The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  Procuring heads from morgues in the poor parts of town, they shrunk them expertly. This probably explains why there are so many fake Negroid tsantsas. Later they invented a provenance and sold them as rare artefacts to leading museums and private collectors. Genuine tsantsas always have the lips sealed with thorns or by pins, made from the chonta palm. Those which have been honored at tsantsa feasts, and are fully complete, have long cotton strands hanging down from the mouth (different from the scrawny strands of twine on fakes). Most also have a hole at the apex of the head, for a cord. Genuine examples tend to have oily complexions, and are lacking facial hair. This gets singed off during the shrinking process.

  Up De Graff, in his book Head Hunters of the Amazon, talks of an expert taxidermist in Panama who had shrunken human heads, and even entire bodies. One of them, he said, measured no more than twelve inches in length. Flornoy also mentions a shrunken body, that of a Jesuit monk. The story goes that the friar upstaged a Shuar shaman by healing patients whom he had been unable to cure. In a ‘sacred frenzy, drunk with naterna, the Shuar denounced the Christian, murdered him with ‘savage passion”, before shrinking the man’s entire body.

  As far as the Shuar are concerned, it would be sheer folly to shrink the head of a foreigner. There would never be occasion to do so. The reason is the soul. The head of a victim is shrunk so that the man who cut it off isn’t followed by the victim’s musiak, his “avenging soul”. The tsantsa itself isn’t regarded with much reverence for it is a means to an end. The Shuar traditionally believed that only they and neighboring tribes had souls. Foreigners were soul-less and so, as far as the Shuar were concerned, you didn’t have to protect against an avenging spirit if you killed one. The idea of a genuine white man’s tsantsa, is therefore unlikely in the extreme.

  As we progressed at walking pace north-west up the Corrientes, the river became increasingly narrow, twisting more with every mile. The banks were abundant with flora. Giant punga, kapok trees, clung to the water’s edge, their branches spread-eagled over the river, their red pods ripe and ready to fall. Some still had their magnificent ivory flowers, which Richard told me were pollinated by a species of fruit bat.

  The sunshine of mid-afternoon was so bright that I was unable to sit on the roof. I lay in my foetid hammock, trying to ignore the wolfies, which scurried across my chest like rats running from a cage. At my feet, Cockroach was boiling up a toucan he’d traded with someone. Although uncertain why, I was surprised to see that the bird’s meat was blue.

  Richard wasn’t discouraged by the bright light. From his vantage point on the roof he broke the silence, calling Walter to bring the Pradera to an immediate halt. At first I thought he’d spotted a sandbank, although this was unlikely as the river was so high. I shouted up to him.

  “Dolphins,” he called back. “Dolphins at three o’clock.”

  I climbed up onto the roof, screwed up my eyes and peered off the starboard side. Through a break in the kapok trees, Richard had glimpsed a lagoon. In it he’d seen the ridge of a dolphin’s back.

  There was only one thing the crew feared more than mermaids – dolphins. As soon as they heard the word delfin, they started pleading. Cockroach protested we’d all die if the creatures saw us,-and Walter cried out that his brother-in-law had been taken by dolphins on the Rio Nanay, while trying to kill one. Many fishermen wear love charms, he said, made from the dried genitals of a female dolphin. If the fisherman touches a woman while wearing it hidden under his shirt, she’ll fall in love with him. His brother-in-law had been taken by the dolphin princess before he could kill her and make a pendant from her genitalia. Now he lived under the waves, a prisoner in the dolphin realm.

  After Walter’s outburst, Francisco piped up, urging us return to Iquitos.

  “The Shuar have sent dolphins to kill us,” he blurted, “they’re a sign, un mal augurio, an ill-omen.”

  “Nonsense!” I barked. “I’m sure learn to like them.”

  The shaman froze me with a deranged stare.

  “They’re demonios, demons,” he said. “They will kill us.”

  Richard delved into his camouflage bag.

  With the crew still protesting, he told Walter to take off his precious Wellington boots, and steer the Pradera through the waterway into the lagoon. With great reluctance the motorista complied.

