Up de Graff, Fritz W. . Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure / Fritz W. Up de Graff
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    ON the sand-spit at the junction of the Santiago and the Marañon lay some two hundred Antipa canoes, heavily laden with fruit, vegetables, honey and giamanchi in enormous quantities. They were drawn up in a great uneven fringe for a distance of a full quarter of a mile all around the edge of the tongue which juts out between the two rivers, and scattered all over the miniature peninsular were hundreds of savages, men, women and children -- three or four to every canoe -- squatting in groups of families, some gossiping, some cooking, others speaking excitedly of war, others polishing their spears with sand, and yet others already partaking of their evening meal. The slanting rays of the sun tinted the whole scene with a purplish light, and threw into restful harmony the naturally crude colouring of forest, river, sand and savage. No cloud obscured the deep blue dome of the evening sky. The three long wailing notes of the yungaruru floated across the water, and the screams of the first flock of parrots rose high above the hum of human chatter as they skimmed over the trees on their return home from the day's foraging.

    As we toiled up the stretch of bad water that lies between the gate of the cañon and the junction of the rivers, the scene gradually unfolded itself before our astonished eyes. What a change was this from the deadly


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emptiness of the landscape when Game and I first paddled by the long desolate first reach of the Santiago, straining our eyes for the sight of any living thing!

    To say we were taken by surprise is to understate the case. We were amazed at the rapidity with which the fame of our expedition had spread amongst the savages. Apparently a good proportion of the whole tribe of Antipas had ventured well outside the radius of their home territory -- a rare display of boldness -- in search of those confounded presents of ours. There they were, sitting patiently waiting for hand-mirrors and striped shirts, with tons of fruit, vegetables, and other products of the rivers and woods. The full capacity of our fleet of four canoes was five tons at the most, and we were already heavily laden. Despite this, we found it wholly impossible to convince these adventurous merchants of the impracticability of their suggestion that we should take possession of all they had to offer in exchange for the coveted trade-goods. That evening we spent weary hours in trying to drive this obvious truth home to them, without any success attending our efforts. We transacted what business we must, and when we had bought more peanuts and honey than we could possibly want, we decided to sleep on the matter.

    Next morning we were forced with the necessity of getting rid of that great concourse of Jívaros and, more important, seeing them go off in a contented frame of mind. We decided eventually to go the round of the whole beach, and present the crew of each canoe -- generally a man with a couple of women and a child or two -- with something to keep them quiet. I may mention that we had made the whole party leave the tip of the tongue of sand to us, where we pitched our little linen tent in a strategic position; on three sides water, which nothing could cross alive unless we wished it so,


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and on the fourth the flat open sand-bar with no protection whatever for lurking bodies.

    The plan which we adopted was successful up to a point; the savages were certainly well satisfied to receive their presents, and to obtain a close view of the far-famed apaches, whose arrival had caused such a stir in the country; but all the good which had been done was threatened with instant reverse by our refusal to "trade in" their tons of supplies for which we had no use nor space for carrying along in our four dugouts; so acceptance was the only possible course to follow. The beach became littered with the finest produce of the country.

    Then came the stiffer problem, the ultimate object of all our manoeuvering up to this time; viz., to organize a fleet of canoes and canoemen not only to move our cargo and outfit up the Santiago but to accompany us as a guard against attack and as a war party in any possible conflict with the Huambizas. These Antipas were bitter enemies of the Huambizas and therefore we figured they would admirably suit our purpose. For many days we had been working up to this climax, endeavouring to convince old Pitacunca that it would be worth his while to give us thirty days' paddling in exchange for his choice of an axe or machete, with the same terms for every one of his men. No other bait had been tempting enough, as we had known only too well would be the case. Bit by bit we had led them on, until at last we had made our final offer, and before their bulging eyes we opened a box of axes and a case of machetes. The sight of the glistening steel and the bright red paint on the handles struck home to their very souls (if they had any), and I could see that they decided then and there to possess themselves of these treasures by fair means or foul. They knew, and we knew, that they had no


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intention whatever of fulfilling their contract, despite the solemnity with which the terms were propounded and agreed to. Jack remarked at the time, I remember, that it was a moot point as to which party thought the other bigger fools. But we had our own ideas as to the enforcing of the contract. There was no doubt about it that if we wished to retain the services of the Indians we should have to be eternally vigilant and diplomatic. By day they could never give us the slip, clearly, armed as we were with Winchesters. The canoemen would be divided between the several craft and escape would be out of the question. By night we should chain the canoes together, and always keep a guard mounted. By land they would never dare to face the risks of encountering a Huambiza war party. And so it turned out, with the exception that we allowed Pitacunca to take the Exploradora with three other Antipas, keeping them always within rifle-shot; in any event, they would not cut and run without their comrades and even if they did they could never paddle so heavy a craft away from us who manned the light twenty-four footers. In short, they were a slippery crew to deal with, and we couldn't be too careful.

