Chapter 46

Life around the Great River.--Origin of the Red Man.--General Characteristics of the Amazonian Indians.--Their Languages, Costumes, and Habitations.--Principal Tribes.--Mixed Breeds.--Brazilians and Brazil.

We come now to the genus Homo. Man makes a very insignificant figure in the vast solitudes of the Amazon. Between Manáos and Pará, the most densely-peopled part of the valley, there is only one man to every four square miles; and the native race takes a low place in the scale of humanity. As the western continent is geologically more primitive than the eastern, and as the brute creation is also inferior in rank, so the American man, in point of progress, seems to stand in the rear of the Old World races. Both the geology and zoology of the continent were arrested in their development. Vegetable life alone has been favored. "The aboriginal American (wrote Von Martius) is at once in the incapacity of infancy and unpliancy of old age; he unites the opposite poles of intellectual life."[179]

[Footnote 179: "I think I discover in the Americans (said Humboldt) the descendants of a rare which, early separated from the rest of mankind, has followed up for a series of years a peculiar road in the unfolding of its intellectual faculties and its tendency toward civilization." The South American Indian seems to have a natural aptitude for the arts of civilized life not found in the red men of our continent.]

We will not touch the debatable ground of the red man's origin, nor inquire whether he is the last remains of a people once high in civilization. But we are tempted to express the full belief that tropical America is not his "centre of creation." He is not the true child of the tropics; and he lives as a stranger, far less fitted for its climate than the Negro or Caucasian. Yet a little while, and the race will be as extinct as the Dodo. He has not the supple organization of the European, enabling him to accommodate himself to diverse conditions. Among the Andean tribes there are seldom over five children, generally but one, in a family; and Bates, speaking of Brazilian Indians, says "their fecundity is of a low degree, and it is very rare to find a family having so many as four children."[180]

[Footnote 180: We do not infer, however, from this fact alone, that the race is exotic, for the Negroes of Central Africa multiply very slowly.]

While it is probable that Mexico was peopled from the north, it is very certain that the Tupi and Guarani, the long-headed hordes that occupied eastern South America, came up from the south, moving from the Paraguay to the banks of the Orinoco. From the Tupi nation (perhaps a branch of the Guarani) sprung the multitudinous tribes now dwelling in the vast valley of the Amazon. In such a country--unbroken by a mountain, uniform in climate--we need not look for great diversity. The general characters are these: skin of a brown color, with yellowish tinge, often nearly the tint of mahogany; thick, straight, black hair; black, horizontal eyes; low forehead, somewhat compensated by its breadth; beardless; of the middle height, but thick-set; broad, muscular chest; small hands and feet; incurious; unambitious; impassive; undemonstrative; with a dull imagination and little superstition; with no definite idea of a Supreme Being, few tribes having a name for God, though one for the "Demon;" with no belief in a future state; and, excepting civility, with virtues all negative. The semi-civilized along the Lower Amazon, called _Tupuyos_, seem to have lost (in the language of Wallace) the good qualities of savage life, and gained only the vices of civilization.

There are several hundred different tribes in Amazonia, each having a different language; even the scattered members of the same tribe can not understand each other.[181] This segregation of dialects is due in great part to the inflexibility of Indian character, and his isolated and narrow round of thought and life. When and where the Babel existed, whence the many branches of the great Tupi family separated, we know not. We only know that though different in words, these languages have the same grammatical construction. In more than one respect the polyglot American is antipodal to the Chinese. The language of the former is richest in words, that of the latter the poorest. The preposition follows the noun, and the verb ends the sentence. Ancient Tupi is the basis of the Lingoa Geral, the inter-tribal tongue on the Middle Amazon. The semi-civilized Ticunas, Mundurucus, etc., have one costume--the men in trowsers and white cotton shirts, the women in calico petticoats, with short, loose chemises, and their hair held in a knot on the top of the head by a comb, usually of foreign make, but sometimes made of bamboo splinters. The wild tribes north and south go nearly or quite nude, while those on the western tributaries wear cotton or bark togas or ponchos. The habitations are generally a frame-work of poles, thatched with palm-leaves; the walls sometimes latticed and plastered with mud, and the furniture chiefly hammocks and earthen vessels.

[Footnote 181: Authors compute in South America from 280 to 700 languages (Abbé Royo said 2000), of which four fifths are composed of idioms radically distinct.]

