birds—inhabiting Digger-land, upon which an occasional meal is made.
Indeed, the food of the Digger is sufficiently varied. It is not in the
quality but the quantity he finds most cause of complaint: for with all
his energies he never gets enough. In the summer season, however, he is
less stinted. Then the berries of the buffalo-bush are ripe; and these,
resembling currants, he collects in large quantities,—placing his
rabbit-skin wrapper under the bush, and shaking down the ripe fruit in
showers. A _mélange_ of prairie-crickets and buffalo-berries is esteemed
by the Digger, as much as would be the best specimen of a “currant-cake”
in any nursery in Christendom!
The Digger finds a very curious species of edible bug, which builds its
nest on the ledges of the cliffs,—especially those that overhang a
stream. These nests are of a conical or pine-apple shape, and about the
size of this fruit.
This bug,—not yet classified or described by entomologists,—is of a dark
brown color, about the size of the ordinary cockroach; and when boiled
is considered a proper article of food,—not only by the unfastidious
Diggers, but by Indians of a more epicurean _goût_.
Besides the yampah and kamas, there are several other edible roots found
in the Digger country. Among others may be mentioned a species of
thistle (_cirsium virginiarum_),—the root of which grows to the size of
an ordinary carrot, and is almost as well flavored. It requires a great
deal of roasting, or boiling, before it is sufficiently cooked to be
eaten.
The _kooyah_ is another article of food still more popular among Digger
gourmands. This is the root of the _valeriana edulis_. It is of a
bright-yellow color, and grows to a considerable size. It has the
characteristic odor of the well-known plant; but not so strong as in the
prepared substance of _valerian_. The plant itself does not grow in the
arid soil of the desert, but rather in the rich fertile bottoms of the
streams, or along the shores of marshy lakes,—in company with the kamas
and yampah. It is when these roots are in season, that the Shoshokees
most frequent such localities; and, indeed, this same season is the time
when all other articles of Digger food are plenteous enough,—the summer.
The winter months are to him the “tight times.”
In some parts of the desert country, as already observed, grow species
of pines, with edible cones,—or rather edible seeds which the cones
contain. These seeds resemble nuts, and are about the size of the common
filberts.
More than one species of pine produces this sort of food; but in the
language of the Spanish Californians and New Mexicans, they are all
indifferently termed _piñon_, and the seeds simply _piñones_, or
“piñons.” Where these are within the reach of the Digger,—as they are in
some districts,—he is then well provided for; since the piñons, when
roasted, not only form an agreeable and nutritious article of food, but
can be stored up as a winter stock,—that will keep for a considerable
time, without danger of spoiling, or growing too stale.
Such is the _commissariat_ of the Digger Indian; and, poor in quality
though it be, there are times when he cannot obtain a sufficient supply
of it. At such times he has recourse to food of a still meaner kind,—to
roots, scarce eatable, and even to the seeds of several species of
grass! Worms, grubs, the _agama cornuta_, or “horned-frog of the
prairies,” with other species of lizards, become his sole resource; and
in the search and capture of these he occupies himself from morning to
night.
It is in this employment that he finds use for the long sapling, with
the hooked end upon it,—the hook being used for dragging the lizards out
of clefts in the rocks, within which they have sought shelter. In the
accomplishment of this, the Digger displays an adroitness that
astonishes the traveller: often “jerking” the reptile out of some dark
crevice within which it might be supposed to have found a retreat secure
from all intruders.
Many other curious habits might be related of this abject and miserable
race of human beings; but perhaps enough has been detailed, to secure
them a place in the list of our “odd people.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GUARAONS, OR PALM-DWELLERS.
Young reader, I may take it for granted that you have heard of the great
river Orinoco,—one of the largest rivers not only of South America, but
in the world. By entering at its mouth, and ascending to its source, you
would have to make a journey of about one thousand five hundred miles;
but this journey, so far from being direct, or in a straight line, would
carry you in a kind of spiral curve,—very much like the figure 6, the
apex of the figure representing the mouth of the river. In other words,
the Orinoco, rising in the unexplored mountains of Spanish Guiana, first
runs eastward; and then, having turned gradually to every point of the
compass, resumes its easterly course, continuing in this direction till
it empties its mighty flood into the Atlantic Ocean.
