Thomas Whiffen

No individualism—Effect of isolation—Extreme reserve of Indians—Cruelty—Dislike and fear of strangers—Indian hospitality—Treachery—Theft punished by death—Dualism of ethics—Vengeance—Moral sense and custom—Modesty of the women—Jealousy of the men—Hatred of white man—Ingratitude—Curiosity—Indians retarded but not degenerate—No evidence of reversion from higher culture—A neolithic people—Conclusion.

We find in all savage races, peoples of the lower cultures, that there is no differentiation of individualism, that is to say all members of the race or group are at approximately the same level. This is what we know as a “low state of civilisation.” It has been suggested that such dead level, the lack of all initiative, of progress in short, is due to the absence of religion, of ideals or gods, through which true enthusiasm only is engendered. A religious ideal undoubtedly tends to progress, and with the exception of patriotism—which, after all, is a religious ideal—is the main influence. It is a case of cause and effect, however, for the effect of environment must not be overlooked. Local conditions initiate progress and may cause enthusiasm for an ideal, the effect and, at the same time, the potent accelerator of such progression.

It is an extraordinary but undeniable fact that the Indian is individually wise yet racially foolish, individually intelligent, racially inept. This may be due entirely to geographical control, to the peculiar characteristics of the social environment. The greatest incitement to human progress, intercommunication, is denied in the Amazon wilds. True, there are the rivers, but the value of rivers and waterways in this respect is negatived by custom. Existing conditions make this necessary, for in isolation alone is protection to be found for any tribe.

We find, then, the group system, where the community is everything, the individual nothing, blocking the path of progressive evolution to a very great extent among the forest Indians of South America, as it has done among the native tribes of Australia. The individual can gain nothing for himself, he can only work for the greater glory of the group, and has therefore no intimate incentive for strenuous advancement. A tribe has little or no opportunity for progress when it consists of but a few hundred members, and is practically isolated from all other tribes, except for the hardly intellectual shock of war, or perhaps the occasional intrusion of some wandering barterer, a member of possibly a hostile tribe, who is tolerated on account of the necessary articles which he brings, things that cannot be manufactured by the tribes he visits.

The Indian is hedged about with a constricting environment against which he can scarcely be said to battle. He accepts with the resignation of the East, and knows nothing of the restless rebellion that makes for Western amelioration and progress. What the Indian lacks is not intelligence but character, that is to say will-power. The Indian is brave, he endures pain and privation with the greatest stoicism, he can be doggedly obstinate, but only in exceptional cases can he rise above his fellows to anything approaching individuality and strength of mind.

The dominant characteristic of the Indian is a profound and nervous reserve. The extreme nervousness of his manner is due undoubtedly to wholesale indulgence in coca. It affects all the conditions of social intercourse. It makes the Indian character extraordinarily negative. Enthusiasm is to seek in Amazonia. The Indian never expresses violent joy or fear. A shock is more likely to raise a laugh from him than a cry. He will submit to much, he will bear greatly, but it is easy to provoke a laugh against even a fellow-tribesman. An Indian will invariably laugh at another’s discomfiture. But with a stranger all Indians are taciturn, and they will have little or nothing to say to him if he be a white man.

Outside the narrow limit of the tribe the Indians possess no altruistic feelings, no sympathy with strangers. They look upon every man as a definite, or at least a possible enemy. The gentle Indian, peaceful and loving, is a fiction of perfervid imaginations only. The Indians are innately cruel. They certainly have no true kindliness for animals; every animal is a foe, as I have elsewhere noted. The Maku children are especially cruel to them, but cruelty to the dumb brute is universal among the tribes. On the other hand, intra-tribal hospitality is without end. I have given a single biscuit to a boy and seen him religiously divide it into twenty microscopic pieces for all and sundry. But they are quite improvident so far as the morrow is concerned. If a family is threatened with famine the whole party will walk over to another house, make themselves at home, eat and drink without the slightest hesitation, without even craving invitation so to do. The reason is obvious. The host of to-day may be the guest of to-morrow. I have seen, however, a hunting party doing their best to eat a whole tapir, with the evident desire to finish the feast before the arrival of another, and possibly a less successful, hunting party. Otherwise division of spoil is absolutely equal, except that the chief by right has the greatest share.