The Mundurucus are the most numerous and warlike tribe in Amazonia. They inhabit both banks of the Tapajos, and can muster, it is said, 2000 fighting men. They are friendly to the whites, and industrious, selling to traders large quantities of farina, sarsaparilla, rubber, and tonka beans. Their houses are conical or quadrangular huts, sometimes open sheds, and generally contain many families. According to Wallace, the Mundurucus are the only perfectly tattooed nation in South America. It takes at least ten years to complete the tattooing of the whole person. The skin is pricked with spines, and then the soot from burning pitch rubbed in. Their neighbors, the Parárauátes, are intractable, wandering savages, roaming through the forest and sleeping in hammocks slung to the trees. They have delicately-formed hands and feet, an oval face, and glistening black eyes. On the west side of the Tapajos, near Villa Nova, are the Mauhés, an agricultural tribe, well formed, and of a mild disposition. On the Lower Madeira are the houseless, formidable Aráras, who paint their chins red with achote (anatto), and usually have a black tattooed streak on each side of the face. They have long made the navigation of the great tributary hazardous. Above them dwell the Parentintíns, light colored and finely featured, but nude and savage. In the labyrinth of lakes and channels at the mouth of the Madeira live the lazy, brutal Múras, the most degraded tribe on the Amazon. They have a darker skin than their neighbors, an extraordinary breadth of chest, muscular arms, short legs, protuberant abdomens, a thin beard, and a bold, restless expression. They pierce the lips, and wear peccari tusks in them in time of war. The Indians on the Purus live generally on the communal principle, and are unwarlike and indolent. The Puru-purús bury in sandy beaches, go naked, and have one wife.

On the great northwest tributary of the Rio Negro, the Uacaiari, there are numerous tribes, collectively known as the Uaupés. They have permanent abodes, in shape a parallelogram, with a semicircle at one end, and of a size to contain several families, sometimes a whole tribe. One of them, Wallace informs us, was 115 feet long by 75 broad, and about 30 high. The walls are bullet-proof. Partitions of palm-leaves divide it into apartments for families, the chief occupying the semicircular end. The men alone wear clothes and ornaments, but both sexes paint their bodies with red, black, and yellow colors in regular patterns. The men have a little beard, which they pull out, as also the eyebrows, and allow the hair to grow unshorn, tying it behind with a cord and wearing a comb; while the women cut theirs and wear no comb. They are an agricultural people--peaceable, ingenious, apathetic, diffident, and bashful.

The Catauishés inhabit the banks of the Teffé. They perforate the lips, and wear rows of sticks in the holes. At the mouth of the Juruá are the uncivilized, but tall, noble-looking Marauás. They pierce the ears and lips, and insert sticks. They live in separate families, and have no common chief. Above them live the treacherous Arauás.[182] On the opposite side of the Amazon are the nearly extinct Passés and Jurís, the finest tribes in central South America. They are peaceable and industrious, and have always been friendly to the whites. The Passés are a slenderly-built, light-colored, dignified, superior race, distinguished by a large square tattooed patch in the middle of the face. The Jurís tattoo in a circle round the mouth. Near by are the Uænambeus, or "Humming-birds," distinguished by a small blue mark on the upper lip. Higher up the Japurá is the large cannibal tribe of Miránhas, living in isolated families; and on the Tocantíns dwell the low Caishánas, who kill their first-born children. Along the left bank of the Amazon, from Loreto to Japurá, are the scattered houses and villages of the Tucúnas. This is an extensive tribe, leading a settled agricultural life, each horde having a chief and a "medicine-man," or priest of their superstitions. They are good-natured and ingenious, excelling most of the other tribes in the manufacture of pottery; but they are idle and debauched, naked except in the villages, and tattooed in numbers of short, straight lines on the face. The Marúbos, on the Javarí, have a dark complexion and a slight beard; and on the west side of the same river roam the Majerónas--fierce, hostile, light colored, bearded cannibals. In the vicinity of Pebas dwell the inoffensive Yaguas. The shape of the head (but not their vacant expression) is well represented by Catlin's portrait of "Black Hawk," a Sauk chief. They are quite free from the encumbrance of dress, the men wearing a girdle of fibrous bark around the loins, with bunches looking like a mop hanging down in front and rear, and similar bunches hung around the neck and arms. The women tie a strip of brown cotton cloth about the hips. They paint the whole body with achote.[183] They sometimes live in communities. One large structure, with Gothic roof, is used in common; on the inside of which, around the walls, are built family sleeping-rooms. The Yaguas are given to drinking and dancing. They are said to bury their dead inside the house of the deceased, and then set fire to it; but this conflicts with their communal life. Perhaps, with the other tribes on the Japurá, Iça, and Napo, they are fragments of the great Omágua nation; but the languages have no resemblance. Of the Oriente Indians we have already spoken. The tall, finely-built Cucámas near Nauta are shrewd, hard-working canoe-men, notorious for the singular desire of acquiring property; and the Yámeos, a white tribe, wander across the Marañon as far as Sarayacú. On the Ucayali are numerous vagabond tribes, living for the most part in their canoes and temporary huts. They are all lazy and faithless, using their wives (polygamy is common) as slaves. Infanticide is practiced, _i.e._, deformed children they put out of the way, saying they belong to the devil. They worship nothing. They bury their dead in a canoe or earthen jar under the house (which is vacated forever), and throw away his property.[184] The common costume is a long gown, called _cushma_, of closely-twilled cotton, woven by the women. Their weapons are two-edged battle-axes of hard wood, as palo de sangre, and bows and arrows. The arrows, five or six feet long, are made from the flower-stalk of the arrow-grass (_Gynerium_), the head pointed with the flinty chonta and tipped with bone, often anointed with poison. At the base two rows of feathers are spirally arranged, showing the Indian's knowledge of the rifle principle. When they have fixed abodes several families live together under one roof, with no division separating the women, as among the Red Indians on the Pastassa. The roof is not over ten feet from the ground. The Piros are the highest tribe; they have but one wife. The Conibos are an agricultural people, yet cannibals, stretching from the Upper Ucayali to the sources of the Purus. They are a fair-looking, athletic people, and, like the Shipibos, of ten wear a piece of money under the lip. The Cámpas are the most numerous and warlike.[185] They are little known, as travelers give them a wide berth. Herndon fancied they were the descendants of the Inca race. They are said to be cannibals, and from the specimen we saw we should judge them uncommonly sharp. He was averse to telling us any thing about his tribe, but turned our questions with an equivocal repartee and a laugh. The Cashíbos, on the Pachitéa, is another cannibal tribe. They are light colored and bearded. The dwarfish, filthy Rimos alone of the Ucayali Indians tattoo, though not so perfectly as the Mundurucus, using black and blue colors. The other tribes simply paint. It was among these wild Indians on the Ucayali that the Franciscan friars labored so long and zealously, and with a success far greater and more lasting than that which attended any other missionary enterprise in the valley.

