Drinks, drugs, and poisons: their use and
preparation--Unfermented drinks--_Caapi_--Fermented
drinks--_Cahuana_--Coca: its preparation, use, and
abuse--_Parica_--Tobacco--Poison and poison-makers.
If the Indian eats but little during the day, he drinks to excess
whenever opportunity offers. In the early morning a beverage somewhat
akin to tea, but colourless, made from an infusion of bitter herbs, is
taken. It has some tonic properties, and when I drank it seemed always
to have a slight taste of peppermint. This herb infusion is the first
meal of the day. It is drunk out of half-gourds, after the morning bath,
before the members of the household disperse to their varied avocations.
I am under the impression that this decoction is made from a species of
grass, and not the _Ilex paraguayensis_ from which _mate_, or Paraguay
tea, is made. It is probably the lemon grass mentioned by Simson.[192]
The Indians also scrape the seeds of the _capana_, mix in some cassava
flour, and wrap up the mass in plantain leaves. This is left to ferment
in water, till it is the colour of saffron; then it is dried in the sun.
This is drunk as a bitter tea in the morning when diluted in water.
The Indian drinks enormous quantities of water, or unfermented liquor, at
times, and afterwards can abstain like a camel for a considerable period.
He never drinks when eating, but afterwards. At a feast or a dance when
he is unable to drink more he simply pokes his fingers down his throat,
with the result that room is made for renewed doses of his non-alcoholic
beverage.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.
ONE OF THE INGREDIENTS OF THE FAMOUS CURARE POISON]
The principal unfermented drinks made by these tribes are prepared from
manioc, and from various fruits. The first is made from the grated manioc
by merely squeezing out and boiling the water, and is thus a by-product
of cassava in the making. This leaves a sweet drink, which is certainly
insipid and is not considered to be healthy. The moisture squeezed out of
the “squeezer” is boiled and boiled again into a rather thick drink. This
is used more as a sauce into which cassava is dipped than as a “clean”
drink. It still contains, I believe, a minute percentage of hydrocyanic
acid.
Another beverage is prepared from roasted pines. The juice is squeezed
out, and this liquid extract is ready to drink without further process.
Plantains, bananas, and other fruits, grated and mixed with starch
obtained from the manioc tubers, are boiled and flavoured with local
spices to make another concoction. A thick yellow liquid prepared from
the _Patana_ palm is the national drink of all these Indians, except
the Menimehe and Kuretu, who make fermented drinks from pine fruit. The
_Patana_ fruit is boiled and broken with the hand in water, so as to mix
up the pulp and allow the heavy skins to fall to the bottom of the pot.
These and any fleshy remainder are strained away in a sieve, and cassava
flour is added to the liquid, which is drunk while warm. This drink is
known as _patana-yukise_ in lingoa-geral. There is a vegetable milk
that is consumed by the Indians, which I take to be the cow-tree milk
mentioned by other travellers.[193] I do not think it is very plentiful
in these regions, and for my own part never saw nor tasted it. It is a
creamy, sticky fluid, obtained by lacerating the bark, that can be drunk
when fresh. I am certain these tribes do not use it for any cooking
purposes, and do not think it is ever stored in their houses, but is only
drunk in the forest from the tree.
There are intoxicating drinks among the Menimehe and the tribes north
of the Japura, but among some of these northern tribes the men drink
_caapi_,[194] which is strongly erotic. I would suggest that _caapi_
is unknown to the tribes south of the Japura, except probably to their
medicine-men. It would account for the frenzy of the latter when
diagnosing disease, and so forth, which quite corresponds with the
descriptions given by Spruce of the effect of _caapi_.[195]
The plant from which _caapi_ is prepared is grown in plantations by
Indians on the Uaupes and Issanna rivers,[196] and by other Rio Negro
tribes. The drink is made from the stem, mixed in a mortar by the Uaupes
Indians with the roots of the painted caapi.[197] The pounded mass is
rubbed through a sieve, and water is then added. Women are not even
allowed to touch the vessel that contains the _caapi_. This intoxicating
liquor is unknown to me, but I heard that the Karahone and other tribes
had this strong drink. Though known on the Uaupes to all the tribes it is
said to have only a confined use on the Rio Negro.
Other drinks that are to be found north of the Japura are prepared from
fermented maize, and manioc.[198] _Caxiri_, or manioc beer, is used by
the Menimehe, the Ticano and Kuretu. Tribes on the Napo drink _masato_,
which is also made from manioc that has been partly masticated by the
women and then left to ferment.[199] They make another fermented drink
from bananas, but pines are principally employed as they contain more
sugar for fermenting purposes.
Before a dance the women of the Issa-Japura region prepare great store of
_kawana_, a drink made from the yellow pulp of a pear-shaped fruit,[200]
not unlike a mango, with a large black seed in the centre.[201] The
liquid is stored in the large vessels made by the primitive process of
stripping off a sheet of bark and setting it end up on the hard ground.
These are usually to be found at the chief’s end of the tribal house. One
of these impromptu vats will hold as much as thirty gallons.
By far the most important of the stimulants taken by these peoples are
the preparations made from the leaves of the common coca shrub.[202]
Coca is the mescal of the Indian,[203] and possibly a heritance from the
Inca invaders of bygone centuries.[204] The use of coca is habitual, not
intermittent. An Indian will take as much as two ounces a day.[205] All
Indians use it, the Bara in especial being heroic coca-takers.