The Indian is not always a hospitable host where other than his own tribe or language-group is concerned. Vague tales have penetrated even to his well-guarded ignorance of the customs of the Rubber Belt, of the servitude of his fellows. He hates the white man and mistrusts him. The Andoke are invariably surly in their attitude towards him. There are tribes—the Karahone, for instance, on the northern bank of the Japura—who refuse all attempts whatsoever at intercourse. They will neither receive presents nor ambassadors. If the explorer persist despite the rejection of his overtures he will find poisoned stakes sunk in his path. He will be harassed in all his doings. When at length he attains to the tribal head-quarters he will find a house indeed, and perhaps food, but no warriors, no women, no children The fire will still be burning within the maloka, but the tribe has vanished, leaving no track, no sign of its whereabouts. The Indian’s “Not at home” is no mere social euphemism. It is a demonstrated fact.

When the stranger finds such silent evidence of the tribal attitude toward his presence, it behoves him to take steps very promptly for his protection. He may be certain that the natives, though hidden, are covering his every action. If he, or one of his party, show himself, a flight of poisoned arrows whistles forth from the bush. Then follows a siege that tries the nerves of the stoutest campaigner. The hidden enemy, the noiseless weapons, menace from every tree. It is almost certain death to stop in the open. Within the house is a shelter little more dependable. The natives pierce the thatch with fire-javelins, with tiny spears bearing blazing tufts of hemp or cotton, and sooner or later the great structure will catch fire. There follows the imposed rush into the clearing, and the quick butchery by that unseen but ever-watchful enemy.

Later comes the dance of triumph and the feast of the victims.

Against such an enemy, in such a situation, the resources of civilisation are of little avail. A wretched little dart steeped in the tribal war-poison may be fragile as a reed, but fired from the near shelter of the bush it is as effective as a Mauser bullet.

When travelling among these Indians it is necessary in order to gain their respect to do as they do. I have emphasised this throughout. The traveller must cross the most nerve-racking bridge without help, he may have no hammock in which to be carried. This is a striking contrast to what I have met with in parts of Africa, where to walk is taken as a sign of unimportance; the man who does so cannot in native eyes be what they would call in India a “burra sahib.” I have also noted that the student of life must conform in all things that may be with the customs and habits of the tribesmen with whom he wishes to associate. In a land where pia is the supreme law, deviation from custom can be only regarded as criminal.

When an Indian house is reached the chief comes out with a party of his warriors. The burden of proof rests with the invading European. He advances to the chief with his interpreter, and must make declaration of friendship. If the explanation of his appearance be accepted, the Indian laughs and may slap his visitor vigorously on the back, after the usual custom of the native in South America welcoming the stranger. Together they then proceed to the house, and the chief calls his woman and orders food to be provided for the strangers. The white man on his part tenders whatever he has brought by way of presents—beads, gun-cartridges, a small-tooth comb, or a knife.

When the evening meal is finished the chief stalks into the centre of the maloka, which has hitherto been untenanted, like the arena of a circus before the performance begins. A great fire is made up, and about it the men of the tribe squat on their haunches. The chief explains to them the presence of the stranger, and takes counsel on the question of his entertainment. As he describes his intentions he falls into a rhythmic chant, and his followers assent with deep-chested Huhh! All this is a lengthy business, but the tribe eventually arrive at a common decision. The chief then bends forward to the tribal tobacco pot that has been placed midway among the group. Into this he solemnly dips a tobacco stick, and conveys a little of the liquid to his tongue. Man after man bends forward round the circle, and each in turn dips his splinter of wood into the pot to notify his assent. It is a sign of tribal agreement as binding as the Lord Chancellor’s seal on a document of state. With it the tobacco palaver is concluded and the Indians seek their hammocks for sleep.

