky wood from
which it takes its name. Eight-inch logs of this balsa wood are pinned
together with palm spikes from the hard, black palm that is also used as
arrow-points and for bows. When floating in the water it looks like some
unwieldy amphibian that has risen to the surface for a fresh supply of
air. It is generally about twenty-five feet long and about four feet
wide. The Leccos lash three balsas together, broadside on, by means of
stout cross-logs tied with strips of bark or vine, and this result is
called a callapo. It is a structure that is capable of carrying some
three tons of cargo--that is if handled by Leccos.
The first thing that impressed me about these Leccos was the
distinctness with which they represented another race. It was not the
mere divergence of tribe; it was more fundamental--it was a racial
difference. There was nothing in it to suggest even a remote relation to
any of the tribes with whom I had come in contact up to that time, or,
for that matter, with any of those that I subsequently met. To begin
with, the Leccos looked clean--a condition that one seldom finds in the
Quichua or Aymará nations; although cleanliness is almost an invariable
condition of all river peoples. Their complexion was of the soft, warm
brown of the Hindu or the Filipino, having no suggestion of the dull
chocolate of the negro or the weather-beaten copper of the Aymarás or of
our own Western Indians.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON A LECCO CHIEF.]
Their features again are decidedly Malaysian--straight high nose with
thin nostrils; forehead fairly high and well shaped; finely cut thin
lips, and the narrow, though not slanting eyes of the East. The hair is
oily jet-black, thick, and grows to a point on the forehead, in the
style made known by Aguinaldo, and is kept neatly cut in a straight,
bristly pompadour. They do not care for the gaudy feather head-dresses
of their savage neighbors--not even ear-rings--and for head decorations
are content with the brilliant bandanna of the trader, twisted and tied
in a band about the head in very much the same manner as used by our own
Apaches of Arizona. A band necklace of bright beads, strung and designed
in simple patterns by their own women, on threads of wild cotton, is
their only ornament. These are almost invariably worn by the men only
and are tied tightly about the throat.
[Illustration: A LECCO TYPE.]
Another striking point about the Leccos, one in which they differ from
all of the "barbaros," or the savages of the Amazon tributaries, is
their muscular development. The barbaro in this respect is very
deficient. He is strong almost beyond belief, but it is the strength of
sinew and not of muscle. It is like the strength of the monkey, that is
not made visible by the ordinary signs of muscular development. The
barbaro has no apparent deltoid, no biceps, no triceps, none of the
finely developed muscles of the leg and thigh that with us make for
strength. He is built like an undeveloped boy who has suddenly suffered
from too rapid growth. The Leccos, on the contrary, are beautifully
developed physically; knotted muscles shift and play evenly under the
soft skin and suggest a swift sureness of movement and a strength of
endurance that are demanded in their life on the river.
The likeness of these people to the Malays is still further accented by
their costume. They wear rather tight breeches of white _tucuyo_, a
coarse muslin, that taper to the ankle, and above it a short shirt of
gaudy red, yellow, or blue, or even sometimes white, though the red is
popularly regarded as the most aristocratic. The shirt is cut square
with the armholes in the two upper corners. The hole for the head is
emblazoned by a border of crude design cut from varied-colored calicos
and sewed on. In the course of many days' association with them, I
discovered that the little _chipa_, or bag of native-woven wild cotton,
which every Lecco carries with him on any of his river expeditions, is
filled with clean clothing. The muddy water of the Rio Mapiri and the
Rio Kaka--which the Mapiri becomes farther down--soils everything it
touches, and so the Leccos, who are as much in the water as out of it,
regularly changed their garments daily, only making an exception when
some extra-hard passages would have made it a useless extravagance.
In my contact with the South American Indians, whether among the high
plains of the Andes or among the forests drained by the tributaries of
the Amazon, I received rather the impression of inert, passive races; of
peoples who were patiently hoping for the return of the legendary days
of their fathers, yet who, dimly, in some way felt that the hope was
vain. It might poetically be interpreted as a vague consciousness of
their doom of ultimate extinction. The Lecco is probably doomed to
extinction as well, but he is by no means a despondent specimen. On the
contrary, no more cheery, indeed hilarious, outfit can be imagined than
that with which we embarked on our callapos at Mapiri. Candor compels me
to own that this exuberance of spirits was probably largely alcoholic,
for it is one of the few rights to which he clings tenaciously--that of
being allowed to keep drunk while making a voyage on the river. For the
Lecco will not work to any good purpose if kept sober; they feel that
they have been defrauded and cheated of an inalienable right, and at the
first convenient opportunity they will avenge the injury by running the
callapo on a rock in a rapid, while they themselves will swim through it
like otters and make the shore below safe and unrepentant. Unlike all
other savages, who become treacherous and turbulent under the influence
of liquor, the Lecco becomes even more genial and jovial when in his
cups. He is pre-eminently a man of peace.
From the moment that we shoved out into the stream everything was a huge
joke. If one slipped on the submerged logs of the callapo and floundered
overboard, the rest hailed it with yells of delight, and they dug their
heavy paddles into the water and tried to pull the callapo beyond his
reach. The victim would dive and come up in some unexpected place, where
the effect of the black pompadour and the beady eyes suddenly popping
above the opaque depths of an eddy, followed by a damp, sheepish grin,
was irresistibly funny.
They are perfectly at home in the water, and will swim any rapid and the
dangerous whirlpools that are constantly forming below them, without
hesitation--places that it would be fatal for a white man to attempt.
There is a story of a Lecco who went through the most dangerous of the
rapids with his wife and baby and a mule--the mule and baby inclosed in
a framework of palm amidships on the balsa, and the wife helping with a
paddle at the stern. They made the passage safely, but it was the
survival of the mule that excited their admiration.
