Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 145 of 208 - First - Home
Sometimes
The Great Spirit Himself Makes The Botuto Resound; Sometimes He Is
Content To Manifest His Will Through Him To Whom The Keeping Of The
Instrument Is Entrusted.
These juggleries being very ancient (from the
fathers of our fathers, say the Indians), we must not be surprised
that some unbelievers are already to be found; but they express their
disbelief of the mysteries of the botuto only in whispers.
Women are
not permitted to see this marvellous instrument; and are excluded from
all the ceremonies of this worship. If a woman have the misfortune to
see the trumpet, she is put to death without mercy. The missionary
related to us, that in 1798 he was happy enough to save a young girl,
whom a jealous and vindictive lover accused of having followed, from a
motive of curiosity, the Indians who sounded the botuto in the
plantations. "They would not have murdered her publicly," said father
Cesero, "but how was she to be protected from the fanaticism of the
natives, in a country where it is so easy to give poison? The young
girl told me of her fears, and I sent her to one of the missions of
the Lower Orinoco." If the people of Guiana had remained masters of
that vast country; if, without having been impeded by Christian
settlements, they could follow freely the development of their
barbarous institutions; the worship of the botuto would no doubt
become of some political importance. That mysterious society of the
initiated, those guardians of the sacred trumpet, would be transformed
into a ruling caste of priests, and the oracle of Tomo would gradually
form a link between the bordering nations.
In the evening of the 4th of May we were informed, that an Indian, who
had assisted in dragging our bark over the portage of Pimichin, had
been stung by a viper. He was a tall strong man, and was brought to
the mission in a very alarming state. He had dropped down senseless;
and nausea, vertigo, and congestions in the head, had succeeded the
fainting. The liana called vejeco de guaco,* which M. Mutis has
rendered so celebrated, and which is the most certain remedy for the
bite of venomous serpents, is yet unknown in these countries. (* This
is a mikania, which was confounded for some time in Europe with the
ayapana. De Candolle thinks that the guaco may be the Eupatorium
satureiaefolium of Lamarck; but this Eupatorium differs by its lineary
leaves, while the Mikania guaco has triangular, oval, and very large
leaves.) A number of Indians hastened to the hut of the sick man, and
he was cured by an infusion of raiz de mato. We cannot indicate with
certainty what plant furnishes this antidote; but I am inclined to
think, that the raiz de mato is an apocynea, perhaps the Cerbera
thevetia, called by the inhabitants of Cumana lingua de mato or
contra-culebra, and which they also use against the bite of serpents.
A genus nearly allied to the cerbera* (* Ophioxylon serpentinum.) is
employed in India for the same purpose. It is common enough to find in
the same family of plants vegetable poisons, and antidotes against the
venom of reptiles. Many tonics and narcotics are antidotes more or
less active; and we find these in families very different* from each
other, in the aristolochiae, the apocyneae, the gentianae, the
polygalae, the solaneae, the compositae, the malvaceae, the
drymyrhizeae, and, which is still more surprising, even in the
palm-trees. (* I shall mention as examples of these nine families;
Aristolochia anguicida, Cerbera thevetia, Ophoiorhiza mungos, Polygala
senega, Nicotiana tabacum, (One of the remedies most used in Spanish
America). Mikanua guaco, Hibiscus abelmoschus (the seeds of which are
very active), Lanpujum rumphii, and Kunthia montana (Cana de la
Vibora).)
In the hut of the Indian who had been so dangerously bitten by the
viper, we found balls two or three inches in diameter, of an earthy
and impure salt called chivi, which is prepared with great care by the
natives. At Maypures a conferva is burnt, which is left by the Orinoco
on the neighbouring rocks, when, after high swellings, it again enters
its bed. At Javita a salt is fabricated by the incineration of the
spadix and fruit of the palm-tree seje or chimu. This fine palm-tree,
which abounds on the banks of the Auvana, near the cataract of
Guarinumo, and between Javita and the Cano Pimichin, appears to be a
new species of cocoa-tree. It may be recollected, that the fluid
contained in the fruit of the common cocoa-tree is often saline, even
when the tree grows far from the sea shore. At Madagascar salt is
extracted from the sap of a palm-tree called ciro. Besides the spadix
and the fruit of the seje palm, the Indians of Javita lixiviate also
the ashes of the famous liana called cupana, which is a new species of
the genus paullinia, consequently a very different plant from the
cupania of Linnaeus. I may here mention, that a missionary seldom
travels without being provided with some prepared seeds of the cupana.
This preparation requires great care. The Indians scrape the seeds,
mix them with flour of cassava, envelope the mass in plantain leaves,
and set it to ferment in water, till it acquires a saffron-yellow
colour. This yellow paste dried in the sun, and diluted in water, is
taken in the morning as a kind of tea. The beverage is bitter and
stomachic, but it appeared to me to have a very disagreeable taste.
On the banks of the Niger, and in a great part of the interior of
Africa, where salt is extremely rare, it is said of a rich man, "he is
so fortunate as to eat salt at his meals." This good fortune is not
too common in the interior of Guiana. The whites only, particularly
the soldiers of the little fort of San Carlos, know how to procure
pure salt, either from the coast of Caracas, or from Chita* by the Rio
Meta.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 145 of 208
Words from 146958 to 147971
of 211397