The rapid of Trés Irmãos—Meeting with the Pacaguara savages—The
river Trés Irmãos—Wild turkeys.
On the morning of the 9th, we left Girão at six o’clock, with all our
blankets and clothes thoroughly wet, and with no chance of drying them.
No coffee, either, could be had, as no dry sticks could be found; so we
had to be content with a nip at the flask, and a tot of cachaça served
all round to the crew. We had more rain during the day, everything in
consequence being dull and dispiriting. I had a smart attack of shakes
and fever at night, probably from the severe wetting endured the previous
night. I stopped work at about four in the afternoon, so as to give time
to get some kind of shelter ready and some supper cooked, passing the
night in the camarote or cabin of the canoe, as I was afraid of the damp
on shore after the heavy rain of the previous night.
For the 10th there was nothing special to note; the weather improved,
and we made pretty fair progress. On the 11th we came, about 8 a.m., in
sight of the hills of Trés Irmãos, or the “Three Brothers,” the highest
hills I had yet seen in the district. We passed the rapid of the same
name towards nightfall without any difficulty, and very little towing
work. This rapid is only troublesome to travellers when the river is
low; when there is plenty of water it becomes merely a corriente. As we
were making our canoes fast for the night a short distance above the
rapid, we heard voices below us, and, stealing up out of the deepening
shadows, saw a bark canoe approach, with three men and a child seated
in it. They were the first “Barbaros,” or savages, that I had seen, and
were objects of great interest to me. They were of the tribe called
“Pacaguaras,” and have their “malocal,” or clearing, on the river Trés
Irmãos, which runs into the Madeira on the Brazilian side. They are
not to be confounded with the Caripunas that are generally met with
at the rapid of Calderão do Inferno, and were very careful to let us
know that they were Pacaguaras, and not Caripunas. The three men were
of very fair features, two of them rather good-looking, and, except in
their adornments of feathers, very similar to the Bolivian Indians of
the Beni, although, perhaps, a shade lighter in colour. Their hair is
jet black, cut squarely above their eyebrows, and hanging down behind
almost to their shoulders; they have no whiskers or beard. The absence
of these facial appendages seems to be a characteristic of the savage
tribes of the interior of South America, and I observed that these
Pacaguaras seemed to be much surprised at the length of these adornments
of some of the travellers, and would take hold of one’s whiskers, giving
them a good pull, possibly with a view to see if they were false; when,
finding that they adhered firmly to the faces, they would burst out
into a hearty laugh. They were dressed in shirts and trousers that they
had received from the engineering parties that had lately been up the
river, but in their natural state a few feathers and a little string
form the whole of their wardrobe. It is said that when once they put
on an article of clothing that is given to them, they never remove it
until it drops to pieces, and certainly the state of the shirts I saw
them in warranted the report. Their language appears to be a succession
of semi-articulated sounds, shrugs, signs, and much laughter, and the
word “shuma,” which is said to mean “good,” stands them in great stead
in their conversation with passers-by. Some of them have picked up a few
Spanish and Portuguese words, and the first question they address to one
is to ask one’s name; and if they hear a new one, they give it to the
next child that is born in their malocal. The three men that paid us a
visit were named Patricio, Isiriaco, and Gregorio, while the head man,
or “Capitan,” of the tribe is one Mariano, who, however, is not a true
Pacaguara, but a runaway Cayubaba, from the town of Exaltacion in the
Beni. They were very friendly to us, and seemed to be very pleased to see
my mayordomo again, as they had known him some months before, when he
was up the river with the railway engineers. We gave them some cachaça
and some biscuits, and they promised to bring us some yucas and maize in
the morning, and, bidding us good-night, they paddled away in the dark
at a rapid rate. Their bark canoes are wonderful structures, being about
fifteen or sixteen feet long, and made out of one single piece of bark,
about half or three quarters of an inch in thickness, tied tip at either
end, and stretched out in the middle, the stretchers forming the seats.
These canoes are rather heavy to carry on land, but, sitting very lightly
on the water, are driven along rapidly, with very little exertion on the
part of the paddlers. They also appear to be very safe, and will go up
or down all the smaller rapids. There is generally a small fire carried
at one end, where a sufficient quantity of earth is placed to prevent
the canoe being burnt. If all the “Barbaros” were like these Pacaguaras,
they would give but little trouble to travellers or settlers, a little
stealing being probably the only annoyance to be anticipated from them.
[Illustration: CASCARA, OR BARK CANOE OF THE CARIPUNAS AND OTHER TRIBES
OF THE RIVER MADEIRA.]
The next morning, the 12th, we started early, and tried to go up the
river Trés Irmãos to the malocal of the Pacaguaras, but were unable to
go so far for fear of being separated from the other canoes. The river
near its junction with the Madeira is about 200 yards in width, is very
deep, and is very abundantly stocked with fish; indeed, all the rivers
and ravines that debouch into the big river amongst the rapids are full
of fish at the junction, as it would seem that the fish like to frequent
the quieter waters there met with. While we were breakfasting at a small
clearing about a mile or so above the rapid, three of the Pacaguaras came
up with a quantity of fine fresh maize, but no yucas or plantains; and
they made us understand by signs, and pointing to the sun, that they had
not had time to go to their clearing, where the plantains and yucas were
growing. We bought the maize from them by barter, giving them an axe, a
machete, or cutlass, and some fish-hooks in exchange; and I also obtained
a couple of sets of the capybara teeth that they use as ear ornaments,
for they can hardly be called ear-rings, as they are stuck behind the
ear by a small piece of wax. I presented the Capitan Mariano with an
accordion, with which he seemed highly pleased, and they parted from us
evidently very contented with our treatment of them.
Up to the present time I had but little chance of shooting, but
nevertheless generally managed to get a shot at a pava or a mareca
while the canoe was _en route_, although, as I was always behind the
other canoes, I only got other people’s leavings, in stray birds that
had escaped discovery, or that had returned to the river bank, possibly
thinking that all the canoes had passed. To-day, however, I was fortunate
enough to bag a “mutun,” or wild turkey, a very handsome black bird,
with a bright yellow horn-shaped wattle over his beak. He had a fine
fleshy breast, and made us a capital supper. One of my best men, a
Canichana Indian, was down to-day with a very bad attack of ague fever.