The second day on the island the Rio Indio arrived with a drum of gasoline for us. Paying for the whole drum, I filled our tanks with twenty gallons and requested the captain to leave the rest at Obaldía. The remaining thirty-five gallons in the drum would be enough to get us to Turbo.
On Ailigandi, as on Porvenir and Nargana, we were subjected to an intense scrutiny by the Indians. More than just looking, they seemed consumed by a desire to touch and feel everything, especially La Tortuga. As for Dinah, they were both terrified and awed by her. They had never seen a dog as large as she, and whenever she came near them they whispered “Achu, achu.” I refrained from saying “Gesundheit” when I learned that achu was a legendary carnivore that probably dates from the fighting dogs of the conquistadores.
Perhaps because they pitied her lack of a nose ring, the women of Ailigandi took a special liking to Helen. They ignored me completely, but wherever Helen went they nodded to her vigorously, saying, “Nuete an ai [Good friend].” One evening an old woman reached through the crowd surrounding the jeep and dragged Helen by the arm into her hut, the other women of the island streaming after them. Her abductress was a medicine woman, a wrinkled weathered crone with a stubby black pipe stuck between brown teeth and a nose ring that sagged from a stretched loop of flesh halfway to her chin. I pushed through the crowd, past a dozen hammocks, to a corner where the light from the cooking fire sent flickering shadows on the cane walls and danced from the nose rings and ear pendants of the women. Helen called my name and I broke through to where she was standing, half expecting to find her being fitted for that mark of San Bias beauty. Instead the old woman was showing her the carved wooden dolls with which she cured the sick. As she pulled each one from an overflowing box she pointed to the markings on it, the location indicating where the patient it had cured had been ailing. The more marks, the more cures and the more valued the doll. As she took out the last one she held it contemplatively a moment and then impulsively gave it to Helen, exclaiming, “Nuete an ai!” It was a new doll, an image of a man with a long sharp nose. Carved of balsa, about ten inches long, it had cured only a few people but, according to the old lady, it had a great future and she wanted Helen to have it. There was a murmur of approval from the other women and one of them put a string of beads around Helen’s neck, motioning her to sniff them. Made of brown seeds, they emitted an exotically spicy aroma, but still another woman made a contemptuous gesture, took off her own beads, and gave them to Helen, inviting her to test their infinitely better fragrance.
When we had arrived on Ailigandi, there was a rumor that a canoeload of Indians had been attacked by a sea monster. The night it happened five men were hunting turtle eggs near Ratón Cay when the monster had come up from the depths of the sea to the beach. Barely escaping with their lives, they had paddled all night to reach their island of Ustuppo, where they told the chief what had happened. The chief called a general assembly and the men repeated their story, how a monstrous shape had crawled from the water, roaring horribly, with people in its mouth, and with eyes flashing like lightning. One of the elders, a man much respected for his knowledge of tribal lore, stood up and described the legendary giant sea turtle which their ancestors said would one day come to devour the people. “The sea monster has come,” he proclaimed.
Each time we heard the story it was embellished a bit more, and it wasn’t until the day before we left Ailigandi that we learned that La Tortuga had assumed a new role-first a scout car from a flying saucer, then a rose parade float, a tank, and now the sea monster of San Bias. Oledebiligini, high chief of all the San Bias Indians, explained what had happened when he paid us a call from Ustuppo. He was a short stocky man wearing a shapeless felt hat and loose pink shirt. There was a keen intelligent look about him as he spoke to Dr. Iglesias, who translated:
“My people were afraid when the five men told them what they had seen, but when a messenger said there was a strange machine on Ailigandi, that it swam in the water and walked on land, and that there were people inside, I knew that you were the sea monster. Now they are no longer afraid; they want to see and touch your Yauk Temar so that they will enjoy a full life in heaven. They will not work, the men will not go to their farms on the mainland, the women will not go to the river for water for fear that you will pass while they are gone. I have come personally to invite you to make Ustuppo your home for as long as you wish to stay.”
