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, the human race, wheresoever
on this globe its lot be cast, shows a marked sameness in its traits and
habits. This need not, in fact does not, argue a unity of origin. There
is no reason why a custom may not be indigenous in many parts of the
world, among peoples labouring under like conditions; and if the same
customs be evolved the same cultural types will also be found to exist.
Thus it is easy to find even striking resemblances between these Indians
of Amazonia and such distant peoples as the Arunta of Central Australia,
the cannibal tribes of pagan Malay, or, to go even wider afield, the
Basque people of Southern Europe. This does not for a moment suggest
that such common beliefs, customs, or cultures have been introduced from
one to the other, or even borrowed from a common stock. The human mind
seems to work broadly on certain definite planes of thought, and there is
less mental difference between the low-type illiterate of a London slum
and the denizens of a tropical forest than there is between him and the
learned occupant of a University Chair, though both be nominally of the
same nation.
Attempts are continually made to evolve some working classification of
the South American Indians. The main difficulty, the sparsity of common
factors, despite general similarity, is due in a measure at least to the
absence of any standard, any fixity of language, or any confederation
between the units of these races. The only rule is that there is no
rule. What was a common word yesterday is possibly forgotten to-day;
the custom shared a generation ago may vary now past recognition,
and to-morrow will see further changes that increase the diversity.
These people are in a state of flux. Disintegration is the determinant
influence; nothing makes for amalgamation. A section of a tribe isolated
from the remainder, surrounded by neighbours whose speech, whose physical
features, are entirely different, may develop into a distinct tribe with
dialect and customs as variant from the parent tribe as from those in
its new vicinage.[36] But extinction rather than such increase is the
more probable fate. These tribes are hardly embryos of nations to be, nor
can they be entirely classified as the decadent remnants of perishing
races. Rather did it seem to me that, despite the awful handicap of their
environment, they were gradually evolving a higher culture. Their origin
is a problem of no small interest, but one on which recorded history
throws exceedingly little light. Whether they be the autochthonous
sons of American soil, or the stranded vanguard of successive waves
of Mongoloid immigrants pushed southwards to be swallowed up in the
Amazonian forests,[37] or--which is most probable--a combination of
both, can only be in part determined by the study of their physical
traits, their habits, customs, speech, morals, and beliefs. It is for the
comparative anthropologist, the comparative folklorist, to find an answer.
As an instance of the difficulty of classification, and the confusion
that has resulted in much of the literature on this subject, the
statements given in the Contemporary Science Series volume, _The
Races of Man_, may be examined. Deniker orders the Indians in four
divisions--Carib, Arawak, Miranha, and Pano; and classifies the Witoto
in the first, taking the determinative ethnic distinction to be “their
acquaintance with the hammock, a plaited (not woven) texture, and
a particular kind of cassava-squeezer.”[38] If this is correct and
sufficient, all the Indians of the middle Issa-Japura regions are
Caribs. But I do not think the arguments are conclusive. For example,
“the practice of the ‘couvade’” is given as racially distinctive of
the Carib.[39] But couvade is by no means peculiar to the Carib. In
this region it is a common custom of the Witoto and the Boro, who are
linguistically and physically diverse.[40] Then, as regards the hammock,
it has been pointed out by Sir Everard im Thurn, who holds that the
Carib did not migrate to British Guiana from the interior but from
the islands,[41] that the Caribs of Guiana, the “stranger tribes,” as
he calls them, that is, tribes who have migrated thither, “make their
hammocks of cotton,” while the native tribes use palm-fibre.[42] None
of the Issa-Japura tribes make use of cotton yam for their hammocks; it
is, in fact, almost unknown to them, and what little they may possess is
presumably obtained by barter, for to the best of my knowledge they do
not prepare it, or know how to prepare it; palm-fibre only is used by
them. The explanation probably is that Deniker apparently confuses the
Karahone and the Witoto, as he speaks of “the _Uitotos_ or _Carijonas_,”
as though they were the same, instead of a totally distinct group of
tribes. He also gives Crevaux as his authority, when he states that
the Witoto--according to him a Carib group--“live side by side with
the Miranhas,” Miranha being differentiated as a distinct branch. But
Dr. Crevaux speaks of “_Ouitotos_ ou _Miranhas_,”[43] and remarks that
“Les Miranhas du Yapurá sont appelés par leurs voisins ‘Ouitotos.’”[44]
It would seem, then, that the French traveller considered that the
Witoto language-group belongs to the same racial division as the Miranha
language-group, though, as Dr. Koch-Grünberg remarks, the languages of
these groups “ne présentent aucun signe de parenté entre elles.”[45] In
fact, he is of the opinion that “on serait sans doubte plus près de la
vérité si on rattachait les différents dialectes parlés dans la région
des Ouitotos à un groupe linguistique nouveau.” This he designates the
_groupe Ouitoto_.[46] Miranha or Miranya is the name given to the Boro by
the tribes on the north, and is the lingoa-geral name for the Boro and
other groups. The word means a wanderer, a gratuitous distinction where
all tribes have nomadic tendencies, and this may be the reason why it has
apparently been applied to several groups.
