Across Unknown South America Part 17

Brazil was certainly a great country for tablelands. As we came out again into the open, another great plateau, ending with a spur not unlike the ram of a battleship, loomed in the foreground to the south. Yet another plateau of a beautiful pure cobalt, also with another gigantic ram, appeared behind the first, in continuation of the two separated plateaux we have already examined. It was separated from these by a deep cut--a regular canon--several miles wide, and with sides so sharply defined that it looked like the artificial work of an immense ca.n.a.l.

Great campos lay before us in the near foreground, from our high point of vantage (elev. 1,550 ft.). We were still travelling on a surface of volcanic debris, yellow ashes and sand--forming a mere cap over all those hills, the foundation of which was simply a succession of giant domes of lava.

North-west we still had the almost flat sky-line of a plateau rising slightly in two well-defined steps or terraces to a greater height in its northern part. What most attracted me that day was the delightful view of the Barreiros valley spreading before us--a view of truly extraordinary grandeur.

We rapidly descended, leaving to our left the Indian colony of Aracy.

Great granitic and lava slabs, much striated, were seen on our way down to the river (elev. 1,200 ft.). The stream was 50 metres wide, and flowed south where we crossed it. There was a handsome white sand beach on the left bank of the river. On the western, or right bank, stood great volcanic cliffs of boiled and broiled rock, interesting for the violent contortions they had undergone during the processes of ebullition, which showed plainly in their present solidified form.

The river bed itself was one of the usual lava-flows with huge globular lumps and knots--but all in a solid, uninterrupted ma.s.s.

We waded chest-deep across the stream, conveyed our baggage and mules to the opposite side, and then we all enjoyed a lovely bath with plenty of lathering soap in the deliciously refreshing waters of the Rio Barreiros.

The river Barreiros, which had its birth in the Serra Furnas Corros, to the south-west, entered the Rio das Garcas--there 100 metres wide--a short distance from where we crossed it. The latter river, by far the larger of the two and of a very circuitous course, flowed in a south-easterly direction into the Araguaya. The Rio das Garcas, which also had its origin in the Furnas Corros Mountains, had almost a parallel course with the upper Barreiros from south-west to north-east, but on meeting the Barreiros suddenly swung round at a sharp angle towards the south-east, which direction it more or less followed until it entered the Araguaya.

We made our camp on the right bank of the Barreiros River. My men were in a great state of mind when I told them that perhaps on this river we might find some Indians. The cautious way in which they remained as quiet as lambs in camp amused me. I noticed the care with which they cleaned their rifles and replenished their magazines with cartridges. I a.s.sured them that there was no danger--in fact, that quite close to this place we should find one of the Salesian colonies.

CHAPTER XIV

The Bororo Indians

WHILE I was rea.s.suring my men an Indian appeared, bow and arrows in hand.

He stood motionless, looking at us. My men, who had not noticed his coming, were terrified when they turned round and saw him.

The Indian was a strikingly picturesque figure, with straight, sinewy arms and legs of wonderfully perfect anatomical modelling, well-shaped feet--but not small--and hands. He was not burdened with clothing; in fact, he wore nothing at all, barring a small belt round his waist and a fibre amulet on each arm.

The Indian deposited his bow and arrows against a tree when some other Indians arrived. He stood there as straight and as still as a bronze statue, his head slightly inclined forward in order to screen his searching eagle eyes from the light by the shade of his protruding brow.

He folded his arms in a peculiar manner. His left hand was inserted flat under the right arm, the right hand fully spread flat upon his abdomen.

The first thing I did was to take a snapshot of him before he moved. Then I proceeded to the interesting study of his features. They were indeed a great revelation to me. One single glance at him and his comrades persuaded me that a theory I had long cherished about the aboriginal population of the South American continent was correct, although in contradiction to theories held by other people on the subject. I had always believed--for reasons which I shall fully explain later--that South America must be peopled by tribes of an Australoid or Papuan type--people who had got there directly from the west or south-west, not by people who had gradually drifted there from the north.

Some scientists--with no experience of travel--have been greatly misled by the fact that the North American Indians are decidedly a Mongolian race. Therefore they a.s.sumed--basing their a.s.sumption on incorrect data--that the unknown Indians of South America must also be Mongolian.

This was a mistake, although undoubtedly migrations on a comparatively small scale of Indians from North to South America must have taken place, chiefly along the western American coast. Those tribes, however, unaccustomed to high mountains, never crossed the Andes. Whatever types of Indians with Mongolian characteristics were found settled in South America were to be found to the west of the Andes and not to the east.

This does not of course mean that in recent years, when roads and railways and steamships have been established, and communication made comparatively easy, individuals or families may not have been conveyed from one coast to the other of the South American continent. But I wish my reader to keep in mind for a moment a clear distinction between the Indians of the western coast and the Indians of the interior.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Fine Bororo Type on a Visit to Author's Camp.]

