Indians, like most coloured races, are abject cowards in pain or disease. They will bear torture stoically enough when deliberately inflicted, but should they suffer from any, to them, mysterious reason, in their ignorance of natural causes they at once ascribe their affliction to witchcraft. To this possibly may be due the hapless manner in which they will lay them down to die, and actually succeed in doing so by auto-suggestion.

To the Indian in common with other peoples of the lower cultures, moreover, there is no such thing as death from natural causes. It is the result either of poison administered in secret by an enemy, or magical evil wrought by him or at his instigation, and the crashing of the thunder is the magic noise that accompanies the fatal result. If a possible enemy is known or suspected, or if, after divination, the medicine-man can identify the culprit, it becomes the duty of the relatives to avenge the deceased, who has, according to Indian logic, been murdered.[274]

Without doubt a very large number of deaths are due to poison. Removal by poison is practised to a great extent by the Karahone, who have, as has been said, much scientific knowledge of poisons and their effects. Further, it is the custom of the tribal medicine-man when his patients are in what he considers to be a hopeless condition, to administer a dose of poison quietly to the moribund sufferers after he has declared that all his skill is in vain, and announced that recovery is impossible. For the medicine-man it then becomes more important to secure the fulfilment of his verdict than to risk the chance of recovery falsifying his prognostications. The probability is that the patient would die, if for no other reason than that the medicine-man foretold his death, but that gentleman will take no risks.[275]

There are other and more recognised cases in which it is the medicine-man’s province to administer a fatal draught. A mad person, for example, is first exorcised by the medicine-man to expel his madness. If this fails to secure the eviction of the evil spirits that cause the madness, the man is put to death to ensure the destruction of the bad influence which, since it passes the doctor’s power to remedy, has presumably been sent by some hostile colleague with greater magical gifts. Occasionally also, when any serious accident has befallen an Indian, a medicine-man goes through the ceremony of placing him in a secluded part of the bush, and administering the usual narcotic. The patient is then left for the night. The next day his relatives return, and if he is not dead he recounts to them his dreams, and from these they deduct who is the enemy that has caused his sickness. Reprisals naturally follow.

Should any known infectious disease break out in a tribe, those attacked by it are immediately left, even by their closest relatives, the house is abandoned, and possibly even burnt. Such derelict houses are no uncommon sight in the forest, grimly desolate mementos of possible tragedies.

Perhaps the cruel treatment of the sick arises from the fact that all disease is regarded as due to an enemy who essays by such means to procure the destruction of the tribe. Fear is undoubtedly the root-cause. But it must also be remembered that where life is not easy for the hale and hearty, for the helpless it is impossible except in so far as they can prey upon their active neighbours. The question of self-preservation comes in to complicate the problem of the unfit. At every point it is clearly to be seen that the survival of the most fit is the very real and the very stern rule of life in the Amazonian forests. From birth to death it rules the Indians’ life and philosophy. To help to preserve the unfit would often be to prejudice the chances of the fit.[276] There are no arm-chair sentimentalists to oppose this very practical consideration. The Indian judges it by his standard of common sense: why live a life that has ceased to be worth living when there is no bugbear of a hell to make one cling to the most miserable of existences rather than risk greater misery? Moreover, in Indian opinion, such clinging to life is a very arrant selfishness.

Certainly cases of chronic illness meet with no sympathy from the Indians. A man who cannot hunt or fight is regarded as useless, he is merely a burden on the community. Should he show no signs of eventual recovery, his friends unhesitatingly leave him to die, or, if a medicine-man has not been commissioned to put him out of the way, he is driven into the bush, where the same end is speedily attained. This is done not only to the invalids, but also to the aged members of a tribe, unless they possess great wisdom and experience, and so are of great tribal worth. Otherwise they, too, have ceased to be units of any practical value in tribal life, and merely hamper the more active. Actual parricide there is none; old people are not killed, but they are left to die. There is no sentimental desire for their company, no affection to lighten the unhappiness of their lot. If they are unable to tend themselves, not an Indian will go out of his way to render any help or service. Cassava may be thrown to them occasionally, or it may be forgotten, and without doubt in times of scarcity no provision whatever is made for the feeble and the failing who can make none for themselves. Slaves, of course, are looked upon as of no account, and if sick or crippled they are abandoned without a thought. If a woman with a young child should die, and no one be found willing to adopt the infant, the father argues that it must die anyhow, and it is either quietly killed and buried with the dead mother, or exposed in the bush.[277]

