The Indian armoury--Spears--Bows and arrows--Indian
strategy--Forest tactics and warfare--Defensive measures--Secrecy
and safety--The Indian’s science of war--Prisoners--War
and anthropophagy--Cannibal tribes--Reasons for cannibal
practices--Ritual of vengeance--Other causes--No intra-tribal
cannibalism--The anthropophagous feast--Human relics--Necklaces
of teeth--Absence of salt--Geophagy.
The armoury of the Indian contains, for the most part, weapons designed
for primitive hand-to-hand encounter with either man or beast. The sixty
or more feet a blow-pipe dart will carry; the two hundred feet, which is
the outside range of an arrow from the most powerful of his bows, would
be futile in any country less enclosed than these dense woodlands. Even
here success in intertribal conflict is a matter of personal dexterity
rather than mechanical accomplishment. It is true that the Witoto near
the rubber districts have ordinary muzzle-loading scatter-guns. Other
tribes have a few, a very few rifles, and some Brummagem fowling-pieces,
usually with single barrels. But the rifle cannot be said to have won its
way into unchallenged favour. When an Indian does possess a gun he is
exceedingly chary of using it; his chief idea is to save his powder and
shot. The Menimehe have neither rifles nor scatter-guns; they consider
that firearms frighten the game, and prefer their own throwing-javelins,
their bows, and their arrows.
The Indian weapons of offence may be said then to consist of the sword,
the bow, and the spear. There is no difference between war spears and
arrows and those used against the larger wild animals. For defence the
Menimehe carry a small club, or life-preserver, and the Jivaro and
some of the tribes near the Napo river, use a circular shield covered
with tapir hide like the Uaupes river Indians.[148] The Menimehe also
have large round shields made with tapir skins. From two to five hides
are superimposed one on the other to make a shield, and when finished
these will turn any arrow or spear, and are impenetrable to other than
a nickel-cased bullet of high velocity. The Yahuna on the other side of
the Apaporis do not use a shield, nor do any of the tribes south of the
Japura.
The Indian’s club is like a quarter-staff made of hard red-wood--which is
the heaviest kind known to them--and is used simply as a personal weapon
of offence or defence. It is not a war weapon. The Indian sword is made
of red-wood or black iron-wood, and is from thirty to thirty-six inches
long, polished quite plainly. It is used by the attacker to aim blows at
the thighs of his antagonist, the object being so to hit him as to bring
him to the ground. Once this is done his head can be easily smashed. As a
weapon of defence the Indian uses it to protect himself from the throwing
of javelins. Holding the handle in one hand and the point in the other,
he can ward off such missiles with the greatest dexterity, thus in a way
obviating the necessity of carrying a shield.
A diversity of spears, or javelins, is constructed by all these tribes.
_Chonta_ wood is universally employed for spears and arrow-heads, the
weapon differing in accordance with its purport, the _chonta_ spear for
tapir, the blunt arrow for birds, and so forth. These wooden weapons are
scraped smooth with the file-like jaw of the _pirai_ fish, and a final
polish is put on with the leaves of the _Cecropia peltata_, which are
rough enough to be effective substitutes for sand-paper. The spears are
thickest at the head, and taper nearly to a point at the butt. The head
is made of a separate piece of _chonta_ some three inches long, bound
into the grooved end. A poisoned palm spine is always fixed in the point
of a spear, as in the lighter throwing-javelin. About two or three inches
down, the head is filed nearly through, in order that it shall break off
in the wound, and so be the more difficult to extract. The poisoned
point is protected with a reed sheath.
[Illustration: PLATE XXX.