    Meanwhile, the bulk of the gathering of Antipas had melted away, leaving only the wise minority, who saw something in the shape of a big haul coming when we turned the bows of our dugouts up the Santiago. Clearly we should leave behind us nine-tenths of our purchases, and the harvest would be rich for those who were there to gather it. (Old "Pete" had probably warned them to be ready at midnight on our first night out.) Perhaps the bulk of the remainder watched us from the seclusion of the woods as we pushed off, as they hoped, in all innocence.

   
"Sept. 29th. Having finally satisfied the Antipas, by


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means of our presents, that we are friendly disposed toward them, and closed the deal with the crew by handing them out their axes, we are due to start at mid-day to-day. 'Pete' and his men are obviously well satisfied with the business they have done. It is quite clear that they contemplate leaving us to-night with much relish."

    About five o'clock that evening we sighted a sand-bar for the first time since entering the Santiago. It looked a likely hunting-ground, so we let the Turtle-hound loose. His unerring sixth sense enabled him to bring in several nestfuls, amounting to something over three hundred eggs.

    That night it fell to Pedro to mount guard from sundown till midnight. Long ago we had given our timepieces away to the Antipas up the Marañon, for they were useless impediments. By the time each man of us had jumped overboard half a dozen times to save a paddle, a war-bag, or Ambusha, they were not much use except as presents. In the last-named capacity they were handed out to "Lázaro," Pitacunca, and one or two other important gentlemen. The original recipients kept the cases, which they hung around their necks, and distributed the wheels to their less favoured fellows.

    During that watch of his Pedro had no peace. Every few minutes the siege would be renewed. With smiling faces our friends would beg for a canoe to cross the river for one of a hundred purposes, urging reasons which were apparently so pressing as not to allow of even waiting till dawn. They had heard a troupe of night monkeys on the other bank; they had spotted a fine log for the fire five hundred yards down-stream (always down-stream!); they thought it would be a good idea to have some fish for breakfast; they were sure that the turtles would be out on the other end of the sand-spit, and they could approach noiselessly in a canoe...


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and so on, until Pedro called me up in despair. I kept them quiet with a long story about the dangers of going off alone in the dark, with the possibility of a Huambiza surprise at any moment. I treated them in the only way possible, like children, meeting them on their own ground. Neither I nor Pitacunca believed our own words, much less those of the other. But the game of bluff had to be played out, like any other game, and the hardest bluffer won. So passed the first of a series of such nights, always the same farce had to be staged; endless machinations met by endless argument. At length, after four or five nights had passed in this fashion without any success being attained, it dawned on the Indians that other tactics must be adopted if they were (in the language of sport) to make a get-away. They began to fall sick, and with remarkable ingenuity discovered that the waters of the Santiago brought on all manner of ills, from loss of appetite, by way of general debility, to heart-failure. Still we persisted, keeping them at the paddles after the fashion of galley-slave drivers. They were by this time a miserable, dejected crowd, keeping any way on the canoes, complaining of their ills, and bemoaning the certain death that awaited them if they continued.

    On the eighth day the climax came. We sighted an island, which seemed to be ideal for pitching camp, and put into shore with the intention of deciding once and for all, what we were going to do with those treacherous and demoralized creatures who moaned and babbled between every half-dozen strokes of the paddle. But we were not destined to play an active part in the settlement of the problem, after all, for no sooner had we landed and lain down to rest than Pitacunca, by virtue of his high office, had resort to the never-failing hayahuasca (bitter wine -- Inca). The plant is the means by which the medicine men of the Upper Amazon throw themselves


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into a trance (in reality a state of drunken semi-torpor) from the depths of which they utter prophetic statements which are received with as much reverence as were ever those of the Sybil. Their power for good or evil is thus unlimited, for they pour forth their visions to a spell-bound audience which hangs on every word.

    That night Pitacunca was determined to go no further. He drank his hayahuasca with his "prophecy" prepared. Within a minute he was rolling about on the ground, groaning, vomiting, sighing, and wailing out his awful warning to a concourse of terror-stricken individuals, who wished they had never been such fools as to venture up the Santiago for the sake of a shining axe.

    "Your homes are on fire and your families fleeing through the woods," wailed Pitacunca, his voice rising above the moans of his audience; "the Huambizas have taken off half your wives into captivity; but far worse than all the Huambiza devils in the Santiago valley, comes the news to your fugitive children that they are running from their attacks only to be stricken down with smallpox that walks abroad among our people (renewed groans); hungry and homeless, they know not where to turn (a positive hurricane of wailing); black ruin and death await you all, if you return not to stem the tide of disaster."