To prepare coca for use the sage-green leaves are carefully picked and
fire-dried. They are then pounded with other ingredients in mortars made
from small tree-trunks. The pestle shown in the illustration is made of
mahogany. Beside the coca leaf the Indian pounds up lime that is procured
by reducing to ashes certain palm leaves,[206] baked clay that is scraped
from underneath the fire, and some powdered cassava flour. Whether these
leaf-ashes are a form of calcium I do not know. In the Sierra powdered
coca is mixed with pulverised unslaked lime, or with the ashes of the
_Chenopodium Quinoa_. As this latter is one of the distinctive Sierra
flora, I presume the Indians of the forest have found some substitute in
the bush. The drug is carried in a bag, or beaten-bark pouch, that is
worn suspended round the neck. The clay and palm-leaf ashes certainly
neutralise the bitterness of the pure leaf, and it is possible that in
these foreign ingredients the Indians have discovered an antidote, if
such there be, to the worst effects of the drug.
The Indian by means of a folded leaf shoots the powder into the cheeks on
one or both sides. This when moistened forms a hard ball, and with such
a wad stuffed between the cheek and the teeth he can go without sleep,
food, or drink, for several days. Coca is not swallowed, but gradually
absorbed and passed down with the saliva.[207]
As to cocainism, we know that the Indians are veritable cocaino-maniacs,
or rather coca-maniacs. It is a matter of great regret to me that I was
unable to make observations--may I say psycho-medical observations--on
Indians under the influence of this drug. Perhaps it would be more
correct to say that it was not possible to observe one not to some extent
under its influence, for it must be remembered that the use of the drug
is so continuous that it is difficult--one has hardly the opportunity--to
differentiate. Whether coca permanently injures the higher brain
centres, as has been suggested,[208] is unknown to me, as unknown as the
Indians themselves before they developed the heroic use of the drug.
The evidences of its effect are contradictory in the extreme, and vary
in individual cases. In my own case hunger and thirst were eliminated,
but I was unable to establish a tolerance for the drug, and after many
vain attempts gave it up, except when food was scarce and anything was
preferable to the pangs of hunger. I was certainly able to make greater
efforts without food, but its effects were evanescent in the extreme, and
were soon followed by acute vomiting and cramp in the stomach. The nausea
may have been due to the foreign substances with which the powdered
leaves are mixed and not to the coca, but on that point only a trained
opinion could be of value.
Even on the question of its influence on the appetite it is difficult to
give any clear ruling. My own experience was that it utterly destroyed
the appetite. Possibly the Indians’ “tolerance” accounted for the fact
that despite the use of the drug they invariably eat heartily when
opportunity permits.
The dilation of the pupil caused by the use of the drug is marked in the
Indian, and gives a curious expression to the eye. On account of the
darkness of the iris this is not so markedly noticeable as would be the
case with grey-eyed peoples.
The Tuyuka and other tribes north of the Japura use as a stimulant
_parica_ or _niopo_, a wonderful snuff which is a strong narcotic, and
very similar in its effects to coca.[209] It is made from the dried seeds
of a mimosa,[210] and, like coca, is mixed with quicklime,[211] and baked
clay.[212] The seeds are roasted, and then pounded in a shallow wooden
mortar, and the snuff when made is packed in snail-shells[213] and is
inhaled through hollow bird-bones inserted in both nostrils. It is used
for curative purposes by the Uaupes Indians.[214]
The Menimehe and Yahuna tribes take snuff, but they neither smoke nor
lick tobacco. The Uaupes Indians smoke enormous cigars,[215] but none of
the tribes south of the Japura smoke their tobacco; it is only licked.
After the tobacco leaves are gathered they are soaked, and then pounded
in a mortar by the men. Tobacco, it must not be forgotten, is tabu to
the women in any form, and it may be noted here that tabu on drink and
drugs is far stricter than any tabu on food. The latter are intermittent,
enforced only in special cases, or at certain times or ages; but the tabu
on coca, aya-huasca, caapi and tobacco is always binding on all women.
A little thickened cassava starch is added, which makes the mixture into
a stiff dark liquid, to be used either privately or ceremonially, as
already described. The tobacco-pot shown in the accompanying illustration
is made of a thick and hard nut-shell, with apparently natural holes that
are stopped with pitch.[216] Two artificial holes have been bored through
for the string. It is about two and a half inches long, by one and
five-eighths wide. The oval hole at the top is five-eighths of an inch
across, and through it the point of a stick is inserted when the tobacco
is to be taken.
The ingenuity with which the Indians prepare cassava flour, their
staple provender, from a poisonous root, though notable, is ordinary
in comparison with the intricate processes which the poor Indian’s
“untutored mind”[217] has elaborated for the preparation of various
poisons. Natural poisons abound in the forest. There is one tree known
as the poison-tree and credited with most deadly properties.[218] On the
Issa and Japura an arrow-poison is made from putrefying animal matter
mixed with strychnos. Good poison is very rare, and very much in demand.
The most potent preparation is made by the Karahone, who have great
knowledge of poisons and are by far the cleverest toxicologists. The
Menimehe understand poisons to some extent, but are not the equals of the
Karahone, from whom most of the tribes obtain their poisons by barter.
But poison of some sort is always manufactured by every medicine-man.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.
INCISED GOURDS
1. TOBACCO POT (WITOTO)
2. ” ” (BORO)
3. RATTLE (OKAINA)
4. ” (BORO)
5. ” (WITOTO)]
The most important poison is the _curare_.[219] It is made from two
plants, called by the Witoto _ramu_ and _pani_ respectively.[220] The
complicated recipe is a treasured hereditary possession.[221] The wood
of the _Strychnos toxifera_ is the most necessary ingredient in the
manufacture of _curare_. It is pounded in a mortar, and the sap, mixed
with water, is strained and boiled with peppers, ants, and a variety of
more or less noxious material.[222] When it is sufficiently inspissated
it is put into the small pots, about an inch and a half in diameter, in
which these Indians carry it round their necks, in readiness to smear on
the palm-spine points of their darts, arrows, and javelins.[223]