Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The
Violence With Which The Attempt Was Made To Execute In Public At Tomo
The Mysterious Dance Of The Devils
Is the more strange, as all the
books written by the missionaries relate the efforts they have used to
prevent
The funereal dances, the dances of the sacred trumpet, and
that ancient dance of serpents, the Queti, in which these wily animals
are represented as issuing from the forests, and coming to drink with
the men in order to deceive them, and carry off the women.
After two hours' navigation from the mouth of the Tomo we arrived at
the little mission of San Miguel de Davipe, founded in 1775, not by
monks, but by a lieutenant of militia, Don Francisco Bobadilla. The
missionary of the place, Father Morillo, with whom we spent some
hours, received us with great hospitality. He even offered us Madeira
wine, but, as an object of luxury, we should have preferred wheaten
bread. The want of bread becomes more sensibly felt in length of time
than that of a strong liquor. The Portuguese of the Amazon carry small
quantities of Madeira wine, from time to time, to the Rio Negro; and
the word madera, signifying wood in the Castilian language, the monks,
who are not much versed in the study of geography, had a scruple of
celebrating mass with Madeira wine, which they took for a fermented
liquor extracted from the trunk of some tree, like palm-wine; and
requested the guardian of the missions to decide, whether the vino de
madera were wine from grapes, or the juice of a tree. At the beginning
of the conquest, the question was agitated, whether it were allowable
for the priests, in celebrating mass, to use any fermented liquor
analogous to grape-wine. The question, as might have been foreseen,
was decided in the negative.
At Davipe we bought some provisions, among which were fowls and a pig.
This purchase greatly interested our Indians, who had been a long
while deprived of meat. They pressed us to depart, in order to reach
the island of Dapa, where the pig was to be killed and roasted during
the night. We had scarcely time to examine in the convent (convento)
the great stores of mani resin, and cordage of the chiquichiqui palm,
which deserves to be more known in Europe. This cordage is extremely
light; it floats upon the water, and is more durable in the navigation
of rivers than ropes of hemp. It must be preserved at sea by being
often wetted, and little exposed to the heat of the tropical sun. Don
Antonio Santos, celebrated in the country for his journey in search of
lake Parima, taught the Indians of the Spanish Rio Negro to make use
of the petioles of the chiquichiqui, a palm-tree with pinnate leaves,
of which we saw neither the flowers nor the fruit. This officer is the
only white man who ever came from Angostura to Grand Para, passing by
land from the sources of the Rio Carony to those of the Rio Branco. He
had studied the mode of fabricating ropes from the chiquichiqui in the
Portuguese colonies; and, on his return from the Amazon, he introduced
this branch of industry into the missions of Guiana. It were to be
wished that extensive rope-walks could be established on the banks of
the Rio Negro and the Cassiquiare, in order to make these cables an
article of trade with Europe. A small quantity is already exported
from Angostura to the West Indies; and it costs from fifty to sixty
per cent less than cordage of hemp. Young palm-trees only being
employed, they must be planted and carefully cultivated.
A little above the mission of Davipe, the Rio Negro receives a branch
of the Cassiquiare, the existence of which is a very remarkable
phenomenon in the history of the branchings of rivers. This branch
issues from the Cassiquiare, north of Vasiva, bearing the name of the
Itinivini; and, after flowing for the length of twenty-five leagues
through a flat and almost uninhabited country, it falls into the Rio
Negro under the name of the Rio Conorichite. It appeared to me to be
more than one hundred and twenty toises broad near its mouth. Although
the current of the Conorichite is very rapid, this natural canal
abridges by three days the passage from Davipe to Esmeralda. We cannot
be surprised at a double communication between the Cassiquiare and the
Rio Negro when we recollect that so many of the rivers of America
form, as it were, deltas at their confluence with other rivers. Thus
the Rio Branco and the Rio Jupura enter by a great number of branches
into the Rio Negro and the Amazon. At the confluence of the Jupura
there is a much more extraordinary phenomenon. Before this river joins
the Amazon, the latter, which is the principal recipient, sends off
three branches called Uaranapu, Manhama, and Avateparana, to the
Jupura, which is but a tributary stream. The Portuguese astronomer,
Ribeiro, has proved this important fact. The Amazon gives waters to
the Jupura itself, before it receives that tributary stream.
The Rio Conorichite, or Itinivini, formerly facilitated the trade in
slaves carried on by the Portuguese in the Spanish territory. The
slave-traders went up by the Cassiquiare and the Cano Mee to
Conorichite; and thence dragged their canoes by a portage to the
rochelas of Manuteso, in order to enter the Atabapo. This abominable
trade lasted till about the year 1756; when the expedition of Solano,
and the establishment of the missions on the banks of the Rio Negro,
put an end to it. Old laws of Charles V and Philip III* (* 26 January
1523 and 10 October 1618.) had forbidden under the most severe
penalties (such as the being rendered incapable of civil employment,
and a fine of two thousand piastres), the conversion of the natives to
the faith by violent means, and sending armed men against them; but
notwithstanding these wise and humane laws, the Rio Negro, in the
middle of the last century, was no further interesting in European
politics, than as it facilitated the entradas, or hostile incursions,
and favoured the purchase of slaves.
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