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 179 of 208 - First - Home
The monotony of their dancing is increased
by the women not daring to take part in it.
The men, young and old,
form a circle, holding each others' hands; and turn sometimes to the
right, sometimes to the left, for whole hours, with silent gravity.
Most frequently the dancers themselves are the musicians. Feeble
sounds, drawn from a series of reeds of different lengths, form a slow
and plaintive accompaniment. The first dancer, to mark the time, bends
both knees in a kind of cadence. Sometimes they all make a pause in
their places, and execute little oscillatory movements, bending the
body from one side to the other. The reeds ranged in a line, and
fastened together, resemble the Pan's pipes, as we find them
represented in the bacchanalian processions on Grecian vases. To unite
reeds of different lengths, and make them sound in succession by
passing them before the lips, is a simple idea, and has naturally
presented itself to every nation. We were surprised to see with what
promptitude the young Indians constructed and tuned these pipes, when
they found reeds on the bank of the river. Uncivilized men, in every
zone, make great use of these gramina with high stalks. The Greeks,
with truth, said that reeds had contributed to subjugate nations by
furnishing arrows, to soften men's manners by the charm of music, and
to unfold their understanding by affording the first instruments for
tracing letters. These different uses of reeds mark in some sort three
different periods in the life of nations. We must admit that the
tribes of the Orinoco are in the first stage of dawning civilization.
The reed serves them only as an instrument of war and of hunting; and
the Pan's pipes, of which we have spoken, have not yet, on those
distant shores, yielded sounds capable of awakening mild and humane
feelings.
We found in the hut allotted for the festival, several vegetable
productions which the Indians had brought from the mountains of
Guanaya, and which engaged our attention. I shall only here mention
the fruit of the juvia, reeds of a prodigious length, and shirts made
of the bark of marima. The almendron, or juvia, one of the most
majestic trees of the forests of the New World, was almost unknown
before our visit to the Rio Negro. It begins to be found after a
journey of four days east of Esmeralda, between the Padamo and Ocamo,
at the foot of the Cerro Mapaya, on the right bank of the Orinoco. It
is still more abundant on the left bank, at the Cerro Guanaja, between
the Rio Amaguaca and the Gehette. The inhabitants of Esmeralda assured
us, that in advancing above the Gehette and the Chiguire, the juvia
and cacao-trees become so common that the wild Indians (the Guaicas
and Guaharibos) do not disturb the Indians of the missions when
gathering in their harvests. They do not envy them the productions
with which nature has enriched their own soil. Scarcely any attempt
has been made to propagate the almendrones in the settlements of the
Upper Orinoco. To this the indolence of the inhabitants is a greater
obstacle than the rapidity with which the oil becomes rancid in the
amygdaliform seeds. We found only three trees of the kind at the
mission of San Carlos, and two at Esmeralda. These majestic trees were
eight or ten years old, and had not yet borne flowers.
As early as the sixteenth century, the seeds with ligneous and
triangular teguments (but not the great drupe like a cocoa-nut, which
contains the almonds,) were known in Europe. I recognise them in an
imperfect engraving of Clusius.* (* Clusius distinguishes very
properly the almendras del Peru, our Bertholletia excelsa, or juvia,
(fructus amygdalae-nucleo, triangularis, dorso lato, in bina latera
angulosa desinente, rugosus, paululum cuneiformis) from the pekea, or
Amygdala guayanica. Raleigh, who knew none of the productions of the
Upper Orinoco, does not speak of the juvia; but it appears that he
first brought to Europe the fruit of the mauritia palm, of which we
have so often spoken. (Fructus elegantissimus, squamosus, similis
palmae-pini.) This botanist designates them under the name of
almendras del Peru. They had no doubt been carried, as a very rare
fruit, to the Upper Maranon, and thence, by the Cordilleras, to Quito
and Peru. The Novus Orbis of Laet, in which I found the first account
of the cow-tree, furnishes also a description and a figure singularly
exact of the fruit of the bertholletia. Laet calls the tree totocke,
and mentions the drupe of the size of the human head, which contains
the almonds. The weight of these fruits, he says, is so enormous, that
the savages dare not enter the forests without covering their heads
and shoulders with a buckler of very hard wood. These bucklers are
unknown to the natives of Esmeralda, but they told us of the danger
incurred when the fruit ripens and falls from a height of fifty or
sixty feet. The triangular seeds of the juvia are sold in Portugal
under the vague appellation of chesnuts (castanas) of the Amazon, and
in England under the name of Brazil-nuts; and it was long believed
that, like the fruit of the pekea, they grew on separate stalks. They
have furnished an article of trade for a century past to the
inhabitants of Grand Para, by whom they are sent either directly to
Europe, or to Cayenne, where they are called touka. The celebrated
botanist, Correa de Serra, told us that this tree abounds in the
forests in the neighbourhood of Macapa, at the mouth of the Amazon;
that it there bears the name of capucaya, and that the inhabitants
gather the almonds, like those of the lecythis, to express the oil. A
cargo of almonds of the juvia, bought into Havre, captured by a
privateer, in 1807, was employed for the same purpose.
The tree that yields the Brazil-nuts is generally not more than two or
three feet in diameter, but attains one hundred or one hundred and
twenty feet in height.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 179 of 208
Words from 181658 to 182684
of 211397