Not by one mouth, however. On the contrary, long before the Orinoco
approaches the sea, its channel separates into a great many branches (or
“caños,” as they are called in the language of the country), each of
which, slowly meandering in its own course, reaches the coast by a
separate mouth, or “boca.” Of these caños there are about fifty,
embracing within their ramifications a “delta” nearly half as large as
England! Though they have all been distinguished by separate names, only
three or four of them are navigable by ships of any considerable size;
and, except to the few pilots whose duty it is to conduct vessels into
that main channel of the river, the whole delta of the Orinoco may be
regarded as a country still unexplored, and almost unknown. Indeed, the
same remark might be made of the whole river, were it not for the
magnificent monument left by the great traveller Von Humboldt,—whose
narrative of the exploration of the Orinoco is, beyond all comparison,
the finest book of travels yet given to the world. To him are we chiefly
indebted for our knowledge of the Orinoco; since the Spanish nation,
who, for more than three centuries, have held undisputed possession of
this mighty stream, have left us scarce a line about it worth either
credit or record.
It is now more than half a century, since the date of Humboldt’s
“Personal Narrative;” and yet, strange to say, during all that period,
scarce an item has been added to our knowledge of the Orinoco, beyond
what this scientific traveller had already told us. Indeed, there is not
much to say: for there has been little change in the river since
then,—either in the aspect of nature, or the condition of man. What
change there has been possesses rather a retrograde, than a progressive
character. Still, now, as then, on the banks of the Orinoco, we behold a
languid commerce,—characteristic of the decaying Spano-American
race,—and the declining efforts of a selfish and bigoted missionary
zeal, whose boasted aim of “christianizing and civilizing” has ended
only in producing a greater _brutalization_. After three centuries of
_paternosters_ and bell-ringing, the red savage of the Orinoco returns
to the worship of his ancestral gods,—or to no worship at all,—and for
this backsliding he can, perhaps, give a sufficient reason.
Pardon me, young reader, for this digression. It is not my purpose to
discuss the polemical relations of those who inhabit the banks of the
Orinoco; but to give you some account of a very singular people who
dwell near its mouth,—upon the numerous caños, already mentioned as
constituting its delta. These are the “Guaraons,”—a tribe of
Indians,—usually considered as a branch of the Great Carib family, but
forming a community among themselves of seven or eight thousand souls;
and differing so much from most other savages in their habits and mode
of life, as fairly to entitle them to the appellation of an “Odd
People.”
The Orinoco, like many other large rivers, is subject to a periodical
rise and fall; that is, once every year, the river swells to a great
height above its ordinary level. The swelling or “flood” was for a long
time supposed to proceed from the melting of snow upon the cordilleras
of the Andes,—in which mountains several of the tributaries of the
Orinoco have their rise. This hypothesis, however, has been shown to be
an incorrect one: since the main stream of the Orinoco does not proceed
from the Andes, nor from any other snow-capped mountains; but has its
origin, as already stated, in the _sierras_ of Guiana. The true cause of
its periodical rising, therefore, is the vast amount of rain which falls
within the tropics; and this is itself occasioned by the sun’s course
across the torrid zone, which is also the cause of its being periodical
or “annual.” So exact is the time at which these rains fall, and produce
the floods of the Orinoco, that the inhabitants of the river can tell,
within a few days, when the rising will commence, and when the waters
will reach their lowest!
The flood season very nearly corresponds to our own summer,—the rise
commencing in April, and the river being at its maximum height in
August,—while the minimum is again reached in December. The height to
which the Orinoco rises has been variously estimated by travellers: some
alleging it to be nearly one hundred feet; while others estimate it to
be only fifty, or even less! The reason of this discrepancy may be, that
the measurements have been made at different points,—at each of which,
the actual height to which the flood attains, may be greater or less
than at the others. At any one place, however, the rise is the same—or
very nearly so—in successive years. This is proved by observations made
at the town of Angostura,—the lowest Spanish settlement of any
importance upon the Orinoco. There, nearly in front of the town, a
little rocky islet towers up in the middle of the river; the top of
which is just fifty feet above the bed of the stream, when the volume of
water is at its minimum. A solitary tree stands upon the pinnacle of
this rock; and each year, when the water is in full flood, the tree
alone is visible,—the islet being entirely submerged. From this peculiar
circumstance, the little islet has obtained the name of “Orinocometer,”
or measurer of the Orinoco.