The reason that underlies such neglect of the sick and infirm has, on the other hand, resulted in the prevention of intra-tribal homicide. If the survival of the unfit is not to be desired, the existence of the fit is to be encouraged by all possible means. On the whole, although sick people are neglected, I do not think that they are often destroyed. Frequently a sick Indian has appealed to me, “Oh! let me die,” but none has ever said, “Kill me!” Intra-tribal homicide is certainly prohibited by custom, otherwise homicide is only limited by fear of reprisal, a more effective combination than any police force or criminal code. Even as punishment for an admitted offence, homicide within the tribe is not tolerated, for if a man die it means the loss of a warrior, an injury to tribal strength, a matter not to be lightly risked where the battle is only to the strong. There is, however, one exception to this, and that is in the case of theft. Living as these peoples do an absolutely public life, theft becomes of necessity a capital crime. The loser, if he can catch the thief, will kill him by knocking him down by a blow on the legs with the iron-wood sword, and then hacking off his head. This retribution is considered perfectly justifiable by the tribe, and is indeed sanctioned by custom.

After a murder has been committed it is the sacred duty of some brother or near relative of the dead to kill the murderer, or, if not, at least a relative of his, in accordance with the world-old idea of an eye for an eye. A man who refused to revenge a murdered relative would be taunted by all the women, and this would soon render his own life in the tribe an intolerable one. But I have never come across the custom which is prevalent in Africa among some primitive peoples, that is, to search for the same relative to the murdered as the murdered man was to the avenger: for example, “You have killed my nephew, I will kill your nephew.”

When an intentional murder has been committed the murderer flies to the bush, where he is promptly followed, and the pursuit is not foregone until the criminal is secured or the pursuers find themselves in imminent danger from a hostile tribe. In the latter case the blood-feud remains open for an early settlement, and the friends of the murderer are dealt with first.

Homicide is, in fact, always looked upon as a wrong done to a man’s tribe or family, rather than to the individual himself. In the case of accidental homicide it may still lead to a blood-feud. The deed is done, that is sufficient for these simple-minded folk. It may possibly be put down to the witchcraft of some neighbouring medicine-man who has bewitched the unintentional slayer with hostile motives; but that will not save the unfortunate offender, rather is it an additional argument that he should be destroyed lest worse trouble follow. There is also to be reckoned with the idea that the dead man’s spirit will haunt the tribe, and especially his nearest relative, until his blood has been avenged.[278] Besides, it is undoubtedly difficult to draw the line between accident and design, and, for the matter of that, the meaning of the word “accident” is unknown to the Indian.

The chief and the tribe will sometimes take up the quarrel as their own, but, on the other hand, a man considers it a disgraceful thing not to be able to avenge his own wrongs, and, therefore, never applies to the chief for tribal help. This is true of all small communities, an affront of any one of the community being a personal attack upon every other member, but it is not necessary that it should be avenged by all, unless the affronted one be unable for any cause to complete his revenge by himself.

No tribal notice is taken of a murder committed intra-family, such as the murder of a son or a wife, as no revenge is necessary; the loss only affects the murderers, and it is simply arranged by the family itself. The loss of one member does not suggest itself as a reasonable cause for compelling the loss of another. The one exception to this would be if the murdered man were a noted warrior whose death would constitute a serious tribal loss. Action might then be taken by the whole tribe after the usual tobacco palaver.

So much for death by violence; there remains something to be said of death by disease, and of sickness not necessarily ending in death.

All travellers and writers have noticed how prone the Indian is to sun-sickness. Living as he does in the perpetual gloom of his tribal house, or the restricted light of the forest depths, he appears to be exceptionally susceptible to the effects of strong sunshine. His sensitiveness is tried further by any sort of change, even a transference from the upper reaches to the main rivers completely upsets him. Indians appear to go sick especially on moving only a short way from their own locality. They are also bad subjects for malarial fevers, and the Issa River is notoriously unhealthy in this respect. By this I mean the river itself, and in its immediate vicinage. Even a few hundred yards away from its banks the country is comparatively healthy and free from pestilent fly-belts, which, it will be remembered, are at their worst some three days steam up that river.[279] On the Brazilian frontier especially the pium from sunrise to sunset is unbearable. The beginning of the rains invariably brings fever.

On the other hand, chest complaints are rare, respiratory disease is unknown, and throat diseases uncommon, though you meet victims to rheumatism and cramp. There is no venereal disease among these tribes, and no umbilical hernia. Phimosis is common, and so are gastric complaints. Diseases of the eye are rare, though squinting is extremely prevalent.

There are many parasitic diseases. Ringworm and intestinal worm are very general troubles, and lice in the head universal. Jiggers in the Indian houses are a pest to all, and one of the daily duties of the Indian wife consists in the examination of her man’s feet to remove any thorns or jiggers that may have effected a lodgment. This jigger is similar to the African species; it burrows into the foot, and lays its eggs beneath the skin. I have had as many as thirty-seven picked out of my foot at one time. The nuisance can be largely diminished if the traveller take the precaution always to wear boots in or about an Indian house, for jiggers are not found in the bush itself, though a somewhat similar pest abounds on the leaves and grasses,[280] and causes abominable irritation. In the Rubber Belt the usual remedy for this is a bath of white rum.

