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In the Amazon Jungle
Adventures in Remote Parts of the
Upper Amazon River, Including a
Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians
By
Algot Lange
Edited in Part by J. Odell Hauser
With an Introduction by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
To
The Memory of
My Father
INTRODUCTION
When Mr. Algot Lange told me he was going to the headwaters of the
Amazon, I was particularly interested because once, years ago, I had
turned my own mind in that direction with considerable longing. I knew
he would encounter many set-backs, but I never would have predicted
the adventures he actually passed through alive.
He started in fine spirits: buoyant, strong, vigorous. When I saw
him again in New York, a year or so later, on his return, he was
an emaciated fever-wreck, placing one foot before the other only
with much exertion and indeed barely able to hold himself erect. A
few weeks in the hospital, followed by a daily diet of quinine,
improved his condition, but after months he had scarcely arrived at
his previous excellent physical state.
Many explorers have had experiences similar to those related in
this volume, but, at least so far as the fever and the cannibals
are concerned, they have seldom survived to tell of them. Their
interviews with cannibals have been generally too painfully confined
to internal affairs to be available in this world for authorship,
whereas Mr. Lange, happily, avoided not only a calamitous intimacy,
but was even permitted to view the culinary preparations relating to
the absorption of less favoured individuals, and himself could have
joined the feast, had he possessed the stomach for it.
These good friends of his, the Mangeromas, conserved his life when
they found him almost dying, not, strange as it may appear, for
selfish banqueting purposes, but merely that he might return to his
own people. It seems rather paradoxical that they should have loved
one stranger so well as to spare him with suspicious kindness, and
love others to the extent of making them into table delicacies. The
explanation probably is that these Mangeromas were the reverse of
a certain foreign youth with only a small stock of English, who, on
being offered in New York a fruit he had never seen before, replied,
"Thank you, I eat only my acquaintances"--the Mangeromas eat only
their enemies.
Mr. Lange's account of his stay with these people, of their weapons,
habits, form of battle, and method of cooking the human captives,
etc., forms one of the specially interesting parts of the book, and
is at the same time a valuable contribution to the ethnology of the
western Amazon (or Marañon) region, where dwell numerous similar tribes
little known to the white man. Particularly notable is his description
of the wonderful wourahli (urari) poison, its extraordinary effect,
and the _modus operandi_ of its making; a poison used extensively
by Amazonian tribes but not made by all. He describes also the
bows and arrows, the war-clubs, and the very scientific weapon, the
blow-gun. He was fortunate in securing a photograph of a Mangeroma in
the act of shooting this gun. Special skill, of course, is necessary
for the effective use of this simple but terrible arm, and, like that
required for the boomerang or lasso, practice begins with childhood.
The region of Mr. Lange's almost fatal experiences, the region of
the Javary River (the boundary between Brazil and Peru), is one of
the most formidable and least known portions of the South American
continent. It abounds with obstacles to exploration of the most
overwhelming kind. Low, swampy, with a heavy rainfall, it is inundated
annually, like most of the Amazon basin, and at time of high water
the rivers know no limits. Lying, as it does, so near the equator,
the heat is intense and constant, oppressive even to the native. The
forest-growth--and it is forest wherever it is not river--is forced
as in a huge hothouse, and is so dense as to render progress through
it extremely difficult. Not only are there obstructions in the way of
tree trunks, underbrush, and trailing vines and creepers like ropes,
but the footing is nothing more than a mat of interlaced roots. The
forest is also sombre and gloomy. To take a photograph required an
exposure of from three to five minutes. Not a stone, not even a pebble,
is anywhere to be found.
Disease is rampant, especially on the smaller branches of the
rivers. The incurable _beri-beri_ and a large assortment of fevers
claim first place as death dealers, smiting the traveller with fearful
facility. Next come a myriad of insects and reptiles--alligators,
huge bird-eating spiders, and snakes of many varieties. Snakes,
both the poisonous and non-poisonous kinds, find here conditions
precisely to their liking. The bush-master is met with in the more
open places, and there are many that are venomous, but the most
terrifying, though not a biting reptile is the water-boa, the sucurujú
(_Eunectes murinus_) or anaconda. It lives to a great age and reaches
a size almost beyond belief. Feeding, as generally it does at night,
it escapes common observation, and white men, heretofore, have not
seen the largest specimens reported, though more than thirty feet is
an accepted length, and Bates, the English naturalist, mentions one
he heard of, forty-two feet long. It is not surprising that Mr. Lange
should have met with one in the far wilderness he visited, of even
greater proportions, a hideous monster, ranking in its huge bulk with
the giant beasts of antediluvian times. The sucurujú is said to be
able to swallow whole animals as large as a goat or a donkey, or even
larger, and the naturalist referred to tells of a ten-year-old boy,
son of his neighbour, who, left to mind a canoe while his father went
into the forest, was, in broad day, playing in the shade of the trees,
stealthily enwrapped by one of the monsters. His cries brought his
father to the rescue just in time.
