River of Darkness
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CHAPTER TWELVE: AMONG THE OMAGUA
1 “again and again” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 196.
2 the black wood of the chonta palm Dr. Robert Carneiro, from editorial notes on River of Darkness, September 7, 2009.
3 “the arrow is taken in the right hand” Quoted in Meggers, Amazonia, 127.
4 “We saw ourselves in the midst” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 197.
5 “on the land the men who appeared” Ibid.
6 One chronicler said Medina, footnote about variant reading to Carvajal account, in Discovery, 197n. Also in Cohen, Journeys, 59.
7 Machiparo and his people would do whatever it took Carlos Fausto, “A Blend of Blood and Tobacco: Shamans and Jaguars Among the Parakana of Eastern Amazonia,” in Whitehead and Wright, In Darkness and Secrecy, 159, 162, and 170.
8 “possess devastating power” Johannes Wilbert, “The Order of Dark Shamans Among the Waroa,” in Whitehead and Wright, In Darkness and Secrecy, 29.
9 “To perform assaultive sorcery” Ibid., 31–32.
10 “Those on the water resolved to wipe us out” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 198.
11 “it was all of one tongue” Ibid.
12 “all inhabited, for there was not from village to village a crossbow shot” Quoted in Mann, 1491, 284; also quoted in Antonio Porro, “Social Organization and Political Power in the Amazon Floodplain,” in Roosevelt, Amazonian Indians, 83.
13 “without there intervening any space” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 198.
14 “there was a very great overlord” Ibid. Also in Cohen, Journeys, 60; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 50. Also quoted in Chapman, Golden Dream, 160.
15 “bent on seizing and unmooring the brigantines” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 199; Cohen, Journeys, 61.
16 “So we remained resting” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 200; Smith, Explorers, 69.
17 “very fine highways” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 200; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 51.
18 well more than a thousand miles of hostile and uncharted river Wood, Conquistadors, 221.
19 “So wide was it” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 200; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 51.
20 “They attacked us so pitilessly” Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 51.
21 The few natives resisted Ibid., 52; Cohen, Journeys, 62.
22 “very large, with a capacity of more than twenty-five arrobas” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 201; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 52.
23 “Other small pieces such as plates and bowls” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 201; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 52; See also Hemming, El Dorado, 116; Meggers, Amazonia, 128; and Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 271.
24 on the order of hundreds of thousands of people Wood, Conquistadors, 221, suggests that in 1542 in Amazonia there were three or four million people all told.
25 China Town, or Pottery Village Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 425, uses the term “Loza,” or “Porcelainville.” Also Wood, Conquistadors, 221; Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 30.
26 “elaborate geometric patterns” Anna C. Roosevelt, “The Maritime, Highland, Forest Dynamic and the Origins of Complex Culture,” in The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, vol. 3, South America, part 1, edited by Frank Solomon and Stuart B. Schwartz (Cambridge, 2000), 332. See also Anna C. Roosevelt, Moundbuilders of the Amazon: Geophysical Archaeology on Marajo Island, Brazil (San Diego, 1991), 48–49. The style is also called “Santarém.”
27 These few friendly locals Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 201; Cohen, Journeys, 62; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 52.
28 “There were two idols woven out of feathers” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 201; Cohen, Journeys, 62. See also Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 52.
29 “When they got to a small square” Bernal Díaz, quoted in Levy, Conquistador, 298.
30 “in the heart of the forest” Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 52.
31 “our intention was merely to search” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 202; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 52.
32 “Of all the [people] who inhabit the banks of the Maranon” Quoted in Clements R. Markham, Expeditions into the Valley of the Amazons, 1539, 1540, 1639 (New York, 1963), 175.
33 “The Omagua are the Phoenicians of the river” Ibid.
34 “the Omagua [used] elastic” Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 175; also Hemming, El Dorado, 116. Hemming here refers to the firsthand account made by French scientist Charles-Marie de La Condamine, who descended the Amazon in 1743 and observed the Omagua and other tribes that Orellana had first seen. Also Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 83. 135 “more like royal highways” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 202.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BIG BLACKWATER RIVER
1 “who has many subjects, and quite civilized ones” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 202; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 425. Also in Cohen, Journeys, 64; Chapman, Golden Dream, 160; Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 31.