  From his camouflage bag, Richard had taken out a large black Walkman with a built-in speaker. He seemed abashed at owning such a thing. I had never seen him using it.

  “What do dolphins love most?” he asked me.

  “Fish.”

  “Well, other than fish?”

  I shrugged.

  “They love ZZ Top,” he said.

  Once the boat’s engine had been cut, and the frenzy of ripples had calmed, Richard clicked on a ZZ Top cassette, set the Walkman at full volume, and dropped it into one of Walter’s Wellington boots. Leaning over the edge of the boat, he held the boot’s foot under the surface of the water.

  “Waitin” for the Bus”, a hit ZZ song, vibrated out through the water. By the third track, Cockroach was frantic. He had taken the miniature silver crucifix from around his neck, and held it to his lips. Francisco was crouched over the titanium Primus stove, setting fire to toucan feathers. Dolphins abhor the smell, he confided.

  But the burning feathers did little to keep the animals away. By the fifth track, the slender dorsal fin of a gray Amazonian dolphin was cutting through the water towards us. A moment later, Richard noticed another swivelling about on the port side.

  Had I not witnessed it myself, I would not have believed the extent of the crew’s terror. Walter poured a cup of petrol over his head. He suggested I do the same. Dolphins, he claimed, hate petrol even more than burning toucan feathers. But I didn’t want to escape from them.

  Richard and I eased ourselves into the cool water. Despite my fear of piranhas, I swam towards the middle of the lagoon. The smaller of the pair circled me, diving below the surface time and again. It swooped through the water like a swallow darting through the late summer air. Again and again it passed us, racing at full speed with the other, before peeling away and doubling back. The force of its sweep, and the vacuum which followed it, sucked me down below the surface. As it brushed me I felt its sleek rubbery skin on my hand, and saw the rows of scars which covered its back. Like scratches from a set of long fingernails, the scars marked the dolphin’s place in the group’s hierarchy. I was struck that anyone could equate such a peerless creature with evil, or would want to cut out its genitalia and wear it as a pendant.

  We had left the Walkman aboard the Pradera. Even though the music had stopped, the dolphins continued to play. The smaller one charged me repeatedly, careering to a stop inches from my face, cackling through its blow-hole. A third one appeared. It was not like the first two – it wasn’t gray, but pink.

  Much larger than the gray dolphins, it didn’t have a dorsal fin, only a low ridge along its arched back. River dolphins once thrived in many of the world’s great rivers – including the Mississippi, the Ganges and the Nile. But the pink variety of the Amazon, known to fishermen as boutu, are regarded as the most ancient species of river dolphin. Their color, still a mystery, may be derived from their diet, like that of the flamingo, which turns pink through eating shellfish.

  Richard and I swam across the lagoon, the dolphins lunging through the water either side of us. Their movements, precision, and urge to communicate, were captivating. With the sun so brilliant above us, shining on the lagoon’s mirror-like surface, I could have swum there all afternoon. The veteran eventually called me back to the boat. It would be dangerous, he said, to stay in the water too long.

  “Piranhas?”

  “No,” he riposted, “not piranhas, they’ll only come if they sense blood.”

  “Then what’s the danger?”

  “The camero fish. It’s very inquisitive... it swims up the body’s orifices and that attracts piranhas.”

  Once back at the boa
t’s side, I tried to pull myself up onto the deck, but was too weak to do so. There was only one solution. I had to dive down and swim up the lavatory hole, which was lower, but slippery with excretion.

  The moon was full that night. It hung above the jungle like a tremendous ring of gypsum. By its ivory light we navigated a passage up the right side of the river. Walter was fearful that the Shuar might attack. After all, we were now firmly in their territory. Rather than pull in and spend the night nestled up to the trees, I insisted we continue to the next village.