As the Javary heads near the eastern slopes and spurs of the great
Peruvian Cordillera, where once lived the powerful and wealthy Inca
race with their great stores of pure gold obtained from prolific mines
known to them, it is again not surprising that Mr. Lange should have
stumbled upon a marvellously rich deposit of the precious metal in
a singular form. The geology of the region is unknown and the origin
of the gold Mr. Lange found cannot at present even be surmised.
Because of the immense value of the rubber product, gold attracts less
attention than it would in some other country. The rubber industry
is extensive and thousands of the wild rubber trees are located and
tapped. The trees usually are found near streams and the search for
them leads the rubber-hunter farther and farther into the unbroken
wilderness. Expeditions from time to time are sent out by rich
owners of rubber "estates" to explore for fresh trees, and after
his sojourn at Remate de Males and Floresta, so full of interest,
Mr. Lange accompanied one of these parties into the unknown, with
the extraordinary results described so simply yet dramatically in
the following pages, which I commend most cordially, both to the
experienced explorer and to the stay-by-the-fire, as an unusual and
exciting story of adventure.
FREDERICK S. DELLENBAUGH.
NEW YORK, November 24, 1911.
PREFACE
It is difficult, if not impossible, to find a more hospitable and
generous nation than the Brazilian. The recollection of my trip through
the wilds of Amazonas lingers in all its details, and although my
experiences were not always of a pleasant character, yet the good
treatment and warm reception accorded me make me feel the deepest
sense of gratitude to the Brazilians, whose generosity will always
abide in my memory.
There is in the Brazilian language a word that better than any
other describes the feeling with which one remembers a sojourn
in Brazil. This word, _saudades_, is charged with an abundance of
sentiment, and, though a literal translation of it is difficult to
arrive at, its meaning approaches "sweet memories of bygone days."
Although a limitation of space forbids my expressing in full my
obligation to all those who treated me kindly, I must not omit to state
my special indebtedness to three persons, without whose invaluable
assistance and co-operation I would not have been able to complete
this book.
First of all, my thanks are due to the worthy Colonel Rosendo da Silva,
owner of the rubber estate Floresta on the Itecoahy River. Through
his generosity and his interest, I was enabled to study the work and
the life conditions of the rubber workers, the employees on his estate.
The equally generous but slightly less civilised Benjamin, high
potentate of the tribe of Mangeroma cannibals, is the second to whom I
wish to express my extreme gratitude, although my obligations to him
are of a slightly different character: in the first place, because
he did not order me to be killed and served up, well or medium done,
to suit his fancy (which he had a perfect right to do); and, in the
second place, because he took a great deal of interest in my personal
welfare and bestowed all the strange favours upon me that are recorded
in this book. He opened my eyes to things which, at the time and under
the circumstances, did not impress me much, but which, nevertheless,
convinced me that, even at this late period of the world's history,
our earth has not been reduced to a dead level of drab and commonplace
existence, and that somewhere in the remote parts of the world are
still to be found people who have never seen or heard of white men.
Last, but not least, I wish to express my deep obligation to my
valued friend, Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, who, through his helpful
suggestions, made prior to my departure, contributed essentially to
the final success of this enterprise, and whose friendly assistance
has been called into requisition and unstintingly given in the course
of the preparation of this volume.
A.L.
NEW YORK, January, 1912.
