_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.
Of all the sticky, funny messes I ever saw it was the packs of these
Indians. The rain had soaked through the palm leaves on top and
through the meshes of the baskets at the sides. The cassava cakes had
dissolved into a soft, semi-liquid dough. This had run down through
the contents of the baskets. Nearly every one contained bits of red
cloth--an Indian's choice possession. The colors had run and there
were pink dough and dough-covered arrows and pink smoked meat and
sticky, cassava dough enameled shirts. It was a great mess, but the
Indians scraped the dough together to dry out in the sun the next day
and worried not at all, for the cassava dough would all dry and be
rubbed off their belongings.
While the Indians like the white men, they do not like the blacks.
They get along with them all right because they have nothing whatever
to do with the "Me-go-ro-man" as they call them. Our blacks, as usual,
had their three shelters a distance from ours. The Indians built a
hasty shelter alongside our canvas one, slung their hammocks, now
daubed with dough, and climbed in. Jimmy started the victrola, the
camp fires burned brightly despite the rain, and the Indians sat up
and stared open-eyed, at the "hoodoo" box from which came the, to
them, weird sounds. They believed that the spirits of the dead were
inside that victrola, but when they saw Jimmy putting on the records
and saw that no ghosts came out to kill them, they lost their fear of
it.
[Illustration: MY JUNGLE FRIENDS]
The plaintive Southern melodies seemed to please them most. Next in
their favor was a weird jazz number. From the wet jungle came the
peculiar roar of red baboons. We would have fresh baboon steak next
day, if we could spare an hour for hunting.
And then from the black, dismal depths of that dripping jungle came
the most pitiful sobbing that I ever heard. Whether a child or a
woman, or a number of them, I could not make out. I leaped from my
hammock, wondering what was happening to them, if they were lost, and
trying to guess how far into the jungle we would have to travel to
rescue them.
Never had I heard such distress as that weeping and wailing and
heartbreaking sobbing.
I pictured some helpless women there, perhaps being attacked by wild
animals. Even if they were Indian women, still they were humans, I
thought--
"Black night monkey," said Jimmy.
I looked at Lewis. He smiled and nodded.
For a moment I could scarcely believe that such human crying could
come from animals.
"They always cry all night," Lewis told me. "Very annoying at first.
You'll get used to it. Just remember that they are ugly black monkeys,
that they like to make that noise, that they are not really crying any
more than a dog is crying when he barks, and now go to sleep."
No one else seemed to mind it. But I must admit that it kept me awake
a long while. I couldn't force myself to think that it was a natural
noise made by an animal. I couldn't believe anything could make such a
noise unless it was actual crying caused by grief or suffering.
Finally I fell asleep.