The rise here indicated is about fifty feet; but it does not follow from
this, that throughout its whole course the river should annually rise to
so great a height. In reality it does not.
At Angostura, as the name imports, the river is _narrowed_ to less than
half its usual width,—being there confined between high banks that
impinge upon its channel. Above and below, it widens again; and, no
doubt, in proportion to this widening will the annual rise be greater or
less. In fact, at many places, the width of the stream is no longer that
of its ordinary channel; but, on the contrary, a vast “freshet” or
inundation, covering the country for hundreds of miles,—here flooding
over immense marshes or grassy plains, and hiding them altogether,—there
flowing among forests of tall trees, the tops of which alone project
above the tumult of waters! These inundations are peculiarly observable
in the _delta_ of the Orinoco,—where every year, in the months of July
and August, the whole surface of the country becomes changed into a
grand fresh-water sea: the tops of the trees alone rising above the
flood, and proclaiming that there is _land_ at the bottom.
At this season the ordinary channels, or _caños_, would be obliterated;
and navigation through them become difficult or impossible, but for the
tree-tops; which, after the manner of “buoys” and signal-marks, serve to
guide the pilots through the intricate mazes of the “bocas del Orinoco.”
Now it is this annual inundation, and the semi-submergence of these
trees under the flood, that has given origin to the peculiar people of
whom we are about to speak,—the Guaraons; or, perhaps, we should rather
say, from these causes have arisen their strange habits and modes of
life which entitle them to be considered an “odd people.”
During the period of the inundation, if you should sail up the southern
or principal caño of the Orinoco,—known as the “boca de navios,” or
“ships’ mouth,”—and keep your face to the northward, you would behold
the singular spectacle of a forest growing out of the water! In some
places you would perceive single trees, with the upper portion of their
straight, branchless trunks rising vertically above the surface, and
crowned by about a dozen great fan-shaped leaves, radiating outwards
from their summits. At other places, you would see many crowded
together, their huge fronds meeting, and forming close clumps, or “water
groves,” whose deep-green color contrasts finely as it flings its
reflection on the glistening surface below.
Were it night,—and your course led you through one of the smaller caños
in the northern part of the delta,—you would behold a spectacle yet more
singular, and more difficult to be explained; a spectacle that astounded
and almost terrified the bold navigators, who first ventured to explore
these intricate coasts. You would not only perceive a forest, growing
out of the water; but, high up among the tops of the trees, you would
behold blazing fires,—not the conflagration of the trees themselves, as
if the forest were in flames,—but fires regularly built, glowing as from
so many furnaces, and casting their red glare upwards upon the broad
green leaves, and downwards upon the silvery surface of the water!
If you should chance to be near enough to these fires, you would see
cooking utensils suspended over them; human forms, both of men and
women, seated or squatting around them; other human forms, flitting like
shadows among the tops of the trees; and down below, upon the surface of
the water, a fleet of canoes (_periaguas_), fastened with their
mooring-ropes to the trunks. All this would surprise you,—as it did the
early navigators,—and, very naturally, you would inquire what it could
mean. Fires apparently suspended in the air! human beings moving about
among the tops of the trees, talking, laughing, and gesticulating! in a
word, acting just as any other savages would do,—for these human beings
_are_ savages,—amidst the tents of their encampment, or the houses of
their village. In reality it is a village upon which you are gazing,—a
village suspended in the air,—a village of the Guaraon Indians!