CONTENTS
Chapter
I Remate de Males, or "Culmination of Evils"
II The Social and Political Life of Remate de Males
III Other Incidents During My Stay in Remate de Males
IV The Journey up the Itecoahy River
V Floresta: Life Among the Rubber-Workers
VI The Fatal March Through the Forest
VII The Fatal "Tambo No. 9"
VIII What Happened in the Forest
IX Among the Cannibal Mangeromas
X The Fight Between the Mangeromas and the Peruvians
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
A Little Village Built on Poles
The Javary River
The Mouth of the Itecoahy River
Nazareth
Trader's Store
Remate de Males or "Culmination of Evils"
The Street in Remate de Males
General View of Remate de Males
Sunset on the Itecoahy River
An Ant Nest in a Tree
The Launch "Carolina"
The Banks of the Itecoahy
The Mouth of the Ituhy River
The Toucan
The Banks of the Itecoahy River
Clearing the Jungle
Urubus
"Nova Aurora"
"Defumador" or Smoking Hut
Matamata Tree
The Urucu Plant
The Author in the Jungle
The Mouth of the Branco
Branding Rubber on the Sand-Bar
The Landing at Floresta
The Banks at Floresta
A General View of Floresta
Morning
Coronel Rosendo da Silva
Chief Marques
Interior of A Rubber-Worker's Hut
João
The Murumuru Palm
A "Seringueiro" Tapping a Rubber Tree
Smoking the Rubber-Milk
Forest Interior
A Fig-Tree Completely Overgrown with Orchids
Chico, The Monkey
Turtle Eggs on the Sand-Bank
The Pirarucu
The Last Resting-Place of the Rubber-Workers
"Seringueiros"
João
Floresta Creek
Lake Innocence
Alligator from Lake Innocence
Another Alligator from Lake Innocence
Rubber-Workers' Home near Lake Innocence
Harpooning a Large Sting-Ray
Shooting Fish on Lake Innocence
The Pirarucu
Amazonian Game-Fish
The Track of the Anaconda--The Sucuruju
The Paca
Rubber-Worker Perreira and Wife in their Sunday Clothes
A "New Home" Sewing-Machine in an Indian Hut
The Remarkable Pachiuba Palm-Tree
Kitchen Interior
The Beginning of the Fatal Expedition
A Halt in the Forest
Jungle Scenery
Forest Creek
Top of Hill
Page Marsh-Deer and Mutum-Bird
Jungle Darkness
Creek in the Unknown
Eating our Broiled Monkey at Tambo No. 5
Hunting
The Fatal Tambo No. 9
A Photograph of the Author
The Front View of Tambo No. 9
Caoutchouc Process No. 1
Caoutchouc Process No. 2
Caoutchouc Process No. 3
Creek Near Tambo No. 9
The Author's Working Table at Tambo No. 9
Forest Scenery Near Tambo No. 9
Our Parting Breakfast
Mangeroma Vase 399
CHAPTER I
REMATE DE MALES, OR "CULMINATION OF EVILS"
My eyes rested long upon the graceful white-painted hull of the
R.M.S. _Manco_ as she disappeared behind a bend of the Amazon River,
more than 2200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. After 47 days of
continuous travel aboard of her, I was at last standing on the
Brazilian frontier, watching the steamer's plume of smoke still
hanging lazily over the immense, brooding forests. More than a plume
of smoke it was to me then; it was the final link that bound me to
the outside world of civilisation. At last it disappeared. I turned
and waded through the mud up to a small wooden hut built on poles.
It was the end of January, 1910, that saw me approaching this house,
built on Brazilian terra firma--or rather terra aqua, for water was
inundating the entire land. I had behind me the Amazon itself, and to
the right the Javary River, while the little house that I was heading
for was Esperança, the official frontier station of Brazil. The
opposite shore was Peru and presented an unbroken range of dense,
swampy forest, grand but desolate to look upon.
A middle-aged man in uniform came towards me and greeted me cordially,
in fact embraced me, and, ordering a servant to pull my baggage out
of the water, led me up a ladder into the house. I told him that
I intended to go up the Javary River, to a place called Remate de
Males, where I would live with a medical friend of mine, whereupon
he informed me that a launch was due this same night, which would
immediately proceed to my proposed destination. Later in the evening
the launch came and I embarked after being once more embraced by the
courteous Cor. Monteiro, the frontier official. The captain of this
small trading launch was an equally hospitable and courteous man; he
invited me into his cabin and tried to explain that this river, and
the town in particular, where we were going, was a most unhealthy and
forbidding place, especially for a foreigner, but he added cheerfully
that he knew of one white man, an Englishman, who had succeeded in
living for several years on the Javary without being killed by the
fever, but incidentally had drank himself to death.