To return to our man: I was greatly impressed by the strongly Australoid or Papuan nose he possessed--in other words, broad, with the lower part forming a flattened, depressed, somewhat enlarged hook with heavy nostrils. In profile his face was markedly convex, not concave as in Mongolian faces. Then the glabella or central boss in the supra-orbital region, the nose, the chin, were prominent, the latter broad and well-rounded. The cheek-bones with him and other types of his tribe were prominent forwards, but not unduly broad laterally, so that the face in front view was, roughly speaking, of a long oval, but inclined to be more angular--almost shield-shaped. The lips were medium-sized and firmly closed, such as in more civilized people would denote great determination. His ears were covered up by long jet-black hair, perfectly straight and somewhat coa.r.s.e in texture, healthy-looking and uniformly scattered upon the scalp. The hair was cut straight horizontally high upon the forehead, which thus showed a considerable slant backward from the brow to the base of the hair. A small pigtail hung behind the head.

The hair at the sides was left to grow down so as fully to cover the lobes of the ears, where again it was cut horizontally at the sides and back of the head. The top of the head was of great height, quite unlike a Mongolian cranium.

The eyes--close to the nose, and of a shiny dark brown--had their long axis nearly in one horizontal plane. They were set rather far back, were well cut, with thick upper eyelids, and placed somewhat high up against the brow ridges so as to leave little room for exposure of the upper lid when open.

None of the other Indians, who had gradually a.s.sembled, wore a particle of clothing, barring a tight conical collar of orange-coloured fibre encircling their genital organs--so tight that it almost cut into the skin. Without this solitary article of clothing no Indian man will allow himself to be seen by another, less still by a stranger. But with so modest an attire he feels as well-dressed as anybody. I think that this elegant article of fashion must have originated as a sanitary precaution, in order to prevent insects of all kinds, and particularly _carrapatos_, penetrating within--or else I was really at a loss to understand of what other use it could be. They themselves would not say, and only replied that all Bororo Indian men wore it. The Indians who had a.s.sembled all belonged to the Bororo tribe.

On that, as well as on later occasions, I noticed two distinct types among the Bororos: one purely Papuan or Polynesian; the other strongly Malay. The characteristics of those two different types showed themselves markedly in every instance. The majority were perhaps of the Malay type.

I was intensely interested at the astounding resemblance of these people to the piratical tribes of the Sulu Archipelago in the Celebes Sea, where, too, one met a considerable amount of mixture of those two types as well as specimens of pure types of the two races.

Among the Bororos many were the individuals--of the Malay type--who had the typical Malay eye _a fleur de tete_, prominent, almond-shaped, and slightly slanting at the outer angle. The nose--unlike that of Papuan types--was flattened in its upper region between the eyes, and somewhat b.u.t.ton-like and turned up at the lower part--just the reverse of the Papuan types, who had prominent aquiline noses with a high bridge and globular point turned down instead of up.

The lips were in no case unduly prominent, nor thick. They were almost invariably kept tightly closed.

The form of the palate was highly curious from an anthropological point of view. It was almost rectangular, the angles of the front part being slightly wider than a right angle.

The front teeth were of great beauty, and were not set, as in most jaws, on a more or less marked curve, but were almost on a straight line--the incisors being almost absolutely vertical and meeting the side teeth at an angle of about 60. The upper teeth overlapped the lower ones.

The chin was well developed--square and flattened in the Papuan types, but receding, flat and small in the Malay types.

Both types were absolutely hairless on the face and body, which was partly natural and partly due to the tribal custom of pulling out carefully, one by one, each hair they possessed on the upper lip and upon the body--a most painful process. The women--as we shall see--in sign of deep mourning, also plucked out each hair of the scalp.

A striking characteristic of the head--in Papuan types--was the great breadth of the maximum transverse of the head, and the undue prominence of the supra-orbital ridges. Also, the great height of the forehead and its great width in its upper part were typical of the race. The maximum antero-posterior diameter of the skull was equal, in many cases, to the vertical length of the head, taken from the angle of the jaw to the apex of the skull.

The ears nearly invariably showed mean, under-developed lobes, but, strangely enough, were otherwise well shaped, with gracefully defined and chiselled curves. They were not unduly large, with a wonderfully well-formed concha, which fact explained why the acoustic properties of their oral organs were perfect. They made full use of this in long-distance signalling by means of acute whistles, of which the Bororos had a regular code.

The favourite form of earring adopted by the Bororos was a bra.s.s ring with a metal or sh.e.l.l crescent, not unlike the Turkish moon, but I do not think that this ornament was of Bororo origin. Very likely it was suggested by the cheap jewellery imported into Brazil by Turkish and Syrian traders.

They displayed powerful chests, with ribs well covered with flesh and muscle. With their dark yellow skins they were not unlike beautiful bronze torsi. The abdominal region was never unduly enlarged, perhaps owing to the fact that their digestion was good, and also because they took a considerable amount of daily exercise. In standing they kept their shoulders well back, the abdominal region being slightly in front of the chest. The head was usually slightly inclined downwards.