It is not surprising that there should be confusion over any attempted
classification of these peoples, for not only are there many
language-groups, each with numerous tribes, but in addition to this a
group or a tribe will have not one distinct name by which it may be known
and classed, but a number of names, so that inevitably the writer without
personal knowledge of a group will be easily misled in dealing with it
and its divisions.
So far as the Indians are concerned no language-group and no tribe use
the esoteric name. They talk simply of “our speech” or “our own people,”
and they are named, and frequently named differently, by the surrounding
tribes. The Boro, for example, are known as Boro to the tribes from the
west and south, as Miranya to some of those of the east and the north;
the same tribe would therefore be Boro to the Witoto and Miranya to
the Yuri or the Menimehe. The Dukaiya are called Okaina--which means
“capybara”--by the Witoto, though they are also called Dukaiya, which is
the extra-tribal name of their most powerful tribe or section. Muenane
and Nonuya are also Witoto names.[47] Witoto is the esoteric name for
mosquito, but the Witoto tribes were thus named by the tribes on the
south either because the name has the same meaning in their language or
because they had learned the Witoto word for this insect. In this case
the esoteric name is the same as the exoteric. Crevaux gives _ouitoto_
as the word for “enemy” among the Karahone and the Roucouyennes,[48] and
Martius has a similar word for that meaning among other tribes.[49] All
this adds to the difficulties of nomenclature. It must be understood,
also, that if you ask a Witoto, “_O Memeka bu?_” (What tribe do you
belong to?) he would not tell you, but he would answer in the affirmative
if the question be put as to whether he belongs to a certain tribe or to
a certain group, though he will not himself use the tribal or group name.
This applies to all Indians. Moreover, there is the very thorny question
of spelling. I have throughout adopted the rule laid down by the Royal
Geographical Society, and spelt words with English consonants--that is to
say, with their equivalent values--and Italian vowels. This is the most
generally accepted method, but even with this peculiarities of ear must
result in sundry variants.
Another source of confusion in writing about these peoples has been the
indiscriminate use of the words _nation_, _tribe_, _clan_, _family_.
To avoid possibility of mistake it may be explained at the outset that
_tribe_ is here used in the sense ruled by the new editions of both the
Anthropological and the Folklore Handbooks, that is to say, “a group with
a common language, code of law, some rude form of government, and capable
of uniting for common action.” These tribes I would further classify
into language-groups, such as the Witoto language-group, the Boro
language-group, and so forth. The group name--Witoto, Boro, Andoke, or
whatever the case may be--applies to all the tribes of these groups, in
addition to their individual names. The variations between these tribes
of a group are mainly dialectic and local, but the variance between
tribes of alien groups is more than a difference of speech and custom.
The Boro, for instance, are distinctly Chinese in appearance; their
neighbours the Witoto resemble rather the Dyaks of Borneo.
[Illustration: DIAGRAMMATIC MAP OF THE ISSA-JAPURA CENTRAL WATERSHED
SHOWING LANGUAGE GROUPS
BY CAPTAIN THOMAS W. WIFFEN]
The two groups with which we are mainly concerned, and the only two with
which it is possible in this book to deal seriously in detail, are the
Witoto and the Boro. They occupy roughly the lands between the Japura and
the Igara Parana, and the Igara Parana and the Issa, though there are no
actual boundaries. The Boro country lies north-west of the Futahi Hills,
in the watersheds of the Pupuna and the Kahuanari rivers. The Boro also
occupy a stretch of country north of the Japura, where that river bends
south and east below its junction with the Wama, and including part of
the Ira watershed. On this, the north-east border, they meet the country
of the Menimehe, while on the north they touch the Karahone country.