The night was very dark and damp, and I did not see much of the passing
scenery; a towering black wall of trees was my total impression
during the journey. However, I managed at length to fall asleep on
some coffee-bags near the engine and did not wake till the launch
was exhausting its steam supply through its whistle.
My next impression was that of a low river bank fringed with dirty
houses lighted by candles. People were sitting in hammocks smoking
cigarettes, dogs were barking incessantly, and frogs and crickets were
making a deafening noise when I walked up the main and only street
of this little town, which was to be my headquarters for many months
to come.
After some inquiry, I finally found my friend, Dr. M----, sitting in
a dark, dismal room in the so-called _Hotel Agosto_. With a graceful
motion of his hand he pointed to a chair of ancient structure,
indicating that having now travelled so many thousand miles to reach
this glorious place, I was entitled to sit down and let repose overtake
me. Indeed, I was in Remate de Males.
Never shall I forget that first night's experience with mosquitoes and
ants. Besides this my debut in a hammock for a bed was a pronounced
failure, until a merciful sleep temporarily took me from the sad
realities.
Remate de Males lies just where a step farther would plunge one into
an unmapped country. It is a little village built on poles; the last
"blaze" of civilisation on the trail of the upper river. When the
rainy winter season drives out of the forests every living creature
that can not take refuge in the trees, the rubber-workers abandon
the crude stages of the manufacture that they carry on there and
gather in the village to make the best of what life has to offer them
in this region. At such times the population rises to the number of
some 500 souls, for the most part Brazilians and domesticated Indians
or _caboclos_.
Nothing could better summarise the attractions (!) of the place than
the name which has become fixed upon it. Translated into English this
means "Culmination of Evils," Remate de Males.
Some thirty years ago, a prospector with his family and servants,
in all about a score, arrived at this spot near the junction of the
Javary and the Itecoahy rivers, close to the equator. They came by
the only possible highway, the river, and decided to settle. Soon the
infinite variety of destroyers of human life that abound on the upper
Amazon began their work on the little household, reducing its number
to four and threatening to wipe it out altogether. But the prospector
stuck to it and eventually succeeded in giving mankind a firm hold
on this wilderness. In memory of what he and succeeding settlers went
through, the village received its cynically descriptive name.
Remate de Males, separated by weeks and weeks of journey by boat
from the nearest spot of comparative civilisation down the river,
has grown wonderfully since its pioneer days. Dismal as one finds
it to be, if I can give an adequate description in these pages, it
will be pronounced a monument to man's nature-conquering instincts,
and ability. Surely no pioneers ever had a harder battle than these
Brazilians, standing with one foot in "the white man's grave," as the
Javary region is called in South America, while they faced innumerable
dangers. The markets of the world need rubber, and the supplying of
this gives them each year a few months' work in the forests at very
high wages. I always try to remember these facts when I am tempted to
harshly judge Remate de Males according to our standards; moreover, I
can never look upon the place quite as an outsider. I formed pleasant
friendships there and entered into the lives of many of its people,
so I shall always think of it with affection. The village is placed
where the Itecoahy runs at right angles into the Javary, the right-hand
bank of the Itecoahy forming at once its main and its only street. The
houses stand facing this street, all very primitive and all elevated
on palm-trunk poles as far as possible above the usual high-water
mark of the river. Everything, from the little sheet-iron church
to the pig-sty, is built on poles. Indeed, if there is anything in
the theory of evolution, it will not be many generations before the
inhabitants and domestic animals are born equipped with stilts.
Opposite Remate de Males, across the Itecoahy, is a collection of
some ten huts that form the village of São Francisco, while across
the Javary is the somewhat larger village of Nazareth. Like every real
metropolis, you see, Remate de Males has its suburbs. Nazareth is in
Peruvian territory, the Javary forming the boundary between Brazil and
Peru throughout its length of some 700 miles. This same boundary line
is a source of amusing punctiliousness between the officials of each
country. To cross it is an affair requiring the exercise of the limits
of statesmanship. I well remember an incident that occurred during my
stay in the village. A sojourner in our town, an Indian rubber-worker
from the Ituhy River, had murdered a woman by strangling her. He
escaped in a canoe to Nazareth before the Brazilian officials could
capture him, and calmly took refuge on the porch of a house there,
where he sat down in a hammock and commenced to smoke cigarettes,
feeling confident that his pursuers would not invade Peruvian soil. But
local diplomacy was equal to the emergency. Our officials went to the
shore opposite Nazareth, and, hiding behind the trees, endeavoured to
pick off their man with their .44 Winchesters, reasoning that though
their crossing would be an international incident, no one could
object to a bullet's crossing. Their poor aim was the weak spot in
the plan. After a few vain shots had rattled against the sheet-iron
walls of the house where the fugitive was sitting, he got up from among
his friends and lost himself in the jungle, never to be heard of again.