I was both awed by the invitation and a bit confused as to what the connection was between our visit and heaven, but I thanked him and promised to stop there. When word spread that we were going to Ustuppo, there was a protest from nearby Achituppo. “Why should the people of Ailigandi and Ustuppo have more in heaven than the people of Achituppo?” their chief asked. I couldn’t answer that question so I asked Dr. Iglesias.
“My people,” he explained understandingly, “believe that what they experience in this life they will experience in the afterlife, so they try to see and do everything they would like to see and do in heaven.”
Apparently the thought of owning an amphibious jeep was very appealing because after that we received many invitations, and it became almost mandatory that we stop at all the islands along the way, if only for a moment, so that the people could touch our Yauk Temar. I’m afraid there’s going to be an awful traffic jam in Indian heaven with more amphibious jeeps running around than Ford turned out during the war. And I suppose that now, instead of placing a tiny cayuca on the chest of a dead man to carry his soul to the hereafter, there will be a miniature La Tortuga.
That evening we were invited to a birthday party, a rather recent innovation since the San Bias people were not accustomed to keeping track of age. Helen and I stooped under the low eaves of the hut where the festivities were taking place and entered the dim interior, lit by a single smoking lantern. At the far end hammocks hung, and on the rafters, the San Bias clothes closets, were neatly folded skirts and blouses.
Standing around a long low table were a score or more of elaborately decorated Indians. We had been briefed by Dr. Iglesias on the formalities to be observed, but we were happy to see so many people. If we made a mistake it would probably go unnoticed. But such is not San Bias custom. We were the guests of honor and everyone else stood around, watching carefully to make sure that we enjoyed ourselves.
We had little difficulty with what to them is ice cream, rice boiled in coconut oil, but we saved until last the thin brown liquid in the small cups by our plates.
“Do you think it’s real chicha?” Helen whispered from the side of her mouth.
“I don’t know, but we don’t want to offend them,” I answered. (Chicha is a masticated corn drink. It’s not that we’re squeamish but, being an independent sort, we prefer to chew our own corn.) “Bottoms up, and make believe you like it,” I whispered in return.
With forced smiles we raised the cups to our lips. It had a strange sweet smell that somehow seemed familiar. At the first taste our strained expressions turned to ones of pleasure. Instead of chicha it was cocoa made with water and a large amount of sugar. And that concluded the party, except for the parting ritual. It hardly seemed right to repay the hospitality of our hostess by spitting on her floor, but dutifully we took a mouthful of water from a small blue bowl, rinsed our mouths, and spit over our left shoulders in the prescribed manner.
The next morning the chief of Ailigandi summoned us to his hut. Dr. Iglesias went along to interpret, explaining that the chief was about to make a friendship pact. Seating us on a carved wooden bench, the chief stood a few feet in front of us holding a bowl containing two white eggs. With great ceremony he began to chant, bending at the waist and moving forward and backward rhythmically:
“I wish you a safe journey, and a long and happy marriage. I will think of you when we are apart and hope that you will think of me.”
With each phrase he leaned over and handed me the bowl of eggs, but as I reached for it he pulled it back, walked away, and chanted anew. When he finished his sa
lutation he handed me the bowl, saying, “We are now lifelong friends.”
Then it was my turn. The old chief sat next to Helen on the bench while I repeated the ceremony with the same bowl:
“Thank you for your hospitality and may you continue in good health. May we return someday to renew our friendship.”
When I finished he nodded stoically, took the bowl, and handed me the eggs one at a time. During the entire ritual he had ignored Helen—friendship pacts were made only between men—but as a consolation prize he gave her a beautiful avocado. Later we ate the avocado, but the eggs were beyond that stage.
When the performance was over, the chief climbed into the jeep, and as if La Tortuga were a royal coach he waved and nodded to his subjects as we drove slowly across the block-sized island to the cayuca beach. Awkwardly he jumped out amid cheers from the people, and we edged into the water toward Ustuppo.