The Resigero and Nonuya districts lie between them and the Muenane. The
country by the Futahi Hills west of the Igara Parana, that is to say,
the basins of the Esperanza and Sabalo Yacu rivers, is very sparsely
populated, and the Dukaiya country on the west of the Nonuya practically
separates the Witoto and the Boro on the north-west. From the mouth of an
unnamed tributary of the Japura--below the Tauauru and on the opposite
bank--the Andoke country runs south of the Japura to the junction of the
Kuemani, where the Japura becomes the boundary between the Andoke and
the Witoto. On the west the Orahone country lies on the farther side of
the Issa from the Witoto, the Issa being the dividing line from the west
and south-west of the Witoto group. The name Orahone is given to all
tribes indiscriminately if they elongate the lobes of their ears,[50] so
the Orahone, or Long-ears, may possibly be many distinct tribes. Thus,
one writer notes of the Napo tribes, the “Cotos” and the “Tutapishcos,”
that they “are sometimes called ‘Orejones,’” but are not so known
locally.[51] The Orahone are of a low type. To the east of the Menimehe
and the Boro districts the Kuretu language-group of tribes occupy the
country north and south of the Japura. To the north the Opaina, Makuna,
and Tukana groups interpose between them and the Bara and Maku groups.
The Maku are found from the Rio Negro to the Apaporis, and again above
the Bara group north of the Arara Hills about the Kaouri river, a
tributary of the Uaupes. Though the Bara group live to the north of the
Apaporis they have nothing in common with the Uaupes Indians. Both their
language and customs resemble more those of the Japura, and they have no
intercourse with the surrounding tribes. They are a dark-skinned people,
of a low type, and consequently looked down on by their lighter-skinned
neighbours. The Maku, also of a low type and dark, are a very nomadic
group; in fact all these peoples are wanderers, and the districts here
given for their localities must be taken as merely approximate. That
they were there when I was in the country is no guarantee that they will
be found there now, or a few years hence. The locality of a tribe, or a
language-group, is mainly dependent on the locality of its neighbours,
especially of any powerful or warlike body. The tribes of the upper
Issa districts are semi-civilised Colombian, those of the lower waters
semi-civilised Brazilian Indians. Only in the middle district have the
tribes been free, until recently, from the influence of the white man.
It is almost impossible to give the populations of these districts even
in round figures. My own estimate for the nine language-groups of the
Issa-Japura region, based roughly on the number of houses and the extent
of country, is as follows: but, I repeat, these figures must be taken as
very approximate, and are probably overestimated in some cases:--
Witoto group of tribes 15,000
Boro group 15,000
Dukaiya or Okaina group 2,000
Muenane group 2,000
Nonuya group 1,000
Resigero group 1,000
Andoke group 10,000
Menimehe group 15,000
Karahone group 25,000
making a total of eighty-six thousand, or well under a hundred thousand.
Koch-Grünberg estimates the Witoto-language group as comprising at
least twenty thousand souls,[52] and a Peruvian official estimate gives
thirty thousand as the supposed total, reduced within the last decade
to some ten thousand.[53] It is practically impossible to obtain any
reliable figure. Koch-Grünberg gives six thousand as his estimate of the
number of the Miranha. I am inclined to think in this case the number is
insufficient, and should place it at from fifteen to twenty thousand.
All the tribes north of the Japura have a mortal antipathy to all those
south of that river, and think they are savages. The light-coloured
tribes, as I have mentioned, invariably despise the darker races, and
consider them of a lower grade than themselves, as, it will be seen,
is actually the case. The Maku, a tribe of small dark people, are
universally regarded and treated as slaves; the Witoto, smaller and
darker than the adjacent Boro, are physically inferior, and far less
particular in their ways and in the observance of tribal customs. The
Andoke, sometimes called the white Indians on account of their fairer
skins,[54] are the tyrants and bullies of all their neighbours; and it
has been suggested that the warlike Awashiri, who are the terror of the
Napo Piohe and Orahone tribes, are nomad Andoke or Miranha. Certainly
both these people wander far from their usual districts. So feared are
the Andoke that Boro carriers will refuse to go into the bush in the
Andoke country.