About sixty-five houses, lining the bank of the Itecoahy River over a
distance of what would be perhaps six blocks in New York City, make up
Remate de Males. They are close together and each has a ladder reaching
from the street to the main and only floor. At the bottom of every
ladder appears a rudimentary pavement, probably five square feet in
area and consisting of fifty or sixty whiskey and gin bottles placed
with their necks downwards. Thus in the rainy season when the water
covers the street to a height of seven feet, the ladders always have
a solid foundation. The floors consist of split palm logs laid with
the round side up. Palm leaves form the roofs, and rusty corrugated
sheet-iron, for the most part, the walls. Each house has a sort of
backyard and kitchen, also on stilts and reached by a bridge.
Through the roofs and rafters gambol all sorts of wretched
pests. Underneath the houses roam pigs, goats, and other domestic
animals, which sometimes appear in closer proximity than might be
wished, owing to the spaces between the logs of the floor. That is
in the dry season. In the winter, or the wet season, these animals
are moved into the houses with you, and their places underneath are
occupied by river creatures, alligators, water-snakes, and malignant,
repulsive fish, of which persons outside South America know nothing.
Near the centre of the village is the "sky-scraper," the _Hotel
de Augusto_, which boasts a story and a quarter in height. Farther
along are the _Intendencia_, or Government building, painted blue,
the post-office yellow, the _Recreio Popular_ pink; beyond, the
residence of Mons. Danon, the plutocrat of the village, and farther
"downtown" the church, unpainted. Do not try to picture any of these
places from familiar structures. They are all most unpretentious;
their main point of difference architecturally from the rest of the
village consists in more utterly neglected façades.
The post-office and the meteorological observatory, in one dilapidated
house, presided over by a single self-important official, deserve
description here. The postmaster himself is a pajama-clad gentleman,
whose appearance is calculated to strike terror to the souls of
humble _seringueiros_, or rubber-workers, who apply for letters
only at long intervals. On each of these occasions I would see this
important gentleman, who had the word _coronel_ prefixed to his name,
João Silva de Costa Cabral, throw up his hands, in utter despair at
being disturbed, and slowly proceed to his desk from which he would
produce the letters. With great pride this "Pooh-Bah" had a large sign
painted over the door. The post-office over which he presides is by no
means overworked, as only one steamer arrives every five weeks, or so,
but still he has the appearance of being "driven." But when he fusses
around his "_Observatorio meteorologico_," which consists of a maximum
and minimum thermometer and a pluviometer, in a tightly closed box,
raised above the ground on a tall pole, then indeed, his air would
impress even the most blasé town-sport. I was in the village when
this observatory was installed, and after it had been running about
a week, the mighty official called on me and asked me confidentially
if I would not look the observatory over and see if it was all right.
My examination showed that the thermometers were screwed on tight,
which accounted for the amazingly uniform readings shown on his
chart. The pluviometer was inside the box, and therefore it would have
been difficult to convince scientists that the clouds had not entirely
skipped Remate de Males during the rainy season, unless the postmaster
were to put the whole observatory under water by main force. He also
had a chart showing the distribution of clouds on each day of the
year. I noticed that the letter "N" occupied a suspiciously large
percentage of the space on the chart, and when I asked him for the
meaning of this he said that "N"--which in meteorological abbreviation
means Nimbus--stood for "_None_" (in Portuguese _Não_). And he thought
that he must be right because it was the rainy season.