    With a final long-drawn-out sigh, Pitacunca ceased. But he had done his work. Panic ran riot in the camp. Muttering and whimpering, the Antipas ran hither and thither at the bidding of the drunken old fraud who professed to be their protector. We saw that it was useless to expect to get another minute's work out of them. Pitacunca, with an invincible superstition at his back, had won the day.

    Among all the Jívaro tribes the medicine man is omnipotent but short-lived. He lasts as long as his


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prophecies are not too disastrously wrong. Sooner or later he leads his people (of whom he is virtually chief) into disaster, having made a bad guess, and is sacrificed by those who before followed his every word. Plain proof of the blind credulity of his followers is to be found in the manner of his qualification for his office. Some ambitious old fake with his eye on the coveted post takes a reed-flute (the only instrument except the tom-tom known to the people) and (according to his own story) goes off down the river at dead of night, alone, for many miles, where he seats himself on a sand-bar and plays till the anacondas come out of the water and dance round him. Many times he tries, until at length one morning he walks into the settlement and announces that his great powers have at last prevailed, and he has enticed the serpents to his very feet. And so his authority is born. In times of peace he is the official weather-prophet and astrologer, indicating the proper phase of the moon in which to plant; he is the one and only jambi-chemist; he is the doctor, with a forest full of remedies at his command, and it must be added, in all fairness to him, that he understands the use of ipecacuana, quinine (béllacacara in Inca), and a number of the natural drugs which he extracts from the forest, some known to modern science and some not.

    He is at his best as a curer of ills. Several times we had occasion to call in Pitacunca himself and he made speedy and efficacious cures, albeit with a great deal of hocus-pocus on the side. Once Morse was suffering from an ulcerated tooth, and "Pete" volunteered to cure it in a few minutes. We had much ado to persuade the patient to allow the treatment to commence, and still more to allow it to go on. Morse was stretched out on his back on the sand, and the


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"doctor" sat down by his head and commenced a chant. At the end of each verse he sucked his patient's cheek noisily, and proceeded to produce from his own mouth an ant, a shell, a good-sized spider, a snail or a small crab, after which he would show us what he had "extracted" and go into a fit of violent vomiting. Then another verse commenced with the same result; and so on, until he had produced a hatful of insects, dead or alive, after chanting some twenty verses. Meanwhile it was all we could do to keep Morse down. Finally the "doctor" chose a live coal from the fire, blew it to a red heat, and asked Ed. to open his mouth. The latter took one look at the offer and jumped to his feet. After it had been carefully explained to him that he was not expected to swallow the burning ember, but only allow it to be held, in a mussel shell in his open mouth, he assented. Then came the real cure. Pitacunca broke up into powder some fine leaves (I didn't learn what plant it was) and scattering them on the hot charcoal, held the latter in Morse's mouth so that the fumes from the leaf powder passed round the bad tooth. The pain left him within five minutes and never returned. If it was a coincidence, it was a very remarkable one.

    On another occasion, I myself had been bitten by a fly which deposits an egg under the skin which grows into a fat worm. I was suffering from the repeated attacks of the grub, which was embedded in my back. Once more Pitacunca volunteered assistance, which I gladly accepted. He asked for a cigarette, which I rolled and proffered him. He smoked it and blew the smoke through a fluff of cotton causing the nicotine to condense. The usual incantations commenced, and continued for about ten minutes (as many verses sufficed, apparently, to extract a worm!). With his


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mouth close to the spot where the worm lay, he made a funny indescribable noise understood by the worm to be the only tune worth coming out to hear, applying the cotton at the same time. Well, out he came, sure enough (driven out, no doubt, by the nicotine, to whose cleansing qualities I have referred before).

    In times of war, the medicine man accompanies the fighting men (he fights himself, too) to cast spells on the enemy, to foretell victory (invariably), and to render his comrades-in-arms immune from hostile influence. Finally, he alone can make the pots in which the fruits of battle, the heads of the enemy slain, must be treated. Of this I shall speak later.

    To return to my tale, then, the canoemen had to go. But we were determined that they should not carry off with them the wage which they had done so little (and that little so very unwillingly) to earn. It would be a bad precedent to set, for, if ever we had occasion to need their services or those of any other of their tribe again, we should start at a disadvantage if they thought they could fool us, as they certainly did, despite our precautions.

