As We
Drew Ashore I Noticed That An Indian Path Led Directly Inland.
Leaving our dug-out moored with a fibre rope to a large mangrove
tree, we started to thread our way through the forest, and finally
reached a clearing.
Here we came upon a crowd of almost naked and
extremely dejected-looking women. Many of these, catching sight of
me, sped into the jungle like frightened deer. The chief's wife,
however, at a word from him, received me kindly, and after accepting
a brass necklace with evident pleasure, showed herself very affable.
Poor lost Guatos! Their dejected countenances, miserable grass huts,
alive with vermin, and their extreme poverty, were most touching.
Inhabiting, as they do, one of the hottest and dampest places on the
earth's surface, where mosquitos are numberless, the wonder is that
they exist at all. Truly, man is a strange being, who can adapt
himself to equatorial heat or polar frigidity. The Guatos' chief
business in life seemed to consist in sitting on fibre mats spread on
the ground, and driving away the bloodthirsty mosquitos from their
bare backs. For this they use a fan of their own manufacture, made
from wild cotton, which there seems to abound. Writing of mosquitos,
let me say these Indian specimens were a terror to us all. What
numbers we killed! I could write this account in their blood. It was
my blood, though - before they got it! Men who hunt the tiger in
cool bravery boiled with indignation before these awful pests, which
stabbed and stung with marvellous persistency, and disturbed
the solitude of nature with their incessant humming. I write the
word incessant advisedly, for I learned that there are several
kinds of mosquitos. Some work by day and others by night. Naturalists
tell us that only the female mosquito bites. Did they take a
particular liking to us because we were all males?
Some of the Indians paint their naked bodies in squares, generally
with red and black pigment. Their huts were in some cases large, but
very poorly constructed. When any members of the tribe are taken sick
they are supposed to be "possessed" by a stronger evil power, and the
sickness is "starved out." When the malady flies away the life
generally accompanies it. The dead are buried under the earth inside
the huts, and in some of the dwellings graves are quite numerous.
This custom of interior burial has probably been adopted because the
wild animals of the forest would otherwise eat the corpse. Horrible
to relate, their own half-wild dogs sometimes devour the dead, though
an older member of the tribe is generally left home to mount guard.
Seeing by the numerous gourds scattered around that they were
drinking chicha, I solicited some, being anxious to taste the
beverage which had been used so many centuries before by the old
Incas. The wife of the chief immediately tore off a branch of the
feather palm growing beside her, and, certainly within a minute, made
a basket, into which she placed a small gourd. Going to the other
side of the clearing, she commenced, with the agility of a monkey, to
ascend a long sapling which had been laid in a slanting position
against a tall palm tree. The long, graceful leaves of this cabbage
palm had been torn open, and the heart thus left to ferment. From the
hollow cabbage the woman filled the gourd, and lowered it to me by a
fibre rope. The liquid I found to be thick and milky, and the taste
not unlike cider.
Prescott tells us that Atahuallpa, the Peruvian monarch, came to see
the conqueror, Pizarro, "quaffing chicha from golden goblets borne by
his attendants." [Footnote: Este Embajador traia servicio de Senor, i
cinco o seis Vasos de Oro fino, con que bebia, i con ellos daba a
beber a los Espanoles de la chicha que traia." - Xerez.] Golden
goblets did not mean much to King Atahuallpa, however, for his palace
of five hundred different apartments is said to have been tiled with
beaten gold.
In these Guato Indians I observed a marked difference to any others I
had visited, in that they permitted the hair to grow on their faces.
The chief was of quite patriarchal aspect, with full beard and mild,
intelligent-looking eyes. The savages inhabiting the Chaco consider
this custom extremely "dirty."
Before leaving these people I procured some of their bows and arrows,
and also several cleverly woven palm mats and cotton fans.
Some liquor our cook gave away had been taken out by the braves to
their women in another encampment. These spirits had so inflamed the
otherwise retiring, modest females that they, with the men, returned
to the steamer, clamoring for more. All the stores, along with some
liquors we carried, were under my care, and I kept them securely
locked up, but in my absence at the Indian camp the store-room had
been broken open, and our men and the Indians - men and women - had
drunk long and deep. A scene like Bedlam, or Dante's "Inferno," was
taking place when I returned. Willing as they were to listen to my
counsel and admit that I was certainly a great white teacher, with
superior wisdom, on this love for liquor and its debasing
consequences they would hear no words. The women and girls, like the
men, would clamor for the raw alcohol, and gulp it down in long
draughts. When ardent spirits are more sought after by women and
girls than are beads and looking-glasses it surely shows a terribly
depraved taste. Even the chattering monkeys in the trees overhead
would spurn the poison and eagerly clutch the bright trinket. Perhaps
the looking-glasses I gave the poor females would, after the orgies
were over, serve to show them that their beauty was not increased by
this beastly carousal, and thus be a means of blessing. It may be
asked, Can the savage be possessed of pride and of self-esteem?
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