Wallace credits the Kuretu with peaceable habits,[55] but for the most
part all these peoples live in a constant state of internecine strife.
Some friendship, or perhaps--as tribes never make friendships outside
their own language area--it would be more correct to call it intertribal
commerce, takes place between certain of these groups; and a mutual
hatred of one group will occasionally form a vague tie between others.
For instance, the Boro, Resigero, and Okaina may not love each other,
but they agree in their detestation of the Witoto. The Okaina and the
Andoke are practically at ceaseless war with all their neighbours, but
the Andoke have some traffic with the Muenane and with the wandering
Karahone, who serve to link up the tribes of the north with those of the
south of the Japura, though they are separate from all other tribes. The
Boro on the left bank of the Japura, where they migrated into territory
trenching on that of the Menimehe, are on fairly amicable terms with the
latter, and I have even seen a Boro man with the Menimehe tribal mark,
though _menimehe_ means “pig” in Boro. Possibly he had married a Menimehe
woman. The Boro and Resigero also intermarry--at least cases of such
marriages are known. The Tukana and Bara tribes on the Tikie will not
marry into any other tribe, except the Maku, who will intermarry with any.
This state of endless warfare is based not on avarice but on fear. They
fight because they are afraid of each other, and see no protection but
in the extermination of their neighbours. Every ill that befalls a man
they set down to the evil intent of an enemy. Death, from whatsoever
cause, is invariably considered to be murder, and as murder it has to
be revenged on some suspected person or persons. Hence it follows that
blood-feuds innumerable are carried on relentlessly. Any and every excuse
serves for a fight. If a thunderstorm should wreck a house it is more
than sufficient reason for that household to attack another in reprisal
of the damage done; for it is to them quite evident that the catastrophe
was caused by the magic of some malicious dweller in the vicinity.
This state of abject apprehension influences the tribesmen in other ways.
It will be found as root cause of many a tribal custom, and must not be
forgotten in judging of native character and morals.
One result is that there are no recognised native trade routes or trade
centres, to the best of my knowledge, nor are there any markets where
the tribes of any language-group may meet and exchange their wares.
Even local markets are non-existent. Trade is individual. Articles of
commerce are handed from the maker to the purchaser, from the owner to
the buyer, from tribe to tribe. If a tribe be renowned for pottery, as
are the Menimehe, such pottery could only be obtained from a Menimehe,
or bought “second-hand” from tribes living in the neighbourhood of the
pottery workers, and from them traded to others, third, fourth, and even
fifth hand. That articles are bought and passed on indefinitely in this
fashion is proved by the fact that I found a Price’s candle-box among
the Boro tribes on the Pama river, who had had no relations with the
white man before my advent. After all, the wants of the Indian are few
and simple, and he can supply most of them for himself, or at least a
community can furnish its own; extra-tribal goods are distinctly luxuries.
It would be futile to attempt to give any localities for the many tribes
into which the language-groups are divided; for if the group as a whole
is to be regarded as a roving quantity, the tribes and their component
units are far more uncertain, in view of their migratory habits. I have
therefore not done more than make lists of the tribes met with in the
middle Issa-Japura districts, without reference to the exact spot they
might have temporarily inhabited when I met them.[56] These lists, which
do not pretend to be exhaustive, contain the names of 136 Witoto tribes,
41 Boro, and 15 Okaina.
The “Maynanes,” “Recegaros,” and “Yabuyanos” mentioned by Hardenburg[57]
as Witoto “sub-tribes, or _naciones_,” are not Witoto at all, and
_nacione_ is not a recognised name for these divisions, but merely
adopted from the loose jargon of the rubber-gatherer. Nor is the same
writer correct in considering the Witoto to be “the largest and most
important tribe,” as the Karahone outnumber them considerably, and many
other language-groups are decidedly more important in both the social and
the scientific scale.