    We made them build us a shack that evening on the island, and next morning a permanent shelter on the mainland, in which to cache part of our stores against our return, being unable to paddle so great a weight up-stream without their help. They all worked hard and with a good will, for freedom would be theirs within a few hours. Then we broke the news to them that they must return their axes and machetes, having failed to keep their contract. After the usual pow-wow they were handed over. It was not so peaceable a transaction as it might have been, for we had to hold them up with our rifles before we could make them give up our property. And then they went .




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    It was not till they had been gone two hours or more that we had the idea of opening our cases of stores to see that all was in order. Half the axes and machetes and three-quarters of the poison had gone. Now the boxes and cases in which they were carried were purposely fastened with long screws, the secret of which we had not thought that any savage would discover. But, too late, it dawned on us that I myself had been indiscreet enough to open a box one day when that old thief Pitacunca was looking on. So, day by day, as we had been pushing up the Santiago, more and more stores were carefully extracted (the Jívaros using the very machetes we had given them as screwdrivers in just the same way as I did myself) and cached as we travelled along in the heavy verdure which lines the banks of that river. So it happened that they drew ten times the pay they had contracted for, after all. It was too late to do anything in the way of revenge. Had we had a speed launch at hand, we might have caught those stalwart robbers, but hardly otherwise. They must have reached home in one day's paddling. We never saw Pitacunca again.

    The loss of that fine poison which Morse and Iberico had gone to such pains to obtain in the Huallaga River and bring along with the Exploradora, rankled in our minds for many a long day, aggravated by the thought of the sweet revenge which we could have taken, had we known in time, by appropriating that fine canoe in which the Jívaros escaped and turning them loose to their own devices on the bank.

    Next, we were confronted with the loss of the Peruvians, Pedro and Iberico. The day after the Indians went they confessed that their keenness for exploration had suffered under the oppressive thought of what might be awaiting us up-river. The desertion of


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Pitacunca's party was the last straw. They too were going -- and the sooner the better. We raised no objections, for an unwilling horse throws the whole team out of stride. They were outside the circle of the camp fire to a certain extent also, for we five who constituted the remainder of the party always talked in English. Jack Rouse would never have learned a word of a foreign language had he lived to be ninety. The nearest he ever got to "talking the language of the country" was to put a Spanish termination on an English verb. "Let the beggars learn English," he would say on all occasions.

    So that same day, October 10th, the two set out. I have a record of this incident.

   
"At ten o'clock this morning (by the sun) Iberico and Pedro said `Good-bye.' They left for Barranca in one of the smaller canoes, leaving us with only two. They seemed to regret leaving us in a way, but their departure was not exactly a surprise, for they have shown distinctly less interest in our progress for some days. Yesterday, when Pitacunca dipped his paddle on the way down-stream, I fancied I detected a suspicion of envy in their eyes. Now at any rate, we are reduced to the absolute minimum, and progress will be slow."

    Before leaving that camp, we did some prospecting on the shores of the island, and found the first gold of the trip. Jack had often panned out colours, but nothing more. Despite our success we had no intention of halting here at this time longer than was necessary to follow up the first indications. In the course of the next three days we scraped together between three and four ounces. So things began to look even rosier than they had on the day in Borja when we found a good-sized flake of pure metal in the gizzard of a


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paujil. (Whenever we killed one of the big birds, Jack would always pan out the contents of the gizzard.)

    Our operations were interrupted on the fourth day.

    Early in the morning, Jack and Ed. went off in one of the canoes down-stream to look for turtles' eggs on a sand-spit a few hundred yards away. Game and I were preparing to put off in the other to go up-stream and look for indications of the Indians, or gold, or turtles, or anything of interest. We were of an enquiring turn of mind in those days. Now Jack was not noted for displays of emotion of any kind. (He was then forty-eight years old, and had never seen his parents since he had run away from them when he was fourteen.) So when we saw him jump to his feet in the canoe and begin waving his arms and shouting like a maniac, we guessed there must be something rather unusual happening. A bend in the river hid from our view the reach below where they were, so all we could see was a single dugout making for the island as hard as two apparent madmen could propel it, while at intervals the occupants would stop paddling, stand up, and point their rifles menacingly at some pursuing power which was for us a mystery.

    We jumped into our own craft and made for the island, so as to meet Jack and Ed. A few strokes across the current brought us there before they grounded. We turned to look down-stream from this point. Sweeping along under the right bank came fifty-five Jívaro canoes in single file, a huge serpent moving with perfect rhythm.




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Chapter 20

CHAPTER XX
WAR

    A game of bluff -- Tuhuimpui declines a drink -- The electric eel -- Sea-beans -- Vanilla -- An interrupted sleep -- Charred wood -- Yacu-Mámam smiles -- We take to the woods -- Huito -- The war-dance -- Yacu-Mámam smiles again -- A hideous company -- Game has trouble with his shoes -- The attack.