1. Water Jar, Menimehe (a) Witoto
2. Drums (Witoto)
3. Pan pipes (Witoto) (a) Boro
4. Stone Axe (Andoke)
5. Paddle used on main Amazon Stream
6. Paddle used on Issa and Japura rivers
7. Menimehe Hand Club
8. Wooden Sword (Boro)
9. Pestle--Coca, etc. (Boro)]
Arrow-heads also are half filed through. This is done with the fish-jaw
attached to the quiver immediately before use. The tips are made of
_chonta_ and are poisoned.[149] The bows are of various kinds of wood,
and of many sizes, strung with fibre made thicker and stronger as
desired. The arrow shaft is without feathers, and has no nock for the
bowstring. The arrows are carried in quivers of wicker or of wood. The
Menimehe, the most skilful bowmen of these regions, are famous for
their quivers as well as for their pottery. They make the quivers out
of bamboo, the elementary ones being merely scraped-out sections cut so
that there shall be a joint or a knot for the end; the more elaborate
specimens are made of strips of bamboo bound together. The arrow poison
is carried in a small pot or calabash. The vegetable poisons that are
used for birds and small game give place to a mixture of strychnos and
poison obtained from decomposed animal or human matter when the weapon is
employed against men or the bigger beasts. Its effect on a human being is
said to be almost instantaneous.
Indian strategy makes for concealment both in attack and defence. A
tribe will never rush precipitately into open and aggressive war with a
neighbour. Plans for the campaign are no affairs of a hurried minute;
no impulse of uncontrolled anger. They are, on the contrary, well
matured and much deliberated. After many a tobacco palaver, when war is
determined on for any good and sufficient reason--usually revenge for
some real or fancied wrong--the tribal warriors muster, and it may be
that a friendly tribe will assemble with them. Attack will be stealthy,
silent, and never by any chance frontal. These are the true tactics
of the forest denizen. A noiseless flank approach, a sudden rush, and
then, if the foe be taken unawares, a furious onslaught. But surprise
is essential to success. With the utmost caution they approach the
enemy’s head-quarters, the big tribal house, probably when a dance is
taking place and the hostile warriors are occupied with matters other
than possible war. The invaders wait for night; creep in under cover of
darkness; and if possible cut up the unprepared revellers when asleep
after the feast. Should the victorious attackers be in a blood-thirsty
mood, every soul will be killed and the house burnt. But the Indian is
no Berserker when fighting. He is as careful of his own skin as he is
anxious to destroy his foe--possibly even more so; a living enemy may be
slain in the future, but if he be killed himself ultimate vengeance is no
longer for him.
As regards defence, the Indian never attempts any effective fortification
of his home. The only defensive action taken by the tribes is to prepare
a series of pitfalls in the forest avenues, after the fashion described
for game, with poisoned stakes to impale any foe who may unwittingly
stray into them. Death in such a trap comes very speedily. These pits, as
I have already noted, are always dug by the Karahone.
It appeared to me that the Indians depended mainly on the secrecy of the
tribal dwelling, ensured by the absence of direct footways; for though
their houses are not built on defensive--or even defendable--lines, the
hostility between various language-groups is rampant, as has been already
shown, and internecine strife is unending. The Indian has been called
docile and gentle. He may be, if to fear an enemy as much as he is hated
be docility. “Do not wait for the first blow but deal it: if you cannot
deal it with impunity now wait till you can--but wait securely hidden”:
there is the whole text-book of the Indian’s science of war.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.
BAMBOO CASES, FILLED WITH DARTS FOR BLOWPIPE--SHOWING FISH-JAW SCRAPER,
AND GOURD FILLED WITH RAW COTTON. ONE DART HAS TUFT OF COTTON PLACED
READY FOR USE. THESE ARE ANDOKE WORK]
If it can be done with due regard to personal safety the Indian warriors
like to take prisoners. A prisoner is tangible evidence of successful
achievement and personal valour. There is, as a rule, no mutilation
of the dead, or of a prisoner; whatever does occur is due to personal
brutality on the part of some individual. Prisoners are bound with
palm-fibre, and so long as they walk quickly enough, when the victorious
band returns from the fray, they are not ill-treated. But there must be
no delay. Every moment adds to the dangers that threaten the marauders.