There is nothing to show any affinity among the tribes, and there is none
of the intricate relationship of the Australian systems. The social
unit of the tribes is the undivided household community of some sixty
to two hundred individuals, with a common house, under the rule of a
chief. Some tribes have but one central tribal house, others may have
two or three; but each house would have its absolutely independent chief
and would be exogamous. There is no head chief or central organisation
to bind these households in the tribe, any more than there is to unite
the tribes of any language-group. Intertribal fighting is continual, and
only some great common danger, some threatened calamity of the gravest,
might serve to combine the tribes in a supreme effort for self-defence. A
man with an unusual magnetic influence might so dominate his neighbours
as to weld tribe and tribe for extra-tribal struggle. At the most some
half-dozen tribes under spur of most hazardous peril, urged to superhuman
effort by imminent torture and death, ever unite even for war. On the
rare occasions when this may be done the exceptional individual would be
but the greatest among equals, not a recognised commander-in-chief.[58]
I only know of one instance in point. Nonugamue, a Nonuya, was paramount
chief of the entire Nonuya-speaking area, a large tract of country that
lies between the Boro and the Okaina, and south of the Muenane and
Resigero tribes. It was quite a recent usurpation on the part of this
chief, and I never discovered any other case of one man influencing so
large a district. It is true that a Boro chief named Katenere did get
together a band of men numbering from thirty to forty to make war to the
death against the white rubber-gatherers; but in this instance, though
he was of notable personality, he could not combine the tribes. His band
were all Boro, simply men of his own type, the boldest spirits of various
tribes. A Resigero chief also made himself notorious by collecting a
body of warriors to make war not on the white men but on those Indians
who gave way to the pressure put upon them by these whites and agreed
to work rubber. He warred, therefore, against his own tribe, against
members of his own language-group, and he did so lest worse should befall
his people. He knew of no other remedy than to make the punishment for
yielding equal to that for refusing to yield. Nothing less in his opinion
could save the tribes. Once I came upon a habitation with the dead bodies
of thirty-eight men, women and children--for he spared none who had any
dealing with the whites. They had been slain, and the house partly burnt,
by this chief. In consequence of these drastic measures he was feared
by whites and Indians alike, and both when walking through the bush
within possible distance of his district would start at a sound every few
minutes and imagine it was this redoubtable warrior on the warpath again.
But these cases were abnormal, due to the presence of new and evil
factors that threatened the tribes with a fate to which death itself
were preferable. It was the instance of the approach of an unparalleled
danger, the signal for supreme exertion, and for unexampled negligence of
customs that are stronger than all law.
In normal conditions the chief has no influence beyond his own household,
and the extent of that influence would depend largely on the man’s
personal character, and also the character of the rival authority,
the tribal medicine-man. Whichever happens to possess the strongest
personality would be the dominant spirit of their little community.
Other things being equal, the odds are decidedly in favour of the
medicine-man--death comes speedily to those who rebel against the
magic-worker--and a weak chief would be entirely subservient to him.
The chief has a special portion of the house assigned to him and his
family, a larger share than would be allotted to any other man; but this
privilege is necessary, as all prisoners belong to the chief, and he
takes all the unattached women. As he thus has more women to work for
him the big tribal plantations become his. He leads the tribe in war,
presides over the tobacco palaver, and has the last word in the tribal
councils. The chief has no special name, for there are no titles of
courtesy, except among the Andoke, who call a chief _Posoa_. The ordinary
warrior will talk to the chief with no outward sign of respect; still,
the chief’s word carries a great amount of weight.
On the death of a chief his successor must be elected by the tribe, and
though the son as a rule is appointed, he does not become chief as a
matter of course, but only after tribal selection. If due cause should
be shown against him, and the tribe be of accord on the point when
the matter has been discussed in tobacco palaver, another man would
be chosen, and the honour conferred on him in accordance with tribal
decision independent of relationship.
There is but one law among the tribes, and that law is paramount and
infrangible--_Pia_, it is our custom. Custom, more binding than any
legal code, shepherds the Indian from the cradle to the grave. And _Pia_
is not only the law, it is the reason for all things. So it has always
been. Neither the chief, the medicine-man, nor the tribal council makes
the law, though it is the business of all three to enforce it, and it
can only be set aside, on the rare instances when such liberty would be
tolerated, with the consent of the tribesmen given in formal conclave.
The tribal council consists of all the males of the household who have
attained to man’s estate, under the presidency of the chief; and the
Indian parliament, the Indian court of law, is the tobacco palaver.