  Shortly after nine p.m., Cockroach spotted a row of shacks in the distance, set high above an embankment. I gave the order for the gifts to be made ready. I took warning from Fitzcarraldo’s example: when dealing with the Shuar, be prepared. Cockroach trawled through the bags. He took out a selection of clothing, odds and ends of food, shotgun shells, Fanta bottles, and the Vicks Vapour Rub. He made up three or four individual gift bags.

  Once we were in line with the village, Walter killed the engine and drew the boat up to the bank. Unease gagged us all. We had heard so many stories of the Shuar and most ended with the visitors getting their throats slit. Now we had arrived at our first Shuar village. I wondered how we ought to progress. Richard said the best course of action would be to lie low during the night.

  I climbed onto the roof. My Maglite was at the ready, but I dared not use it. As I scanned the shacks, the dark roofs absorbing the moonlight, I heard something. It was singing, shrill and harmonious. I motioned to Richard.

  “The ancient Shuar songs,” I croaked. “I’ve read about them! They sing of the heads they’ve taken and the glorious battles they’ve fought.”

  The Vietnam vet” rubbed a hand across his face. Even he appeared to be moved by the songs. He was just about to say something, when I noticed the slender form of a man running down the steep embankment towards us. I strained to see him clearly. He was carrying something. I asked Richard to get his revolver ready; he retorted that threatening behaviour would be suicide.

  “Let’s wait and see what happens,” he said.

  The man called out to us well before he reached the boat.

  “What’s he saying?”

  Richard didn’t reply to me, but called out to the man in Spanish, inviting him to come aboard. Cockroach put the boarding plank down. Stooping his head in respect, the young warrior welcomed us to the village, which was called San José. He had brought us a gift, he said in broken Spanish. The villagers would be honored if we accepted it.

  The warrior passed something to Richard. It was about the size of a small dog and was covered in scorched fur.

  “What is it?”

  Praising the man’s hospitality, Richard ripped off an arm and handed it to me. It ended in a miniature hand, with fingers that were scrunched up into a fist.

  “Get your teeth into that,” he said, “and make it sound like you’re enjoying it.”

  “What is it, though?”

  “Roasted monkey.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Ancient Ballads

  During the night I had a dream. Actually, it was more of a nightmare. I dreamt that the chief of the Shuar village was displeased with our gifts. Canned food, Vicks Vapour Rub and Fanta bottles were, he said, useless products from a world preoccupied with comfort. He craved a commodity far rarer than the ones in our nylon sacks: he was longing for a set of American dentures. The chief had seen a poster for Gone with the Wind and wanted Clark Gable’s smile. American was best, he said. So angry was he that we’d not brought dentures, that Richard, Cockroach, and I were tied up with ayahuasca vines. Then our heads were chopped off with a flint-edged axe. Francisco and Walter only managed to escape the brutal treatment by promising to treat the village’s venereal disease.

  I woke from the fantasy as water gushed through the rotting roof onto my hammock. Torrential rain was cascading down, flooding the decks. Cockroach was doing his best to lower the blue plastic sheets which acted as primitive blinds.

  Three hours later, with the rain still lashing down, I woke again. This time Francisco was bending over me. He was spitting saliva onto my face. Before I could tell him to back off, he spoke.

  “You will need my protection,” he said. “The tribe have been singing all night. I have heard them.”

  “The ancient Shuar ballads,” I replied, stirring from my hammock.

  “No,” said the shaman. “Not ballads, but war songs. They’re going to kill us, with stone axes. I have seen it in a dream.”

  I knew that mention of my own nightmare would have led to mutiny. One word and the crew would swing the boat round and head for Iquitos at full speed. So I bit my lip and asked what was for breakfast.

  Cockroach served me a chunk of toucan on a bed of sticky rice. The rubbery blue meat had no taste at all. I had learnt to overcome the dullness of his cooking by sprinkling Pepe’s Ajinomoto powder liberally over the food.

  When I had swallowed as much of the toucan as was physically possible, I crawled up onto the roof to discuss the plan with Richard.

  I asked if he’d had nightmares.

  “Slept like a fuckin’ baby,” he said, rocking back and forth.