Near the Rubber Belt smallpox has found its devastating way among the Indians. I have said that they fear any contagious disease, and will often leave a sick person to die, so it may well be understood that a case of smallpox causes the utmost panic and consternation.[281] Tribes further removed from contact with “civilisation” are spared this scourge, but I noticed a form of measles among the children. Yellow fever is not known in the upper reaches, but I can answer for it that beriberi is, as I fell a victim to it myself. It is very prevalent in all this country, but it does not attack the Indians.[282]

The Napo Indians suffer from skin diseases that are not known to the tribes in the Issa and Japura valleys. There is a bluish discoloration and white blotch that is said to come from eating tapir.[283] Among the Karahone one meets with cases afflicted in the same manner as natives on the Apaporis. They are spotted with a leprosy which is said to be due to the amount of fish that is eaten by these tribes. This disease is otherwise unknown.

All strangers suffer from ulcers on the legs.[284] Among the Indians themselves sores are common,[285] but I think are due entirely to neglected wounds caused by palm-spines and so forth, not to climate and feeding as would be the case with ourselves. Stings also have to be reckoned with.

Indian remedies are rather symptomatic than specific;[286] the methods of cure will be more fully dealt with in connection with the medicine-men. The remedies are rather of the order of kill than cure. For instance, fever is treated by the drastic method of bathing in the cold water of the river to lower the temperature.[287] On the Napo the natives take a concoction of tobacco-water and quinine. They make a remedy for wounds from the bark of a tree, which they boil, and use the liquid to wash the wound. A root found in the forest yields a narcotic much employed by the medicine-man when it is scraped, crushed, and boiled in water. Another remedy, acting as a counter-irritant, is a sage-green feathery moss, some species of lichen, very dry, that grows round the roots of trees.

During my stay with the tribes I never met with any such frantic sorrow at a death as is described by Koch-GrÜnberg,[288] though a mother will cry over the body of a dead child,[289] and sobbing, wailing, and a certain amount of excited grief is shown at a funeral, especially if it be that of an important person.

Burial takes place without delay on the day of death. The dead man, unwashed, is wrapped in his hammock in a sitting position, and a grave is dug immediately below the place where the hammock was slung in his lifetime. Though they only dig deep enough to hide the body, this custom of intramural interment does not appear to have unhealthy effects upon the other inhabitants of the house, and no epidemic ever seems to arise in consequence. The dead man’s ornaments, his arms, and other personal possessions, such as his tobacco-bag, his coca-pot, are placed in the leaf-lined grave beside him. The whole interment is carried out with all speed, to get the body out of the way as quickly as they possibly can. South of the Issa a canoe or earthen jar takes the place of the hammock for shroud, but I never met with any urn burial, primary or secondary, among the tribes of the north.[290]

When the deceased is a woman the same procedure is followed, only pots are buried with her in place of weapons. Among the Kuretu-language group, when a woman dies, her pots are broken before they are placed in the grave,[291] and her baskets are also buried with her in addition to her ornaments. This is done to prevent the return of the soul to ask for its properties should they be needed in the spirit world.

When a chief has died the ceremonies are more elaborate. His body, like any other man’s, is wrapped in his palm-fibre hammock, and he is buried with his weapons, ornaments, and private treasures. But after the grave is filled in, the assembled tribe partake of a funeral feast. In the intervals of drinking and dancing the mourners sing of the great achievements, the worthiness and virtues of the dead man. The new chief comes forward, attired in the prescribed fashion, wearing a weird and wonderful head-dress to attract attention. He does not face the assembled people, but turns to the wall of the house, and speaks with his back to the tribe.

After a burial a fire is made over the new grave by the relatives, and is always kept burning for some days, except in the case of a chief, when the whole house is burnt. This may possibly counteract the obvious dangers of these intramural burials, and account for the absence of evil results.

Whatever mourning may be indulged in before the body is buried, no grief is ever shown after the interment, for the spirit has then departed. This belief explains why a man’s grave is not marked in any way by these tribes, and has, as a matter of course, no claim to respect from his survivors.

It is possible that the question of cannibal customs as insults to the dead also influence the Indians in the matter of burial, and the absence of sign upon a grave. It would in some measure account for the burial in the house—as a protective measure—in spite of the fact that they recognise the danger of the spirit’s return, a belief which would more naturally incline them to extramural burials.

Ceremonial bathing always takes place after a funeral, in which every one takes part for the purpose of purification.