This tobacco drinking--the _chupe del tabac_, as Robuchon calls it--of
which so much has been written, must not be confounded with the _kawana_
drinking at a dance. When word has gone round that it is desired to hold
a council the warriors and elders of the tribe foregather, and squat
on their haunches round the tobacco-pot, which is placed by one of the
assembly on the ground in their midst. One of the group will start the
subject to be brought under discussion, usually the Indian whose advice
or suggestion has influenced the chief to call the council, or the one
who has a cause to lay before the tribe. It may be a matter of war,
some question of hunting, or the wrong-doing of a fellow-tribesman
that has to be discussed and judged. The speaker is doubtless under the
influence of coca, and will talk on and on. He may take hours to deliver
his oration, given with endless repetitions, while those who agree with
him will grunt “Heu!” to show approval from time to time throughout the
performance. When his final word is uttered the spokesman will reach
forward and take the pot, dip in a short stick, and wipe some of the
black liquid on his tongue. He will then pass the pot round to his
companions, and every man who has agreed with him will take tobacco,
whilst any one who passes the pot by--to signify he disagrees--will
be bound to give his reason for being of an opposite opinion. This is
continued until all in disagreement with the original speaker have put
forth their views. The question at issue is then settled by whichever
side may have the majority, the chief having the casting vote. There is
no appeal against such settlement. It is absolutely final.
The passing of tobacco is also used as a binding promise on every verbal
agreement between individuals. In this case they will dip a small stick
like a match into the liquid and pass it over the tongue, or put their
forefingers into each other’s tobacco pots, made from the hollowed
husks of nuts, and which are usually carried suspended round the neck
by a string. The tobacco pot comes into requisition again at a friendly
meeting, and serves to emphasise the binding nature of the friendship.
Though these Indians now all hold to patrilineal and patrilocal law,
there are traces that point to possibly original matrilocal customs
among them, such as still obtain among some of the tribes of British
Guiana.[59] We find survivals of marriage by capture; but in no tribe
are the girls sold, nor have they any dowry. The husband, once he has
obtained his wife, is entirely responsible for her maintenance.
Both endogamy and exogamy, with a preference for the former, exist so
far as the tribe is concerned; but with regard to the social unit of the
tribe, the community that shares a common house of assembly, the rule
of exogamy is very strictly enforced. The reason for this is that all
within a household are held to be kin. The one exception for this law
among the tribes is also the one exception to their patrilocal customs.
In the possible instance of a chief having a daughter but no sons to
succeed him, the daughter may marry a man of the same household, who
would probably be an adopted son. Any other exception would be most
unusual, and could only be attempted with the permission of the tribe
after thorough consideration of the case in tribal council. Otherwise
any son and any daughter of a household, no matter though they be of
different parentage, are barred from marriage by the blood-tie; yet what
we should look upon as an equally close relationship on the spindle side
is regarded by the Indians as no such thing, only the most intimate
relations of the mother ever being so much as counted kin.[60] A man may
marry into the household from which his mother came without transgressing
any recognised law, because the mother, having left her original
household to join that of her husband, has become one of his household
on marriage, and has ceased to belong to her own. In all probability
she will have had little or no intercourse with it. Marriage between
two individuals does not establish any admitted affinity between their
respective households. It follows that the children of two sisters might
possibly intermarry, but the children of two brothers never could.
Woman’s lot among all the tribes of the Amazon is commonly regarded as
a hard one. It is true that the steady grind of the day’s work falls to
her share. Men work intermittently, but the work that falls to the women
to do is incessant. In addition to the natural functions of the mother
and the housekeeper, the duties of an Indian wife include the bulk of all
agricultural labour. The husband’s energies cease when he has cleared and
broken up a patch of land, reclaimed a field from the surrounding forest,
an arduous task that needs more physical strength than women possess. The
ground once freed of trees and undergrowth, and roughly dug, the husband
considers that his share in the toil is at an end, and he will lie in
his hammock, eat, and sleep, while his wife, the baby slung behind her,
tills the field and harvests the crops. It is for her to plant the slips
and in due season dig the manioc. She must attend to the growing plant,
and eventually prepare the roots for use. But it would be wrong to infer
that the Indian husband is a lazy slave-driver. If his work is occasional
it must be confessed that he does undertake all the heaviest labour.