The Indian’s treachery is proverbial. I may mention on this point two sayings—there are hundreds similar—which illumine this phase of the character and customs of the tribesmen. The Andoke says, relevant to the Karahone, “If your spirit wander (sleep) in the hammock of a monkey or beast Indian, it wanders always.”[408] The meaning is this, the Karahone appear to have a real and exact knowledge of virulent poisons. It is related that they can saturate a hammock with some narcotic which the victim does not discover, thus ensuring his death or destruction. They also burn fires under the hammock of those they wish to remove from the world, and stifle them with a narcotic smoke.

Another proverbial remark runs: “If a Karahone give you a pineapple, beware.” This refers to the Karahone’s playful habit of presenting poisoned pines. The Boro have a similar saying: “Take a pine from an enemy and die,” but this is due to the recognition of the fact that an Indian is never so dangerous as when simulating hospitality that is treacherous in the extreme.

Perhaps the Indian trait that soonest strikes, and most indelibly impresses the observer, is his charming altruism in the community of the family or tribal group, his wild misanthropy towards other tribes. His ambition is to live undisturbed with his family in the deep recesses of the forest. He asks only to be let alone.

In a region where land is free for all to take who will, and personal belongings are few—and invariably buried with the owner—laws of inheritance there can be none. But the law of possession is strict, and the penalty is death. There can be no toleration of theft, as on account of the publicity in which the Indians live it may be effected with such ease. The punishment for theft has therefore to be drastic, final. The victim may kill the thief. I was told that this is done by hacking at the culprit’s head with a wooden sword or a stone axe. This savours of ceremonial sacrifice. But though to steal from a member of the tribe is to steal from the whole community and therefore a crime, there is no bar against stealing from the stranger. They will do so unblushingly. I remember once missing a pair of scissors. On searching I discovered a Witoto woman stealing them. But she swore she had never put them in her basket, though they were found there!

There is very distinctly a dualism of ethics, one law for the tribe, and another law for all who are not members of it. To kill a fellow-tribesman is to injure the tribe by destroying one of its units. Sin against the individual is of no importance except in so far as injury to any one person is injury to a unit of the tribe, to be punished by the law of retaliation in kind if the offender be of another tribe. Sin against another tribe is no sin except in the eyes of the tribe sinned against; then for its members it becomes not the sin of the individual doer but of his whole community. It is the tribe and not the individual that would be held guilty for any offence committed by one of its members. For instance if a Boro killed a Menimehe, vengeance may be taken by the dead man’s tribe on all or any of the members of the Boro tribe concerned.

Vengeance is primarily a matter for the individual principally affected. A man considers it a disgraceful thing not to be able to avenge himself, and will therefore never apply to the chief for tribal help. On the other hand the chief and the tribe will sometimes take up a quarrel and make it their own. This is a common custom amongst small communities, an affront to any one of the community being a personal attack upon every other member, though it is not necessarily avenged by all unless the affronted one is himself unable to compass revenge.

Members of a tribe sometimes quarrel, though rarely, but at times a fight commences in which others join, till eventually it becomes a “set to” between two families. On the whole I am inclined to say that the natives of the Amazons are the least quarrelsome people I have ever met.