Vengeance accomplished, they must hurry back to the comparative safety of
their own locality. If a prisoner lag he endangers his captors, and in
self-defence they would slay him. Prisoners are sometimes sold, but as a
rule they are killed and eaten at the big feast arranged to commemorate
the event, unless they are young enough to be kept as slaves without
risk of their running away to tell tribal enemies of the secret roads
through the bush. The consumption of a dead foe at least guarantees his
harmlessness--as a warrior, if not as a comestible.
Prisoners are never kept for any length of time, on account of the danger
that would follow should they manage to escape. They get no food nor
drink, and if never actually tortured, are treated very casually until
killed with a heavy wooden sword, not with poisoned javelins, as Robuchon
imagined was the ceremonial method of killing for culinary purposes.
The captor knocks his prisoner down with blows on the shins and the
thigh, and then hacks off the head with his broadsword. Robuchon is also
responsible for the statement that the prisoners consider that to be
thus killed and eaten is a great distinction and honour. It is true that
they make no complaints, but that is simply on account of the fatalistic
nature of the Indian.
If killed in war a chief’s body is carried off by his tribe if possible,
though the ordinary warriors, dead or wounded, of the beaten faction
are left to their fate, for fear of delay and possible surprise during
retreat; although that fate be known to be consumption by the enemy.
Among the Boro and other cannibal tribes anthropophagous orgies follow
hard on the heels of tribal strife. If it happens to be possible, that is
to say if the fight has taken place as an attack on their own house, the
corpses of the enemy are eaten; but no Indian ever risks the chance of
reprisals being taken by remaining in the vicinity of a hostile house to
eat the dead, nor will he ever burden himself with food when returning
to his own habitation. The cannibal feast thus becomes the prerogative of
the conqueror.
Unlike the better-known tribes of Guiana, most, if not all, of the
Indians of the upper rivers are indisputably cannibals, especially the
Boro, Andoke, and Resigero groups. It has even been asserted by some
writers that sundry tribes belong to the lowest grade of cannibals in
that they will “eat their own dead children, friends and relatives.”[150]
This, however, is incorrect, and why it must be so is very obvious when
the main causation of extra-tribal cannibalism is understood.
There are three reasons why these Indians are anthropophagous.
In the first place, and it is not only the first but the most general
and important, anthropophagy is looked upon as a system of vengeance, a
method of inflicting the supreme insult upon an enemy.[151] It will be
seen that the Indian has very definite opinions as to the inferiority
of the brute creation. To resemble animals in any way is a matter to be
avoided at all costs. Body hair is an animal characteristic, so man must
depilate. The birth of twins is a disgrace because it is a descent to
bestial levels. What a crowning disgrace then must it be for the dead to
share no better fate than that of slaughtered animals. No more absolute
vengeance on the dead could be devised. The primary cause therefore is
insult.
Secondly, there is a desire to make use of what would otherwise be
waste material. Animal food is scarce in the forest. But these tribes
do not, as has been asserted of the Cobeu and Arekaine,[152] make war
simply with a view to obtaining provision of human flesh. Anthropophagy
is the effect, not the cause, of war. But then there remains the fact
that meat is hard to come by, and is continually required. The slain and
the prisoners provide meat, and at the same time the degradation, the
ignominy of supplying the place of beasts makes vengeance most definite.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.
WITOTO WAR GATHERING (Some Brummagen Goods)]
Finally, and in a still more subsidiary degree, there is the reason most
commonly advanced, the supposition that there exists a measure of belief
in the assumption of the characteristics of the eaten by the eater; a
belief that must give sardonic impulse to the primary reason of all, the
desire to degrade the dead. Though this third reason has least weight
of any with the Indian, it cannot be entirely absent when the food tabu
connected with childbirth is remembered. But I know of no such actually
admitted reasons as give rise to anthropophagous feasts elsewhere, as
among the Aro, who are said to eat human sacrifices because “those who
ate their flesh ate gods, and thus assimilated something of the divine
attributes and power.”[153]
The subsidiary reason, that of necessary anthropophagy, has been advanced
by some apologists,[154] and with a certain amount of truth. But this
reason may be looked upon as very secondary, in my opinion, though, were
the food-quest of little importance, there might be less cannibalism. The
Indian would, in fact, only eat human flesh ceremonially, as a ritual
insult.