It was a short run to Oledebiligini’s island and we made good time, considering that we stopped at Achituppo on the way so that the people could touch the jeep and assure themselves of its possession in heaven. The bottom around the island was too soft to get ashore, so they all waded out to us, rubbing and stroking La Tortuga.
From the sea, a few hundred yards off Ustuppo, the brown huts seemed so close together that there would be hardly enough space for the jeep. The people were there en masse to greet us: men were busily picking rocks from the shallow water of the channel, and Oledebiligini was waving from the shore. The beach was steep and we approached rapidly, the wheels and propeller churning the water to a muddy froth. In the soft sand near the water’s edge our progress stopped and the men crowded around, then scattered like autumn leaves before the wind as the wheels took hold and La Tortuga lurched up onto the solid sand and coral of the island. Following slowly behind Oledebiligini, we drove through the narrow paths between the huts, winding in and out with the whole populace around us. The men were excited, but the women were terrified. Even though they had been told that the sea monster had not yet come, screaming mothers dragged their children into their huts, grandmothers shuddered with fright, clutching one another and hiding in doorways, but still peeping out inquisitively. In an open space in front of the main council hut the inspection began, shyly at first, and then with more vigor when they saw we really weren’t going to eat them.
Inside the huge council hut, a cane and thatch structure more than a hundred feet long, the islanders crowded to hear their chief welcome us, their faces illuminated by the striped pattern of sunlight that filtered through the bamboo slat walls. Sitting on high benches, the men chewed on their pipes, the smoke curling up through openings in the roof. The women stood around the walls and the children hung from the bamboo eaves or peered from between the legs of their elders. In the center of the council Oledebiligini reclined in the hammock from which all official business was conducted. One of the men who had been in the Canal Zone translated as he spoke loudly so that all could hear:
“I regret that I cannot speak your language, but this man shall be at your disposal. If you wish anything, just ask. You are among friends.”
And we were. We were free to come and go when and where we desired, and always we were met by friendly smiling faces. It was difficult to believe that these were the people who had garnered such an evil reputation over the years. It was still true that on many of the islands a stranger was not allowed to spend the night, but apparently that rule didn’t apply to me since I had brought my own wife. Besides, we had a magical machine that swam on the sea and walked on the land, and a fascinating dog that understood Cuna. We had taught Dinah to put out her paw in response to “Ak an ai,” and she never forgave us for it. After one day in which she obliged at least half the islanders she retired to the jeep with a case of politician’s cramp. She would come out only when it was time to eat.
A few feet above the level of the sea Ustuppo was a flat table of coral and hard-packed sand. It was one of the largest of the San Bias Islands, about the size of six city blocks, where almost two thousand Indians lived in crowded bamboo and grass huts. Like the other inhabited islands we had passed, it was less than a mile from the mainland and the mouth of a river. With no fresh water on the island and with nothing growing except a few palms, the people preferred to live crushed together where they were safe from the spirits of the trees, rocks, and animals that haunted the mainland at night.
The only clear space on the island was in front of the main council hut, and it was there that we parked La Tortuga for our two-day stay. The children flocked around bringing their pets, a baby foot-long alligator on a string, and a black-and-white marmoset that clung to the long hair of its little mistress and screamed loudly when she plucked it loose for us to hold. And there was a green parrot that learned to say Dinah’s name, much to her disgust. Although the chief loudly and sternly ordered the kids to keep a fair distance from the jeep while we prepared our C-ration meals, they always moved in close when he wasn’t around. But they really scattered when the island master-at-arms ran from the council hut brandishing his wand of authority. Seldom spanked by their families, they had great respect for the three-foot length of thorny vine that was used freely about once a week at a general assembly when the kids were given the appropriate number of whacks for their misdeeds as reported by their parents.
The second day Helen went with two of the women to the river, paddling several miles upstream through a tunnel of dark green foliage, where lizards darted on the leaves and blue crabs played on the banks. Leaving the canoe, they waded still farther upstream to a deep pool where they bathed, and then, picking mangoes, pineapples, and avocados on the way, they returned to the island in a canoe so laden with gourds of fresh water that there was less than an inch of freeboard. Although Helen was constantly afraid that the canoe would tip over she told me that all the women could talk about was how they would fear to go to sea in La Tortuga.