It would be wrong to state that these people have no moral sense, because a slavish adherence to custom in itself is moral. That is to say they possess a moral code. However that does not entail any right or wrong as we know it, but only pia, that is “what our forefathers thought and did,” in other words tribal usage, which may be translated by what we call “good form.” There are no words in the Indian tongues for virtue, justice, humanity, vice, injustice or cruelty. These are unknown to the tribes who differentiate only with the equivalents for good and bad. Points like this earmark the ethics of a people. The curious negative character I have already noted is carried out here also. Again there is recognition of the moral law of conjugal fidelity in that there is definite punishment for infidelity—the ordeal of the stinging ants. Punishment infers transgression of a law or code. It is not sufficient to say that in this case it is due to the extraordinary jealousy of Indian husbands, for the penalty is imposed on both husband and wife, the retribution is due to public opinion not personal revenge. Before marriage the men take the tribal prostitutes—the Maku girls and to some extent the unattached women—openly, but after marriage this is not the case. Incest is unknown among them, and in that term I include promiscuous intercourse among any of the members of a household. The antipathy to this lies only between those living under the same roof, it does not extend to consanguineous individuals who are members of different households.

The women are extraordinarily modest in their behaviour. Their eyes rarely leave the ground in the presence of a stranger. I had one woman in my party who never spoke to me, or even looked in my direction, the whole time we were together. After much dancing, I have seen the women, succumbing to dance stimulation, show their preference for certain men in the dancing party by placing their hands on their shoulders, an act in obedience to the impulse of the moment. In fact after dancing for a length of time they become comparatively boisterous and irresponsible. But even at the height of excitement there is nothing markedly rude in the dance, when one allows for the fact that sexual suggestion is not to be included in that category in Indian ethics. Even on this point they have their limitations, for Koch-GrÜnberg relates that when talking to some Desana Indians on sexual subjects, the conversation was stopped by them till the women were sent away. After their departure the men talked freely and broadly. This I did not remark among the Indians I visited, in fact sexual matters appeared to be discussed freely and lewdly by both sexes, and even by young children.

The Indians under the range of discussion most certainly possess the greatest racial antipathy towards the white man. This is noticeable among the women especially, for they will never admit to their own people if they have ever had any dealing or connection whatsoever with the white man.

Gratitude among Indians is unknown—at least to me. Take this example: I had Indians who had been slaves, who had elected to come with me, or at least had evinced no repugnance at the idea, with whom I had shared all the food at my disposal, stinting myself often to ensure their gratitude—as I thought—caring for them, doctoring and curing them when sick, till eventually I became fond of them. But on the main river at the first opportunity they ran, apparently at the suggestion of one of their own tribe, the Peon of a rubber-gatherer. What arguments were used I know not—perhaps that I was a devil, that my real motive was to fatten them for culinary purposes. The fact remains they left me, to all appearances, willingly.

This stealing of Indians is a well-recognised source of amusement on the Amazon river, and the victims of such loss—who of course perpetrate the same sort of outrage on others directly opportunity permits—are so indolent, so lethargic, that they will not cross a river to recover the stolen. The custom is the more prevalent on account of the character of the Indian. He will always leave one white man to go to another. He is always on the alert to run, to go elsewhere. This is true of Indians enslaved by other Indians, to a limited extent. Unless they are well treated and identified with the tribe they will run, only to be again enslaved by others, or put to death. The matter is hard to explain. It simply is in the blood. It is Pia, as Brown remarked. It is their custom. They do it “just for so.”

Another point about the Indian is that he must always be kept up to the work in hand. The women toil unceasingly, but the men are only too ready to seize any excuse to cry off a job. They spend their time mainly in mooning around. Obtaining food is their chief occupation. But when an Indian is kept up to his work he works hard and well.

Though the Indian attitude at first is invariably stoical they are not lacking in inquisitiveness. Their curiosity was enormously aroused by many of my possessions. It is hard to say what will evoke their wonder. I have seen an Indian evince no interest in a steam-boat, but show the most extraordinary interest in my jackboots, and be greatly occupied with the problem of how I got into them. A walking-stick was an unanswerable conundrum to them, it never occurred to their minds that I could use it as an assistance in walking. My eyeglass, my camera, were mysterious devils that could read into their hearts and filch their souls, as I have already noted. My watch, with an alarm to it, struck consternation to their simple minds. My phonograph, that reproduced records of dancing which were repeated on reversal, raised shouts of wonder. An Indian in a down-river town saw nothing to excite him in a tram, and took a ride thereon quite unconcernedly, but the women’s hats were exciting, and at the sight of a man on a bicycle his astonishment was unbounded: it was “man on spider-web!” Horses are unknown in these regions, and there is no possibility of the majority of the Indians seeing any one on horseback. I could only get a mule as far as the first big river, but beyond the bush became too dense. Otherwise I fancy their amazement would equal that of the Australian natives when they saw the beast come in two on the man dismounting.[409]