From all this it follows that intra-tribal cannibalism would be a
criminal outrage by the tribe _on itself_, and therefore it could never
occur that a member of the tribe was eaten, nor would his teeth be
extracted even to show an accomplished revenge. This disposes of any such
thing as the eating of dead relatives as a sign of respect. These and
similar statements are due to misapprehension of facts by the writer, or
a too hasty judgment on the part of the explorer.
One other cannibal custom noted by Wallace and recently confirmed by
Koch-Grünberg, is unknown to me, that of exhuming the bones of the dead,
which are then burnt and the calcined remains made into broth.[155]
No such custom ever came under my notice, nor did any of the tribes
refer to such practices in any way in my hearing. The dried human heads
prepared by the Jivaro[156] are also unknown in the regions here dealt
with. No heads are mummified in this district. But among some of the
tribes south of the main Amazon river this repulsive art is carried on,
and specimens of these heads, not more than one-fifth their natural
size, have been obtained and brought to Europe.[157] Their exportation
is now forbidden by the South American governments, as the supply not
unnaturally was apt to coincide with the demand.
Though these reduced heads are unknown to the Issa-Japura tribes, the
head is not ignored as a trophy. The fleshy parts, the hair and the
teeth are removed, and the skull is hung in the plantation patch to be
cleaned by ants and other insect scavengers. These will pick one bare in
half an hour. Cleaned, and dried in the sun, this memorial of victory
is eventually suspended outside, or on the rafters in the house, over
the string that carries the top part of the drums. Bates records how the
Mandurucu soaked the heads “in bitter vegetable oil,” and then smoked or
sun-dried them,[158] but the Issa-Japura tribes subject their dreadful
trophies to no other process than the action of the insects, air, and
sun in the plantations. These ghastly evidences of Indian vengeance I
have often seen in the houses, and in the plantations, the bare skulls
gleaming white like so many gourds on a string. Robuchon also mentions
that he found skulls hanging from the ceiling of _malokas_, which the
natives were quite ready to barter for a large handful of beads, but this
does not tally with my experience.
When a feast is to take place the prisoners are knocked down and
despatched, their heads removed to be danced with and eventually dried
as trophies. The body is then divided and shared among the feasters.
Only the legs and arms, and the fleshy parts of the head, are eaten
ceremonially, anything like the intestines, brains, and so forth, is
regarded as filthy and never touched, nor is the trunk eaten. The male
genital organs, however, are given to the wife of the chief, the only
woman who has any share in the feast. The hands and feet are regarded as
delicacies, for the same reason that civilised man has a preference for
calves’ feet, on account of their gelatinous character.
Each portion of flesh is tied to a stick, and every man, according to
Robuchon’s account, drops his share in the pot, and places the stick
to which it is tied on the ground beside it whilst he watches till the
meat is cooked. I was told that the culinary processes were attended to
by the old women of the tribe. The flesh, with the required seasoning
of peppers, is boiled over a slow fire, while drums are beaten, and the
assembled tribe--adorned with full panoply of paint, necklaces, and
feathers, and with the gory heads fixed upon their dancing staves--dance
round singing a wild song of victory.