The hotel, in which I passed several months as a guest, until
I finally decided to rent a hut for myself, had points about it
which outdid anything that I have ever seen or heard of in comic
papers about "summer boarding." The most noticeable feature was the
quarter-of-a-story higher than any other house in the village. While
this meant a lead as to quantity I could never see that it represented
anything in actual quality. I would not have ventured up the ladder
which gave access to the extra story without my Winchester in hand,
and during the time I was there I never saw anyone else do so. The
place was nominally a store-house, but having gone undisturbed for
long periods it was an ideal sanctuary for hordes of vermin--and
these the vermin of the Amazon, dangerous, poisonous, not merely the
annoying species we know. Rats were there in abundance, also deadly
scolopendra and centipedes; and large bird-eating spiders were daily
seen promenading up and down the sheet-iron walls.
On the main floor the building had two large rooms across the centre,
one on the front and one on the rear. At each side were four small
rooms. The large front-room was used as a dining-room and had two
broad tables of planed palm trunks. The side-rooms were bedrooms,
generally speaking, though most of the time I was there some were
used for stabling the pigs and goats, which had to be taken in owing
to the rainy season.
It is a simple matter to keep a hotel on the upper Amazon. Each room
in the _Hotel de Augusto_ was neatly and chastely furnished with
a pair of iron hooks from which to hang the hammock, an article
one had to provide himself. There was nothing in the room besides
the hooks. No complete privacy was possible because the corrugated
sheet-iron partitions forming the walls did not extend to the roof. The
floors were sections of palm trees, with the flat side down, making
a succession of ridges with open spaces of about an inch between,
through which the ground or the water, according to the season, was
visible. The meals were of the usual monotonous fare typical of the
region. Food is imported at an enormous cost to this remote place,
since there is absolutely no local agriculture. Even sugar and rice,
for instance, which are among the important products of Brazil,
can be had in New York for about one-tenth of what the natives pay
for them in Remate de Males. A can of condensed milk, made to sell
in America for eight or nine cents, brings sixty cents on the upper
Amazon, and preserved butter costs $1.20 a pound.
The following prices which I have had to pay during the wet season
in this town will, doubtless, be of interest:
One box of sardines $ 1.20
One pound of unrefined sugar .30
One roll of tobacco (16 pounds) 21.30
One basket of farinha retails in Para for $4.50 13.30
One bottle of ginger ale .60
One pound of potatoes .60
Calico with stamped pattern, pr. yd. .90
One Collins machete, N.Y. price, $1.00 12.00
One pair of men's shoes 11.00
One bottle of very plain port wine, 22,000 reis or 7.30
Under such circumstances, of course, the food supply is very
poor. Except for a few dried cereals and staples, nothing is used
but canned goods; the instances where small domestic animals are
slaughtered are so few as to be negligible. Furthermore, as a rule,
these very animals are converted into jerked meat to be kept for months
and months. Some fish are taken from the river, but the Amazon fish
are none too palatable generally speaking, with a few exceptions;
besides, the natives are not skilful enough to prepare them to suit
a civilised palate.
A typical, well provided table on the Amazon would afford dry farinha
in the first place. This is the granulated root of the Macacheira
plant, the _Jatropha manihot_, which to our palates would seem like
desiccated sawdust, although it appears to be a necessity for the
Brazilian. He pours it on his meat, into his soup, and even into his
wine and jams. Next you would have a black bean, which for us lacks
flavour even as much as the farinha. With this there would probably be
rice, and on special occasions jerked beef, a product as tender and
succulent as the sole of a riding boot. Great quantities of coffee
are drunk, made very thick and prepared without milk or sugar. All
these dishes are served at once, so that they promptly get cold and
are even more tasteless before their turn comes to be devoured.
For five months I experienced this torturing menu at the hotel with
never-ceasing regularity. The only change I ever noticed was on Sundays
or days of feast when beans might occupy the other end of the table.
But what can the Brazilians do? The cost of living is about ten times
as high as in New York. Agriculture is impossible in the regions
where the land is flooded annually, and the difficulties of shipping
are enormous. When I left the hotel and started housekeeping on my
own account, I found that I could not do a great deal better. By
specialising on one thing at a time I avoided monotony to some
extent, but then it was probably only because I was a "new broom"
at the business.
As illustrating the community life that we enjoyed at the hotel,
I will relate a happening that I have set down in my notes as
an instance of the great mortality of this region. One afternoon
a woman's three-months-old child was suddenly taken ill. The child
grew worse rapidly and the mother finally decided that it was going
to die. Her husband was up the river on the rubber estates and she
did not want to be left alone. So she came to the hotel with the
child and besought them to let her in. The infant was placed in a
hammock where it lay crying pitifully. At last the wailings of the
poor little creature became less frequent and the child died.