  “Aren’t you worried that we might have our heads chopped off? After all, everyone’s warned us of the Shuar.”

  The Vietnam vet” leant over and tapped me on the knee.

  “No one messes with Richard Fowler,” he said.

  I looked at him in silence. He was stripped to the chest, his dog tags reflecting the morning light. His torso was lean, rippled with muscle and pocked with scars.

  “Did I ever tell you “bout the bear at the zoo?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “I was wavin” my ice-cream through the bars,” he said, “taunting this great fat grisly. He came over, lurching at the ice-cream. He wanted that sucker bad.”

  “Did he get it?”

  “He would’ve done, if...”

  “If what?”

  “If I hadn’t grabbed his fuckin’ tongue in my fist. I pulled that sucker till his face was pressed up against the bars.”

  I tried to draw morals from the story, but Richard had more to impart: “The monkey last night was a sign,” he said.

  He slung one of the gift bags over his shoulder and jumped ashore. I followed in his footsteps. The crew made excuses why they couldn’t accompany us. There were suddenly pots and pans to be scrubbed, floorboards to be repaired and spells to be cast.

  “They’re a bunch of fuckin’ girls!” Richard shouted as we headed up the steep embankment. “Rule number one of war,” he cautioned, “keep the floozies behind the front line.”

  I had donned my best moldy clothes, powdered my feet and doused myself liberally with Eau Sauvage. But even that couldn’t mask the scent of rot. As we walked up through the tiger grass, Richard reminded me not to rush the tribe.

  “Don’t mention ayahuasca or shrunken heads until they’ve accepted us,” he said. “And make sure you eat whatever they serve.”

  A few minutes later we had conquered the bank, and gained our first glimpse of the village. Rectangular in shape, the four sides were edged with malocas, traditional houses, about fifteen in total. A communal field stood at the centre of the village. The dwellings were raised on stilts, their irapai thatch roofs supported by central posts. Typically, all four sides were open, allowing the air to move freely, and neighbors a view into each others’ lives. A morass of mud lay around every maloca. Chickens and ducks rooted about in the slime, scratching for whatever they could find.

  The village seemed abandoned. Smoke was spiralling from fires in one or two huts, but there were no other signs of life. I feared that the villagers had hidden and were waiting to mount a surprise attack. A pair of hunting dogs were tethered at the far end of the quadrangle. They sounded the alarm, but no one came.

  “We’ll go to the chief’s house and wait for him,” said Richard.

  He led me through the grass square and up to what he supposed wa
s the leader’s dwelling. He explained later that the floor of the house was higher than the others, indicating elevated status. We stood outside the house and waited.

  After almost an hour, the villagers appeared from a large building on the edge of the jungle. Its walls were made from banana leaves and bamboo, and its floor was at ground level.

  Like the other people, the Shuar chief was wearing simple Western clothes. An old man, his complexion was amber-brown; his eyes almond shaped, their whites flecked with blood. Flame-red lines ran across the lower part of his cheeks, like a cat’s whiskers. The oily paint derived from the achiote seed, which is said to protect the wearer from demons. On his head, he wore a crown, made from the breast feathers of a scarlet macaw.

  With warm greetings, he welcomed us to his maloca. We ascended the plank ladder and sat cross-legged upon the bamboo floor. I cast an eye around the room. It was about thirty feet long and half as wide; its rafters were masked in cobwebs. At the far end of the room, a fire was burning on a flat stone. Three equal lengths of wood met on the stone in a triangle. The floor was clear, except for a few wooden bowls and a blackened cauldron. All other possessions were stowed in the rafters.

  We sat in silence for ten minutes or so. Only when his wife had filled the two largest wooden bowls with a white beverage, and stirred them with her hand, did the chief begin to speak.

  “You must be thirsty,” he said in rudimentary Spanish, “¡beba!, drink!”

  Richard took the bowl in his hands and pressed its rim to his lips. It had been a long time, he said smiling, since he had been honored with masato. He took a deep draught of the milky liquid, draining the bowl. I assumed the drink was milk, although we had seen no cows in the area.