The savage orgy will continue for hours, with outbursts of drum-beating,
gratulatory orations, and much drinking. I was told that the festival of
drink and dance will go on without intermission for eight days.[159]
Only men eat ceremonially, the women, with the exception of the chief’s
wife, having no share in the revolting feast, except on occasions, when
perhaps the necessity for animal food--the secondary reason--is the
cause of the indulgence. What portions of the bodies are not eaten are
thrown into the river. I do not know if this is ceremonial, but it is
curious to note that the Indian paradise is up river, not down, where, of
course, the refuse is carried by the stream. With some tribes the trunk
is buried, or it may be merely thrown into the bush to be devoured by the
wild dogs. This latter is not infrequent. These methods of disposal are
ceremonial in so much as that they are carried out amid organised tribal
jeers and insults.
Flutes are made out of the arm-bones of eaten prisoners, the humerus. The
radius and the ulna, fleshless and dry, with the fingers of the hand
contracted, are fastened to wooden handles and used to stir the _kawana_.
I have seen these, but they are jealously guarded by their owners, and
probably no white man has succeeded in obtaining a specimen.
Among the tribes of the Japura and the Issa the teeth are always
carefully retained by the slayer, to be made into a necklace, a visible
and abiding token of his completed revenge. This removal of the teeth may
be held synonymous with the curse of many savage tribes in reference to
their enemies--“Let their teeth be broken.” David himself called upon God
to “break the teeth” of his foes. Possibly the reason is a reversion in
thought to the time when the teeth were man’s only weapon.
It is certainly worth noting in connection with the anthropophagous
practices of these tribes that they have almost no salt. In its natural
state it is non-existent throughout the Issa-Japura regions, and can
only be obtained with difficulty. It is possible that the salt in human
blood may be one of the unrealised attractions that lead these peoples
to anthropophagous practices. A craving that can be so dominant as to
influence race migration, as the salt-craving may do,[160] can hardly
be ignored when dealing with the inhabitants of a country where local
conditions offer little or nothing to satisfy it.
Another vice which may very possibly have origin in the same lack of a
necessary condiment, and to which these Indians are very prone, is the
eating of clay.[161] It is not impossible that the clay may have saline
properties; in any case among all these tribes geophagy is very common,
especially with the non-cocainists, the women and children. As a rule
it occurs among the very poorest--the slave clan,--those who are least
able to obtain such a luxury as salt, and it is found among the female
children most of all. The latter fact is perhaps because the male child,
the potential warrior, is the more carefully guarded, and would be the
more severely beaten if discovered eating dirt. I never came across any
man who eat clay, though I know of a boy who suffered from this neurotic
appetite. The clay, if it cannot be otherwise obtained, will be scraped
from under the fireplace, and it is always eaten secretly.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.
1. BORO NECKLACE MADE OF MARMOSET TEETH
2. ANDOKE NECKLACE OF HUMAN TEETH]
The Indians look upon geophagy as injurious, but it appears to be
ineradicable. I cannot help thinking it must be due to some great
“want” in Indian diet, a physical craving that the ordinary food of the
tribes does not satisfy. It is instinctive. In the manufacture of coca
they add clay. This suggests that if taken in small quantities it may
have a neutralising and therefore a beneficial effect on some more or
less injurious article of daily food. But it rapidly, and invariably,
degenerates into a vice; and the habit appears to have a weakening and
wasting effect on the whole body.
In some parts of the Amazons, though not with these tribes, the clay is
regularly prepared for use,[162] and the vice is shared by other races
than the Indian.[163] Children who suffer from this extraordinary craving
will swallow anything of a similar character, earth, wax, and Bates even
mentions pitch,[164] but they prefer the clay that is scraped from under
the spot where the fire has been burning, probably because the chemical
processes induced by the heat render it more soluble, easily pulverised,
and hence more actually digestive in its action.
It has been suggested that this disease was introduced into America
by negro slaves, and is not indigenous. This is a question for the
bacteriological expert rather than the traveller to decide, but as it
indubitably exists among tribes that have not come in any contact with
negroes or negro-influenced natives it would seem to argue on the face
of things that the similarity of vicious tastes was due to similarity
of causation, rather than to contamination by evil example, unless the
ubiquitous microbe is to be held responsible for this ill also.