While Helen was gone, I watched the men spear fish and bring the corn, rice, plantains, and bananas from their farms. Near the huts women squeezed sugar cane between two springy logs or sat sewing the appliquéd blouses that took as long as ten weeks to make. In the evening the people brought us fruit and little stools to sit on. Carved of a single piece of wood, they were as comfortable and functional as any Eames chair.
When we were ready to leave, one of the women presented Helen with a richly appliquéd blouse of red, orange, purple, and green pieces of cloth, insisting she put it on. Helen was most obliging, and with a borrowed wrap-around skirt, which she had difficulty keeping on, and a red headdress all she lacked was a nose ring. I thought a nose ring might be an ideal thing by which to assert my masculine prerogative, but when I suggested to Helen that the costume be completed she didn’t take kindly to the idea.
When Helen’s attire was complete, the women stood back and walked around her, chattering and nodding their approval. One of them made a comment to which the others replied with a loud titter.
“What did they say?” Helen asked the interpreter.
He smiled. “They said your eyes may be blue, but your skin is darker than theirs.”
And they were right. In the three weeks since leaving Colón, Helen was burned a deep bronze by the sun.
Mulatuppo, our next stop, was almost at the end of the San Bias chain, and was supposed to be the island where Balboa married a chieftain’s daughter, but if his in-laws were as unpleasant as the Mulatuppoans of today it was no wonder he left. Perhaps they had a different concept of heaven, or maybe it was because their chief was old and sick, but, whatever the reason, they were a belligerent and restless lot. After being the center of a torchlight parade all night and the object of angry mutterings we took off early in the morning. The threatening sky looked more inviting than the cloudy faces of the Indians.
The seas from Mulatuppo were as rough as any we had been in, but daily we acquired more confidence in La Tortuga’s ability to weather them. When earlier in the trip we would have dashed for shore, we
now consumed increasing amounts of Dramamine and pushed on. With storm clouds mounting we covered the forty miles to Obaldía near the Colombian border in two long runs, where with relief we found our gas waiting for us. Obaldía, out of San Bias territory and the last Panamanian port, was a sleepy little Negro town of a few hundred inhabitants. The one white resident, the storekeeper who had our gas, also had a radio over which he and the rest of the town had had word of our coming from a Panamanian news broadcast, but the information was slightly incorrect. We were described as German nationals and millionaires. We thought it rather amusing until they warned us that revolutionary trouble was again brewing in Colombia, and that some places were decidedly unhealthy for anyone, let alone two people reputed to be wealthy. To add a little more spice to the situation, guerrillas were being supplied with arms by gun-runners operating in the waters between Obaldía and Turbo. And to top it all a fisherman predicted a chocosano within the week.
With about eighty miles to go to Turbo we spent a full day at Obaldía checking and servicing the jeep. It had been performing perfectly, but we had been taking on a lot of water and I wanted to make certain it was from the heavy seas and not from a leak in the hull. Finding nothing wrong, I went over the bolts and seals to be sure, and then with our tanks filled we left for Punta Goleta, a long twenty-four miles away.
Bahía de Goleta: “…heavy swells with crests which break in nearly six fathoms have been observed. In heavy weather the swells pile up and may be dangerous.” So say the Sailing Directions, published by the U.S. Navy Department, Hydrographic Office. But at the time we approached for a landing we didn’t have a copy. A bit green after eight hours of pitching and rolling, I had only one thought—to get to shore as quickly as possible. There was no sign of reef and there appeared to be no surf, but I had forgotten that from the seaward side surf wasn’t always apparent. I remembered very quickly as the bow pointed down and La Tortuga became the front of the roller coaster again. On the shore a Negro family was waving madly at us to stay out, but by that time it was too late and the jeep surfboarded toward the beach yawing and swaying.
20,000 Miles South Page 15