Let us approach nearer; let us steal into this water-village—for it
would not be always safe to enter it, except by stealth—and see how its
singular habitations are constructed, as also in what way their
occupants manage to get their living. The village under our observation
is now,—at the period of inundation,—nearly a hundred miles from shore,
or from any dry land: it will be months before the waters can subside;
and, even then, the country around will partake more of the nature of a
quagmire, than of firm soil; impassable to any human being,—though _not_
to a Guaraon, as we shall presently see. It is true, the canoes, already
mentioned, might enable their owners to reach the firm shores beyond the
delta; and so they do at times; but it would be a voyage too long and
too arduous to be made often,—as for the supply of food and other daily
wants,—and it is not for this purpose the canoes are kept. No these
Guaraons visit terra firma only at intervals; and then for purposes of
trade with a portion of their own and other tribes who dwell there; but
they permanently reside within the area of the inundated forests; where
they are independent, not only of foreign aggression, but also for their
supply of all the necessaries of life. In these forests, whether flooded
or not, they procure everything of which they stand in need,—they there
find, to use an old-fashioned phrase, “meat, drink, washing, and
lodging.” In other words: were the inundation to continue forever, and
were the Guaraons entirely prohibited from intercourse with the dry
land, they could still find subsistence in this, their home upon the
waters.
Whence comes their subsistence? No doubt you will say that fish is their
food; and drink, of course, they have in abundance; but this would not
be the true explanation. It is true they eat fish, and turtle, and the
flesh of the _manatee_, or “fish-cow,”—since the capturing of these
aquatic creatures is one of the chief occupations of the Guaraons,—but
they are oft times entirely without such food; for, it is to be
observed, that, during the period of the inundations fish are not easily
caught, sometimes not at all. At these times the Guaraons would
starve—since, like all other savages, they are improvident—were it not
that the singular region they inhabit supplies them with another article
of food,—one that is inexhaustible.
What is this food, and from whence derived? It will scarce surprise you
to hear that it is the produce of the trees already mentioned; but
perhaps you _will_ deem it singular when I tell you that the trees of
this great _water-forest_ are all of one kind,—all of the same
species,—so that here we have the remarkable fact of a single species of
vegetable, growing without care or cultivation, and supplying all the
wants of man,—his food, clothing, fuel, utensils, ropes, houses, and
boats,—not even drink excepted, as will presently be seen.
The name of this wonderful tree? “Itá,” the Guaraons call it; though it
is more generally known as “morichi” among the Spanish inhabitants of
the Orinoco; but I shall here give my young reader an account of it,
from which he will learn something more than its name.
The _itá_ is a true palm-tree, belonging to the genus _mauritia_; and, I
may remark, that notwithstanding the resemblance in sound, the name of
the genus is not derived from the words “morichi,” “murichi,” or
“muriti,” all of which are different Indian appellations of this tree.
_Mauritia_ is simply a Latinized designation borrowed from the name of
Prince Maurice of Nassau, in whose honor the genus was named. The
resemblance, therefore, is merely accidental. I may add, too, that there
are many species of _mauritia_ growing in different parts of tropical
America,—some of them palms of large size, and towering height, with
straight, smooth trunks; while others are only tiny little trees, scarce
taller than a man, and with their trunks thickly covered with conical
protuberances or spines.
Some of them, moreover, affect a high, dry soil, beyond the reach of
floods; while others do not prosper, except on tracts habitually marshy,
or annually covered with inundations. Of these latter, the _itá_ is
perhaps the most conspicuous; since we have already stated, that for
nearly six months of the year it grows literally out of the water.
Like all its congeners, the itá is a “fan-palm;” that is, its leaves,
instead of being _pinnately_ divided, as in most species of palms, or
altogether _entire_, as in some few, radiate from the midrib of the
leaf-stalk, into a broad palmated shape, bearing considerable
resemblance to a fan when opened to its full extent. At the tips these
leaflets droop slightly, but at that end where they spring out of the
midrib, they are stiff and rigid. The petiole, or leafstalk itself, is
long, straight, and thick; and where it clasps the stem or trunk, is
swollen out to a foot in width, hollowed, or concave on the upper side.
A full-grown leaf, with its petiole, is a wonderful object to look upon.
The stalk is a solid beam full twelve feet in length, and the leaf has a
diameter of nearly as much. Leaf and stalk together make a load, just as
much as one man can carry upon his shoulders!