Each sex has its own pursuits. The man is the hunter and the warrior,
the woman is helpmate, agriculturalist, and staple food-provider. The
differentiation of work is very clear, bounded by the law of _Pia_--it
is our custom, which is like unto that of the Medes and Persians. A man
will on no account plant manioc, but he has a reason for this rule: he
says that women, being able to produce children, can produce manioc;
production is her province, not his.
The subjection of wives, if subjection it can be called, is due to
economic conditions. The woman holds a recognised, if subordinate,
position. She rarely quarrels with her husband, though she is certainly
not afraid of contradicting him when necessary; in fact I have met such
anomalies as hen-pecked husbands.
There are, as will be seen in detail subsequently, certain definite
restrictions imposed upon the women of the tribes, food they may not
eat, ceremonials they may not share, sacred objects they may not even
see. Coca and tobacco they may neither prepare not partake of, a law as
rigid as that which debars men from planting or preparing manioc. In some
tribes women are not permitted to see or be seen by strangers, but, as a
rule, the married women are remarkably free in this matter, though young
girls are more restricted.
Taken as a whole, women are well treated among all the tribes. A woman is
so far respected that her husband will consult her, but there is nothing
approaching to chivalry on the part of the man. The Indian does not
idealise. He weaves no romantic dreams about the Sex, but looks upon a
woman from the most material standpoint, pays her no small attentions,
never thinks of saving her trouble or any exertion, and in no way
attempts to lighten her lot in life. Yet everywhere, owing to conditions
of existence, women’s influence is very great. The tribal reputation of
a man rests largely in the hands of his wife; she can so easily leave
him if badly treated, and once the forest is gained she is lost to him,
and may without difficulty secure the protection of another tribe, or,
should public opinion be strong enough to drive the guilty husband
away, of another man in his household. The onus of her disappearance
will lie heavy upon the husband who has forced her to such--in Indian
opinion--extraordinary action. But cruelty on the part of a husband is
rare, as rare as infidelity on the part of a wife. A man who ventured to
ill-treat his wife would soon be the scorn of the tribe, for the other
women would promptly make a song about him, and the ridicule to which he
was exposed would be an effectual deterrent from further ill-doing in a
country where adverse public opinion is more efficient than any police
force in the prevention of recognised wrong.
The right of women to personal possession appears to be allowed. At death
her domestic implements are buried with her, and I have often wanted to
buy some article of adornment from a woman, but when I asked the husband
what he would like in exchange, have invariably been referred back again
to his wife, and had to conduct the barter with her. Also, though the
children belong absolutely to the father, it would be the mother and not
the father who would negotiate the exchange of any ornament worn by a
child.
Finally we come to the last and lowest section of a tribe, the slaves.
Slavery among the Indians themselves is little more than a name, for a
slave belongs to the chief, and soon becomes identified with his family.
Though slaves have frequently a chance to run away they seldom do so,
for they are usually treated with kindness, and probably are nearly as
well off in the house of their victors as in their own. Captives of both
sexes under the age of seven years, or thereabouts, are kept as slaves
by the conquering tribe; above that age they are destroyed, as they
possess intelligence enough presumably to betray their new tribe to their
old one. When a slave reaches man’s estate he is permitted to identify
himself with the warriors as any other boy would be; and thereafter is
looked upon as free; but the chief would consider that he had a lien of
sorts on such a man, and this would be commuted by payment of perhaps
half his shooting bag, probably until the time that he married. If the
chief dies, the slaves become the property of the new chief, but a man,
if already a warrior, would no longer feel himself bound to a new chief,
except in so far as tribal discipline might enforce on all the warriors.
A woman slave may be purchased from the chief by the gift of some small
present to his wife. After this the girl is free.
Maku slaves have little huts of their own in the forest, where they live
apart, and are never in any way familiar with their masters. They are
permitted to keep their own women. These slaves are generally despised.
They act the part of the “proverbial cat,” and are held to blame when
anything goes wrong. A medicine-man may accuse a Maku if a death takes
place, or any crime is committed, and the wretched slave is then
destroyed unhesitatingly. There are no Maku south of the Japura.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.
1. GROUP OF WITOTO
2. GROUP OF SOME OF MY CARRIERS]