Before the body was quite cold the mother and the landlady commenced
clearing a table in the dining-room. I looked at this performance
in astonishment because it was now evident that they were going to
prepare a "_lit de parade_" there, close to the tables where our
meals were served. The body was then brought in, dressed in a white
robe adorned with pink, yellow, and sky-blue silk ribbons. Loose
leaves and branches were scattered over the little emaciated body,
care being taken not to conceal any of the fancy silk ribbons. Empty
whiskey and gin bottles were placed around the bier, a candle stuck
in the mouth of each bottle, and then the whole thing was lighted up.
It was now getting dark fast, and as the doors were wide open,
a great crowd was soon attracted by the brilliant display. All the
"400" of the little rubber town seemed to pour in a steady stream into
the dining-room. It was a new experience, even in this hotel where
I had eaten with water up to my knees, to take a meal with a funeral
going on three feet away. We had to partake of our food with the body
close by and the candle smoke blowing in our faces, adding more local
colour to our jerked beef and beans than was desirable. More and more
people came in to pay their respects to the child that hardly any
one had known while it was alive. Through it all the mother sat on
a trunk in a corner peacefully smoking her pipe, evidently proud of
the celebration that was going on in honour of her deceased offspring.
The kitchen boy brought in a large tray with cups of steaming coffee;
biscuits also were carried around to the spectators who sat against
the wall on wooden boxes. The women seemed to get the most enjoyment
out of the mourning; drinking black coffee, smoking their pipes, and
paying little attention to the cause of their being there, only too
happy to have an official occasion to show off their finest skirts. The
men had assembled around the other table, which had been cleared in
the meantime, and they soon sent the boy out for whiskey and beer,
passing away the time playing cards.
I modestly inquired how long this feast was going to last, because
my room adjoined the dining-room and was separated only by a thin
sheet-iron partition open at the top. The landlady, with a happy smile,
informed me that the mourning would continue till the early hours,
when a launch would arrive to transport the deceased and the guests
to the cemetery. This was about four miles down the Javary River and
was a lonely, half-submerged spot.
There was nothing for me to do but submit and make the best of it. All
night the mourners went on, the women drinking black coffee, while the
men gambled and drank whiskey in great quantities, the empty bottles
being employed immediately as additional candlesticks. Towards morning,
due to their heroic efforts, a multitude of bottles totally obliterated
the "_lit de parade_" from view. I managed to fall asleep completely
exhausted when the guests finally went off at nine o'clock. The
doctor diagnosed the case of the dead child as chronic indigestion,
the result of the mother's feeding a three-months-old infant on jerked
beef and black beans.
Life in the hotel during the rainy season is variegated. I have spoken
of having eaten a meal with water up to my knees. That happened often
during the weeks when the river was at its highest level. Once when
we were having our noon-day meal during the extreme high-water period
a man came paddling his canoe in at the open door, sailed past us,
splashing a little water on the table as he did so, and navigated
through to the back room where he delivered some supplies.
During this feat everybody displayed the cheerful and courteous
disposition usual to the Brazilians. At this season you must
wear wading boots to eat a meal or do anything else about the
house. Sleeping is somewhat easier as the hammocks are suspended about
three feet above the level of the water, but an involuntary plunge
is a thing not entirely unknown to an amateur sleeping in a hammock;
I know this from personal experience.
Every morning the butcher comes to the village between five and
six o'clock and sharpens his knife while he awaits calls for his
ministrations. He is an undersized man with very broad shoulders and
a face remarkable for its cunning, cruel expression. His olive-brown
complexion, slanting eyes, high cheek-bones, and sharp-filed teeth
are all signs of his coming from the great unknown interior. His
business here is to slaughter the cattle of the town. He does this
deftly by thrusting a long-bladed knife into the neck of the animal
at the base of the brain, until it severs the medulla, whereupon
the animal collapses without any visible sign of suffering. It is
then skinned and the intestines thrown into the water where they
are immediately devoured by a small but voracious fish called the
_candiroo-escrivão_. This whole operation is carried on inside the
house, in the back-room, as long as the land is flooded.