Their huts are one-roomed affairs with the floor of beaten clay, upon
which, at night, are laid woven grass mats that serve as beds. The walls
are of _charo_--a kind of poor relative of the bamboo--lashed to a
slender framework of the same material by split strips of the _mora_,
the typical hut of the tropical frontier. Stout posts sunk at the
corners give the strength to support the roof. The huts are about ten by
fifteen feet. The steep-pitched roof is thatched with split palm-leaves
that render it water-proof even in the heavy tropical thunder-storms. A
high broad shelf at one end serves as a second story and a place of
storage. In some there is a low shelf of charo along one side that
serves as the family bed, though these latter are only in the houses of
the more ambitious Leccos. All cooking is done at one end over an open
fire, the smoke escaping as best it may through the interstices between
the layers of charo. A single door is the only opening.
Near by is the little platano or plantain patch, and a few yuccas. A few
scrawny chickens use the house as their headquarters, and are reserved
for fiestas. A pot or two, purchased from the traders complete the
household equipment. Invariably they boil their food, even to the
platanos that are so much better roasted. This is in striking contrast
to the barbaros of the farther interior, who are without the knowledge
of boiling food; they either eat it raw or roast it slightly.
The Lecco women are also as distinctly Malaysian in appearance as the
men. They have fine figures and retain the free gracefulness of carriage
of the nude savage, and, up to the time they are sixteen, if not
absolutely pretty in feature, are distinctly pleasing. One, however,
that I saw in the rubber barraca of Caimalebra, living with a Bolivian
refugee murderer, was an absolute beauty by any standards of comparison.
They were living happily, and on one trip I enjoyed their hospitality
for five days. The single garment of the women is an exaggeration of the
Lecco shirt, reaching nearly to the ankles. It is pleasing in its
effect, and sets off the graceful beauty of their figures in a way that
recalls the simple fashions of the Hawaiian and Polynesian peoples. The
women of other tribes are apt to adopt slatternly skirts after their
introduction to the frontier civilization.
The girls are fully developed at fourteen, and they usually mate a year
or so later with a Lecco boy of about their own age. The boy at that
time is a full-fledged _balsero_ and able to hold his own in the
struggle with the river--their only test of arrival at man's estate.
Sometimes a mission priest comes down the river, and then, if the family
has prospered, there will be a grand fiesta and a marriage will be
performed according to the rites of the Church. This will cost forty
bolivians--about eighteen dollars--for the priest's fee, and
considerably more for the drunken orgy that follows. To have been
married according to the ceremonies of the Church is a great
distinction, and also a rare one.
Of any form or ceremonial that the Leccos may have had at one time,
there is not a trace left. All vestiges of their own original
superstitions have long disappeared. Nominally they are Catholics, and
are claimed as such by the padrés, but in reality they are without
religion or belief. The rites of baptism and marriage seem to appeal to
them, but apparently more on the ground of the superior dignity that is
lent to the following fiesta. Baptism is performed by any trader who
happens to be passing on the river, and to their complete satisfaction,
while his crew is impressed as godfathers. I was invited to perform it
once, but declined, to their evident disappointment.
There are no ceremonies attending the death and burial of a Lecco.
During the last illness the neighbors may drop in on a visit of
sympathy, and cañassa will be handed around. When death occurs, one
member of the family, the husband, son, or son-in-law, wraps the body in
a piece of tucuyo, and carries it on his shoulder to a secluded place in
the jungle, and there buries it. The slight mound above the grave is its
only mark, and that disappears after the lapse of a season or two.
Apparently there is no idea of spirits haunting these places, for the
Leccos pass them without hesitation after nightfall--something that the
Cholos do not care or are afraid to do.
The Lecco families are small. Two or, at the most, three babies are the
rule, and it is not at all uncommon to find a childless family. Cañassa
and the frequent drunken fiestas that are their only relaxation seem to
be the means by which they are accomplishing the suicide of their race.
Girl babies are preferred to boys; for when a daughter marries, her
husband will eventually have to support her parents. But with a son it
is recognized that his duty is to his wife and her people. The women are
faithful to their men, if their men care for them and guard them; but if
the men become careless or apparently indifferent, the women regard it
as a tacit relinquishing of the rights of fidelity, and establish such
casual relations as suit them.
With rare exceptions the men are, in effect, in a state of slavery. The
debt system prevails, and they are easy victims. The trader spreads his
gaudy stock of trade stuffs before the Lecco, and the Lecco buys
recklessly whatever attracts him at the moment. The trader gives him
full swing at first, and the Lecco gets himself heavily in debt. And
that debt is allowed to the exact extent of each particular Lecco's
value as a balsero or rubber-picker. A well-to-do balsero has a debt of
two thousand bolivians; poorer ones less. And the Leccos are valued as
slaves in the terms of the debt. The Lecco never gets free from his
debt.
Of his race the Lecco has no knowledge. He has no written language--not
even primitive hieroglyphs or crude pictures. He is even without a
primitive instrument for making music. To all questions about
themselves, as to where their fathers lived before them, or as to where
their families came from even before that, or to the flattering
questions as to the time when the Leccos "were a great people," they
have but one date to give. That is the "time of the Great Quina," when
the bark of the quinine was worth a dollar and ten cents a pound, gold,
on the river. This is their only date, and it was about sixty or seventy
years ago.
They rigidly retain their own dialect, which they call the Riki-Riki,
although they have acquired a Spanish patois in their dealing with the
traders on the river. The Riki-Riki is strongly labial, though with many
guttural sounds, and, like most barbaric tongues, is impossible to
reproduce with our alphabet. The counting reduplicates systematically
and on the basis of five, instead of ten as in our system.