Decadent the Indian may be, and thanks mainly to his inveterate cocainism he undoubtedly is, but that he is the degraded descendant of a higher race is a theory that I beg leave to doubt entirely. According to von Martius the standard of ethics rises or falls with the increase or decrease of a tribe. He based his theory on the fact that the most corrupt Coeruna and Nainuma were nearly extinct. It is possible to argue that they were dying out because they were corrupt,[410] rather than they were corrupt because they were dying out. Sir Roger Casement appears to have accepted the theory expounded in Vergangenheit und Zukunft der amerikanischen Menschheit. But Tylor remarks, “I cannot but think that Dr. Martius’ deduction is the absolute reverse of the truth.” Certainly the theory of the Indians’ regression is, I consider, entirely erroneous. I see nothing to suggest it. On the contrary it appeared to me that in spite of the awful handicap of their environment, these tribes were slowly evolving a higher standard of culture. There is no evidence of their having reverted from a higher culture. A people who once knew how to produce fire by friction do not easily forget that method to rely on the clumsy processes of fire-carrying. Men who have smoked tobacco are not very likely to content themselves, nor would their offspring be contented, with merely sucking it. People who knew the simple method of preparing yarn with a spindle would only revert in exceptional cases to the slow and even painful process of rolling fibre on the naked thigh, and that in a land where cotton is abundantly to hand on every side. The tedious method of plaiting and tying by hand would hardly, one imagines, be substituted for weaving. A race that has once worked metal and relapsed to the use of stone without even more exceptional and definite reasons for that relapse, is no more likely in fact than it is recorded—so far as I am aware—in history.

Examples are known of peoples who have forgotten one useful art, for material and utilitarian, or social, or magico-religious reasons; but a people who have allowed some half dozen to disappear is unknown to me. Yet these Indians carry fire, lick tobacco, roll fibre on the thigh, and though they make use of an embryo loom—the two posts between which their hammocks are plaited—have not appreciated its potentialities. Some of the Amazon tribes,[411] though surrounded by canoe-building peoples, can only make rafts; the secret of the dug-out, if ever known to them,[412] has been forgotten. But it is possible that an isolated section of the original canoe-builders—as we have seen these tribes today are all isolated sections—may for some reason have had no need to construct a canoe for such lengths of time that the method of fire-heating and burning, especially of forcing the hot trunk open, had through disuse been at least partially forgotten.[413] Presume that they failed in their attempt to build one for some reason,[414] and it was found that a raft would do momentarily in its place, the original skill and knowledge might easily die out in a generation. Therefore the absence of canoes alone would be no convincing argument. Nor must it be forgotten, as Dr. Rivers has pointed out,[415] that other causes besides defective memory and lack of practice may result in the entire disappearance of even useful arts. But I repeat hardly of so many among all these tribes in common.

Everything points to the conclusion that these tribes found their way to the forest in a very primitive condition. The forest has arrested, it has stunted their growth, but it has not plunged them back from later cultures to the Stone Age. The stones themselves deny it, for stone is not the natural substitute for iron in these regions.[416] Whence the tribes came hither, and when, in whatsoever far back age of our earth’s story, they were a Neolithic people—hardly that, a people emerging from the unsettled conditions of the Paleolithic hunter, agricultural but not yet pastoral, and such they have remained throughout the centuries.