It must be remembered that during the rainy season an area equal in
size to about a third of the United States is entirely submerged. There
is a network of rivers that eventually find their way into the Amazon
and the land between is completely inundated. In all this immense
territory there are only a few spots of sufficient elevation to be
left high and dry. Remate de Males, as I have explained, is at the
junction of the Itecoahy and the Javary rivers, the latter 700 miles
in length, and thirty miles or so below the village the Javary joins
the Amazon proper, or Solimoés as it is called here. Thus we are in
the heart of the submerged region. When I first arrived in February,
1910, I found the river still confined to its channel, with the water
about ten feet below the level of the street. A few weeks later it
was impossible to take a single step on dry land anywhere.
The water that drives the rubber-workers out of the forests also drives
all animal life to safety. Some of the creatures seek refuge in the
village. I remember that we once had a huge alligator take temporary
lodgings in the backyard of the hotel after he had travelled no one
knows how many miles through the inundated forest. At all hours we
could hear him making excursions under the house to snatch refuse
thrown from the kitchen, but we always knew he would have welcomed
more eagerly a member of the household who might drop his way.
And now a few words about the people who lived under the conditions
I have described, and who keep up the struggle even though, as they
themselves have put it, "each ton of rubber costs a human life."
In the first place I must correct any erroneous impression as to
neatness that may have been formed by my remarks about the animals
being kept in the dwellings during the rainy season. The Brazilians
are scrupulous about their personal cleanliness, and in fact, go
through difficulties to secure a bath which might well discourage
more civilised folk.
No one would dream, for an instant, of immersing himself in the
rivers. In nine cases out of ten it would amount to suicide to do
so, and the natives have bathhouses along the shores; more literally
bathhouses than ours, for their baths are actually taken in them. They
are just as careful about clothing being aired and clean. Indeed, the
main item of the Brazilian woman's housekeeping is the washing. The
cooking is rather happy-go-lucky; and there is no use cleaning and
polishing iron walls; they get rusty anyhow.
The people are all occupied with the rubber industry and the town
owes its existence to the economic necessity of having here a shipping
and trading point for the product. The rubber is gathered farther up
along the shores of the Javary and the Itecoahy and is transported
by launch and canoe to Remate de Males. Here it is shipped directly
or sold to travelling dealers who send it down to Manaos or Para via
the boat of the Amazon Steam Navigation Co., which comes up during
the rainy season. Thence it goes to the ports of the world.
The rubber-worker is a well paid labourer even though he belongs to
the unskilled class. The tapping of the rubber trees and the smoking of
the milk pays from eight to ten dollars a day in American gold. This,
to him, of course, is riches and the men labour here in order that they
may go back to their own province as wealthy men. Nothing else will
yield this return; the land is not used for other products. It is hard
to see how agriculture or cattle-raising could be carried on in this
region, and, if they could, they would certainly not return more than
one fourth or one fifth of what the rubber industry does. The owners of
the great rubber estates, or _seringales_, are enormously wealthy men.
There are fewer women than men in Remate de Males, and none of the
former is beautiful. They are for the most part Indians or Brazilians
from the province of Ceara, with very dark skin, hair, and eyes, and
teeth filed like shark's teeth. They go barefooted, as a rule. Here
you will find all the incongruities typical of a race taking the
first step in civilisation. The women show in their dress how the
well-paid men lavish on them the extravagances that appeal to the
lingering savage left in their simple natures.
Women, who have spent most of their isolated lives in utterly
uncivilised surroundings, will suddenly be brought into a community
where other women are found, and immediately the instinct of
self-adornment is brought into full play. Each of them falls under
the sway of "Dame Fashion"--for there are the _latest things_, even
on the upper Amazon. Screaming colours are favoured; a red skirt with
green stars was considered at one time the height of fashion, until an
inventive woman discovered that yellow dots could also be worked in. In
addition to these dresses, the women will squander money on elegant
patent-leather French slippers (with which they generally neglect to
wear stockings), and use silk handkerchiefs perfumed with the finest
Parisian eau de Cologne, bought at a cost of from fourteen to fifteen
dollars a bottle. Arrayed in all her glory on some gala occasion,
the whole effect enhanced by the use of a short pipe from which she
blows volumes of smoke, the woman of Remate de Males is a unique sight.