The Forest Exiles: The Perils of a Peruvian Family in the Wilds of the Amazon
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CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
THE TATOU-POYOU AND THE DEER CARCASS.
Dona Isidora and Leona had watched all the manoeuvres of the ant-lionwith great interest, and Leona, after the bite she had had, was not inany mood to sympathise with the ants. Indeed, she felt rather gratefulto the ant-lion, ugly as he was, for killing them.
Presently Leon returned from the woods, and was shown the trap in fulloperation; but Leon, upon this day, was full of adventures that hadoccurred upon the hills to himself, Guapo, and Don Pablo. In fact, hehad hastened home before the others to tell his mamma of the oddincidents to which he had been a witness.
That morning they had discovered a new _mancha_ of cinchona-trees. Whenproceeding towards them they came upon the dead carcass of a deer. Itwas a large species, the _Cervus antisensis_, but, as it had evidentlybeen dead several days, it was swollen out to twice its original size,as is always the case with carcasses of animals left exposed in a warmclimate. It was odd that some preying animals had not eaten it up. Aclump of tall trees that shaded it, had, no doubt, concealed it from thesharp sight of the vultures, and these birds, contrary to what has sooften been alleged, can find no dead body by the smell. Neither antsnor animals that prey upon carrion had chanced to come that way, andthere lay the deer intact.
So thought Don Pablo and Leon. Guapo, however, was of a differentopinion, and, going up to the body, he struck it a blow with his axe.To the surprise of the others, instead of the dead sound which theyexpected to hear, a dry crash followed the blow, and a dark holeappeared where a piece of thin shell-like substance had fallen off.Another blow from Guapo's axe, and the whole side went in. Not a bit ofcarcass was there; there were bones--clean bones--and dry hard skin, butno flesh, not an atom of flesh!
"Tatou-poyou!" quietly remarked Guapo.
"What!" said Don Pablo, "an armadillo, you think?" recognising, inGuapo's words, the Indian name for one of the large species ofarmadillos.
"Yes," replied Guapo. "All eaten by the tatou-poyou. See! there's hishole."
Don Pablo and Leon bent over the sham carcass, and, sure enough, underwhere its body had been they could see a large hole in the ground.Outside the carcass, also, at the distance of several feet was another.
"That is where he entered," said Guapo, pointing to the second. "He'snot about hero now," continued he, "no, no,--ate all the meat, and gonelong ago."
This was evident, as the hollow skeleton was quite dry, and hadevidently been empty for a good while.
Don Pablo was pleased at this incident, as it gave him an opportunity ofverifying a curious habit of the armadillos. These creatures are amongthe finest burrowers in the world, and can bury themselves in the earthin a few seconds' time; but, being badly toothed,--some of themaltogether without teeth,--they can only feed upon very soft substances.Putrid flesh is with them a favourite "dish," and in order to get atthe softest side of a carcass, they burrow under, and enter it frombelow, rarely leaving their horrid cave until they have thoroughlycleared it out.
The bark-hunters now passed on, Don Pablo making many inquiries aboutthe armadillos, and Guapo giving replies, while Leon listened withinterest. Guapo knew a good deal about these curious creatures, for hehad eaten many a dozen of them in his time, and as many different kindsof them too. Their feeding upon carrion had no effect on Guapo'sstomach, and, indeed, white people in South America relish them as muchas Indians. The white people, however, make a distinction in thespecies, as they suppose some kinds to be more disposed to a vegetablediet than others. There are some in the neighbourhood of thesettlements, that _occasionally pay a visit to the graveyards orcemeteries_, and these kinds do not go down well. All of them willdevour almost any sort of trash that is soft and pulpy, and they aremore destructive to the ant than even the ant-eaters themselves. Howso? Because, instead of making a nice little hole in the side of theant-hill, as the tamanoirs do, and through this hole eating the antsthemselves, the armadillos break down a large part of the structure anddevour the _larva_. Now the ants love these _larva_ more than their ownlives, and when these are destroyed, they yield themselves up todespair, refuse to patch up the building, the rain gets in, and thecolony is ruined and breaks up.
It does not follow, however, that the flesh of the armadillo should be"queer" because the animal itself eats queer substances. Amongcarnivorous creatures the very opposite is sometimes the truth; and someanimals--as the tapir, for instance--that feed exclusively on sweet andsucculent vegetables, produce a most bitter flesh for themselves. Aboutthis there is no standing law either way.
The flesh of the armadillo is excellent eating, not unlike young pork,and, when "roasted in the shell" (the Indian mode of cooking it), it isquite equal, if not superior, to a baked "pig," a dish very much eatenin our own country.
Guapo did not call them armadillos--he had several Indian names fordifferent kinds of them. "Armadillo" is the Spanish name, and signifiesthe "little armed one," the diminutive of "armado" or "armed." Thisname is peculiarly appropriate to these animals, as the hard bony casingwhich covers the whole upper parts of their bodies, bears an exceedingresemblance to the suits of plate armour worn in the days of Cortez andchivalry.
On the head there is the helmet, the back is shielded by a corslet, andeven the limbs are covered with greaves. Of course, this armour isarranged differently in the different species, and there is more or lesshair upon all, between the joinings of the plates.
These points were not touched upon by Guapo, but others of equalinterest were. He went on to say that he knew many different kinds ofthem;--some not bigger than a rat, and some as large as a full-grownsheep; some that were slow in their paces, and others that could outruna man; some that were flat, and could squat so close as hardly to beseen against the ground,--(these were _tatou-poyous_, the sort that hadhollowed out the deer); and some again that were high-backed and nearlyglobe-shaped. Such was Guapo's account of these curious animals whichare found only in the warmer regions of North and South America.