Set about a dozen of these enormous leaves on the summit of a tall
cylindrical column of five feet in circumference, and about one hundred
in height,—place them with their stalks clasping or sheathing its
top,—so that the spreading fans will point in every direction outwards,
inclining slightly upwards; do this, and you will have the great
_morichi_ palm. Perhaps, you may see the trunk swollen at its middle or
near the top,—so that its lower part is thinner than above,—but more
often the huge stem is a perfect cylinder. Perhaps you may see several
of the leaves drooping downward, as if threatening to fall from the
tree; you may even see them upon the ground where they have fallen, and
a splendid ruin they appear. You may see again rising upward out of the
very centre of the crown of foliage, a straight, thick-pointed column.
This is the young leaf in process of development,—its tender leaflets
yet unopened, and closely clasped together. But the fervid tropical sun
soon produces expansion; and a new fan takes the place of the one that
has served its time and fallen to the earth,—there to decay, or to be
swept off by the flood of waters.
Still more may be noticed, while regarding this noble palm. Out of that
part of the trunk,—where it is embraced by the sheathing bases of the
petioles,—at a certain season of the year, a large spathe will be seen
to protrude itself, until it has attained a length of several feet. This
spathe is a bract-like sheath, of an imperfect tubular form. It bursts
open; and then appears the huge spadix of flowers, of a whitish-green
color, arranged along the flower-stalk in rows,—_pinnately_. It will be
observed, moreover, that these spadices are different upon different
trees; for it must be remembered that the mauritia palm is
_diœcious_,—that is, having the female flowers on one tree, and the male
or staminiferous flowers upon another. After the former have glowed for
a time in the heat of the sun, and received the fertilizing pollen
wafted to them by the breeze,—carried by bee or bird, or transported by
some unknown and mysterious agency of nature,—the fruits take form and
ripen. These, when fully ripe, have attained to the size of a small
apple, and are of a very similar form. They are covered with small
brown, smooth scales,—giving them somewhat the appearance of fir-cones,
except that they are roundish instead of being cone-shaped. Underneath
the scales there is a thinnish layer of pulp, and then the stone or
_nut_. A single spadix will carry several hundreds—thousands, I might
say—of these nuts; and the whole bunch is a load equal to the strength
of two ordinary men!
Such is the itá palm. Now for its uses,—the uses to which it is put by
the Guaraons.
When the Guaraon wishes to build himself a habitation, he does not begin
by digging a foundation in the earth. In the spongy soil on which he
stands, that would be absurd. At a few inches below the surface he would
reach water; and he might dig to a vast depth without finding firm
ground. But he has no idea of laying a foundation upon the ground, or of
building a house there. He knows that in a few weeks the river will be
rising; and would overtop his roof, however high he might make it. His
foundation, therefore, instead of being laid in the ground, is placed
far above it,—just so far, that when the inundation is at its height the
floor of his dwelling will be a foot or two above it. He does not take
this height from guesswork. That would be a perilous speculation. He is
guided by certain marks upon the trunks of palm-trees,—notches which he
has himself made on the preceding year, or the natural watermark, which
he is able to distinguish by certain appearances on the trees. This
point once determined, he proceeds to the building of his house.
A few trunks are selected, cut down, and then split into beams of
sufficient length. Four fine trees, standing in a quadrangle, have
already been selected to form the corner-posts. In each of these, just
above the watermark, is cut a deep notch with a horizontal base to serve
as a rest for the cross-beams that are to form the foundation of the
structure. Into these notches the beams are hoisted,—by means of
ropes,—and there securely tied. To reach the point where the platform is
to be erected—sometimes a very high elevation—ladders are necessary; and
these are of native manufacture,—being simply the trunk of a palm-tree,
with notches cut in it for the toes of the climber. These afterwards
serve as a means of ascending and descending to the surface of the
water, during the period of its rise and fall. The main timbers having
been firmly secured in their places, cross-beams are laid upon them, the
latter being either pieces of the split trunks, or, what is usually
easier to obtain, the petioles of the great leaves,—each of which, as
already stated, forms of itself a large beam, twelve feet in length and
from six to twelves inches in breadth. These are next secured at both
ends by ropes of the palm-fibre.