[Footnote 182: Near the sources of this river Castlenau locates the Canamas and Uginas; the former dwarfs, the latter having tails a palm and a half long--a hybrid from an Indian and Barigudo monkey.]

[Footnote 183: Query: Is the name Yagua (blood) derived from the practice of coloring the body red?]

[Footnote 184: Compare the ancient burial custom on the Andes: "On the decease of the Inca his palaces are abandoned: all his treasures, except those that were employed in his obsequies, his furniture and apparel, were suffered to remain as he left them, and his mansions, save one, were closed up forever."--_Prescott_.]

[Footnote 185: The women circumcise themselves, and a man will not marry a woman who is not circumcised. They perform the singular rite upon arriving at the age of puberty, and have a great feast at the time. Other tribes flog and imprison their daughters when they reach womanhood.]

The remaining inhabitants of the Amazon are mixed-breeds, Negroes, and whites. The amalgamations form the greater part of the population of the large towns. Von Tschudi gives a catalogue of twenty-three hybrids in Peru, and there are undoubtedly as many, or more, in Brazil. The most common are Mamelucos (offspring of white with Indian), Mulattoes (from white and Negro), Cafuzos or Zambos (from Indian and Negro), Curibocos (from Cafuzo and Indian); and Xibaros (from Cafuzo and Negro). "To define their characteristics correctly," says Von Tschudi, "would be impossible, for their minds partake of the mixture of their blood. As a general rule, it may be said that they unite in themselves all the faults without any of the virtues of their progenitors. As men they are generally inferior to the pure races, and as members of society they are the worst class of citizens." Yet they display considerable talent and enterprise, as in Quito; a proof that mental degeneracy does not necessarily result from the mixture of white with Indian blood. "There is, however," confesses Bates, after ten years' experience, "a considerable number of superlatively lazy, tricky, and sensual characters among the half-castes, both in rural places and in the towns." Our observations do not support the opinion that the result of amalgamation is "a vague compound, lacking character and expression." The moral part is perhaps deteriorated; but in tact and enterprise they often excel their progenitors.

Negroes are to be seen only on the Lower Amazon. By the new act of emancipation, such as are slaves continue so, but their children are free. Negroes born in the country are called creoles.

Of the white population, save a handful of English, French, and German, the Portuguese immigrants are the most enterprising men on the river. They are willing to work, trade, or do any thing to turn a penny. Those who acquire a fortune generally retire to Lisbon. The Brazilians proper are the descendants of the men who declared themselves "free and independent" of the mother country. Few of them are of pure Caucasian descent, for the immigration from Portugal for many years has been almost exclusively of the male sex. "It is generally considered bad taste in Brazil to boast purity of descent" (Bates, i, 241). Brazilians are stiff and formal, yet courteous and lively, communicative and hospitable, well-bred and intelligent. They are not ambitious, but content to live and enjoy what nature spontaneously offers. The most a Brazilian wants is farina and coffee, a hammock and cigar. Brazilian ladies have led a dreary life of constraint and silence, without education or society, the husband making a nun of his wife after the old bigoted Portuguese notion; but during the last twenty years the doors have been opened. Brazil attained her independence in 1823; Brazilian women in 1848.

Here, in this virgin valley, where every plant is an evergreen, possessing the most agreeable and enjoyable climate in the world, with a brilliant atmosphere, rivaled only by that of Quito, and with no changes of seasons--here we may locate the paradise of the lazy. Life may be maintained with as little labor as in the Garden of Eden. Perhaps no country in the world is capable of yielding so large a return for agriculture. Nature, evidently designing this land as the home of a great nation, has heaped up her bounties of every description--fruits of richest flavors, woods of finest grain, dyes of gayest colors, and drugs of rarest virtues; and left no sirocco or earthquake to disturb its people. Providence, moreover, has given the present emperor a wise and understanding heart; and the government is a happy blending of imperial dignity and republican freedom. White, Negro, half-caste, and Indian may be seen sitting side by side on the jury-bench. Certainly "the nation can not be a despicable one whose best men are able to work themselves up to positions of trust and influence."

God bless the Empire of the South!