WE VISIT A SERINGAL
We want to see for ourselves the way the present-day rubber-gatherers
in Brazil do their work, and the kind of life they lead. So we have
made a long journey by boat up one of the tributaries of the River
Amazon to the landing-stage for a typical rubber-gatherers’ village.
We step ashore straight into the forest, and are warmly welcomed by
a group of working men, who inquire eagerly for the latest news from
anywhere, about anything. For days we have been travelling in a region
that is far removed from the busy haunts of man, and we have grown
quite used to the solitude of the wilds; but the loneliness comes home
to us much more forcibly as we realize that there are civilized folk
who spend nearly all their life in these out-of-the-way parts.
We set out to walk along a rough road that threads its way through the
jungle. Before long we notice buildings ahead. We are close upon a
“seringal”--that is to say, a village which serves as the headquarters
of a number of rubber-gatherers, who work a big area of neighbouring
forest-lands.
The seringal, together with the stretch of country which it serves,
belongs to a man who probably lives far away in one of the two great
commercial centres of Brazil--Para, at the mouth of the Amazon; or
Manaos, about a thousand miles up the river. The owner may have
inherited his claim to proprietorship, or he may have bought it
from some other man; in any case, the tract of forest which is now
regarded as his private property originally became one man’s land
because in days gone by some settler tried to make a living out of
rubber collecting, went so far this way, so far that in his search for
rubber-trees, and gradually came to look upon the district between such
self-appointed boundaries as his own personal hunting-ground.
Great care has to be taken in choosing the site for a seringal. Since
none of the forests have yet been opened up for more than about a mile
in the inland direction, the seringals must all be built near the
riverside; it is very necessary that they should be perched on some
piece of rising ground, because the waters of the Amazon rise very
high at times, causing great floods.
The seringal we have come to visit is typical of the many widely
scattered villages which the rubber industry has called into existence
in the Brazilian forests of the Amazon--typical in its isolation, and
as regards the style of its buildings, the kind of people who make up
the population, and the everyday life of the little community, who are
cut off from the rest of the world. The outstanding buildings are the
manager’s house, which boasts a tiled roof, his office and store. These
are to all intents and purposes “government” quarters; for, although
the manager represents a private individual, he rules the community who
work for his master with much the same sort of authority he might be
expected to exercise if he held office under the Republic. Round about
his quarters are some thatched shanties, which provide accommodation
for part of the community. But some of the labourers have to go their
daily round from tree to tree in far distant parts of the forest;
where their work is, there must they make their home in a solitary
hut. The merriest day of the week for everybody is Saturday, when all
the rubber-gatherers have to make their way to the manager’s quarters,
to hand over the rubber they have collected and to buy stores for the
coming week. This general meeting, called together by business, is
taken full advantage of as an opportunity for gossip, hospitality, and
various little jollifications, such as a “sing-song.”
The population of a seringal consists of working-class Brazilians, who
are of Portuguese and mixed Portuguese and Indian descent. Certainly
they look a rough lot, but that is not surprising, seeing what a hard
life they lead--and there are many rough diamonds among them. You will
feel more in sympathy with them when you have lived but a day in their
midst, and been with one of them on his round. But already you must
have been thinking that they have not much comfort to look forward to
when their work is done, for you can see at a glance that their houses
are mere shelters.
Here is the picture you will take away in your mind’s eye of a
rubber-gatherer’s home on the shores of the Amazon: A framework of
poles, uprights and crossbars, carries a thatched roof. The building
is open on all sides--indeed, the only other detail which entitles it
to the name of building is one floor, raised well above the ground, so
that the inmates of the house can keep a little distance out of damp’s
way. The unpartitioned space between floor and roof serves as common
day-room and night-room. Hammocks provide sleeping accommodation; old
boxes take the place of tables and chairs; pots and pans pretend to
be ornaments; every corner is a makeshift cupboard for tinned foods,
bottles, oil-cans, tools, and suchlike oddments; and the framework of
poles does duty as wardrobe on week-days and as linen-line for the
washing on Sundays.
In seringal life a married man and his family generally occupy a
private hut. The unmarried men, and their married comrades who have not
brought wife and children into the forest, live together in batches,
several of them sharing one house on the “chummery” system.