The feet of the Bororos of the Malay type were generally stumpy, but this was not so with the higher Papuan types, who, on the contrary, had abnormally long toes and elongated feet, rather flattened. The Bororos used their toes almost as much as their fingers, and showed great dexterity in picking up things, or in spinning twine, when their toes did quite as much work as their fingers.

The colour of the iris of the Bororo eye was brown, with considerable discoloration around its outer periphery, and especially in the upper part, where it was covered by the lid. The eyes were generally kept half closed.

The anatomical detail of the body was perfectly balanced. The arms were powerful, but with fine, well-formed wrists--exquisitely chiselled, as were all the attachments of their limbs. They had quite graceful hands, long-fingered--in more ways than one--and wonderfully well-shaped, elongated, convex-faced nails, which would arouse the envy of many a lady of Western countries. The webbing between the fingers was infinitesimal, as with most Malay races. Great refinement of race was also to be noticed in the shape of their legs--marvellously modelled, without an ounce of extra flesh, and with small ankles.

The Bororos divided themselves into two separate families--the Bororo Cerados and the Bororo Tugaregghi. The first descended from Baccoron; the second claimed descent from Ittibori. Baccoron lived where the sun set, in the west; Ittibari dwelt in the east.

I heard a strange legend in connection with their origin, in which they seemed proud of their descent from the jaguar--which to them represented the type of virility. A male jaguar, they said, had married a Bororo woman.

A sensible custom existed among the Bororos, as among the Tuaregs of the Sahara desert in Africa. The children took the name of the mother and not of the father. The Bororos, like the Tuaregs, rightly claimed that there could be no mistake as to who the mother of a child was, but that certainty did not always apply to the father. This was decidedly a sensible law among the Bororos, who were most inconstant in their affections. They were seldom faithful to their wives--at least, for any length of time.

The Bororos were not prolific. They frequently indulged in criminal practices in order to dispose of their young--either by strangulation at birth or soon after, or by drugging their women before the birth of the child. The young, when allowed to live, took milk from their mothers until the ages of five or six years. The parents were extremely kind to their children; indeed, they were extraordinarily good-natured and considerate. Eight days after birth they perforated the lower lip of male children and inserted a pendant, taking that opportunity to give a name to the child. The lobes of the ears were only perforated at the age of ten or twelve.

It was only at the age of about twenty that men were allowed to marry.

I found among the Bororos an interesting custom which I had seen but once before--in Central Asia, on the slopes of the Himalaya Mountains, among the Shoka tribesmen. I am referring to the "clubs"--called by the Bororos _Wai manna ghetgiao_. There the young men and girls went not only with the object of selecting a wife or husband, but also to get thoroughly acquainted and see if the mate selected were suitable or not. The men sat on one side of the club-house--a mere hut--the women on the other. In a way, these clubs prevented hasty marriages, for the men were given plenty of time to study their prospective brides and the girls their future husbands. Curiously enough, in the Bororo country it was generally the woman who proposed to the man. When the official engagement was made the man proceeded to the hut of his sweetheart and brought a gift of food for her and her mother. If the gifts were accepted there was no other formality to be gone through, and the matrimonial ceremony was indeed of the simplest kind. The man took away the girl to his hut and they were man and wife.

The _cuisine_ of the Bororos was not attractive to European palate, ears or eyes. One of the favourite dishes of the Bororos, served on grand occasions, was the _mingao_, or Indian corn chewed up into a paste inside their mouths by women and then displayed before the guests in earthen pots filled with fresh water, in which it was then cooked.

The Bororos maintained that the sun, _Cervado_, and the moon, _Ittary_, were two brothers, both being males.

They believed in a superior Being--the essence of goodness and kindness--a Being who will never give pain or hurt anybody; therefore the Bororo, who was really at heart a great philosopher, never offered prayers to that superior Being. Why pray and worry one who will never injure us? they argued.

Then they believed in a wicked and revengeful devil, the _Boppe_, to whom constant attention was paid because by him was caused all the trouble that humans can have. Malady, accidents, disaster in love, in hunting or fishing expeditions--for all these the devil _Boppe_ was responsible.

Then they had also another evil spirit--the _Aroe Taurari_--who, they said, often a.s.sumed the appearance of their ancestors in order to come and watch the games of the Bororos, such as wrestling and archery.

Wrestling--in the catch-as-catch-can style--was one of their favourite games. They were very agile at it. Their favourite trick was to seize each other across the shoulders, each endeavouring to trip his opponent by a twisted leg round his knee. Children in the _aldejas_ were playing at this game all the time. In the Bororo wrestling-matches it was sufficient to be thrown down to be the loser, and it was not essential to touch the ground with both shoulder-blades.