2 “very pleasing and attractive” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 203. Also Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 426. The reference to the llamas strains credibility, as the people of Amazonia are not known to have possessed beasts of burden, especially this far down the river. It is certainly conceivable, however, that the people of this tribe would have heard of them, as information spread far and wide throughout Amazonia by people moving up and down the many river systems.
3 “built in the trees like magpie nests” Quoted in Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 30–31. Details of the flooding variants are also found in Goulding, Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon, 39 and 99–101.
4 “more than five hundred houses” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 426; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 53; Bernard, Exploration, 72.
5 Pueblo Vicioso, or Viciousville Bernard, Exploration, 72, and Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 426n.
6 “end of the province of the … overlord Paguana” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 204. Also in Cohen, Journeys, 64.
7 This extraordinary flatness Meggers, Amazonia, 8. Also Goulding, Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon, 15 and 23–24.
8 “From there on we saw indications” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 426.
9 “We entered into another province” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 204. Also Cohen, Journeys, 64.
10 linking the Orinoco and Amazon basins Of interest here is the unique river system linking the Amazon and Orinoco known as the Casiquiare Canal, which is not a man-made canal but rather a natural one. According to John Hemming, “the land here is so flat [that] part of the Orinoco’s waters flow southwestwards and never rejoin the mother river. Instead, after 300 meandering kilometers, they flow into a headwater of the Negro and hence the Amazon.” Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 131.
11 “black as ink” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 204. Also quoted in Wood, Conquistadors, 221; Chapman, Golden Dream, 161; Smith, Explorers, 69–70.
12 Its distinctive character … “that empty into the Negro” Goulding, Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon, 215. Also see Douglas C. Daly and John C. Mitchell, “Lowland Vegetation of Tropical South America,” in Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the Pre-Columbian Americas, edited by David L. Lentz (New York, 2000), 410.
13 “There has been no exaggeration” William Lewis Herndon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, edited and with an introduction by Hamilton Basso (New York, 1952), 168.
14 The Spaniards feasted Cohen, Journeys, 65; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 53–54.
15 “At this gate were two towers” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 205. Also recorded in Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 427; Chapman, Golden Dream, 161; Bernard, Exploration, 72; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 54.
16 they were subjects and tributaries Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 205. Also in Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 427; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 54; Chapman, Golden Dream, 161; Bernard, Exploration, 72; Cohen, Journeys, 65; Smith, Explorers, 71.
17 “which the Indians put on” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 427.
> 18 sacrificial idols and prayer houses For in-depth discussions of the sun in creation mythology and Amazonian cosmology, see Gerard Reichel-Dolmatoff, “Cosmology as Ecological Analysis: A View from the Rain Forest,” in Ritual and Belief (New York, 2001), 286–95. See also Gerard Reichel-Dolmatoff, Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians (Chicago and London, 1971), 23–37. Here, the sun, as one of the twin brothers Sun and Moon, figures prevalently in the creation myth, the sun even creating the earth.
19 Warriors waved their arms defiantly Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 428; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 54.
20 The Spaniards found an abundance of drying fish Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 428.
21 “go on as we were accustomed” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 207.
22 “too kind-hearted a soul by far” Quoted in Wood, Conquistadors, 220.
23 Orellana barked orders to his lieutenants Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 428; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 55.
24 “in order that the Indians from here on” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 208.
25 they could see people massing on the banks Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 429.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ENCOUNTERING THE AMAZONS
1 “We saw emptying in on the right side” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 209; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 430; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 56.
2 The muddy Madeira Goulding, Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon, 24 and 147–50.
3 “beating their weapons together” Quoted in Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 56.
4 “temperate and one of very great productiveness” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 209.
5 “a fine looking settlement” Ibid. Also quoted in Cohen, Journeys, 71; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 56. See also Markham, Expeditions, 36–37 and 153.
6 “In those villages they have many poles” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 432.
7 the Province of the Gibbets Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 209; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 56.
8 “roads made by hand” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 210. Silverman and Isbell, Handbook of South American Archaeology, 172–74.
9 They found many turtles Ibid. Also Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 430–31; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery 56–57.
10 Quemados Villa, the Place of the Burned People Oveido, in Medina, Discovery, 431 and 431n.
11 “She said that nearby” Quoted in Cohen, Journeys, 73. Also in Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 210–11; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 57.
12 Some said it struck rocks Hemming, El Dorado, 11 and 146.
13 He immediately made Aguilar his translator The amazing saga of Aguilar and Guerrero is recorded variously in Levy, Conquistador, 12–18; Hammond Innes, The Conquistadors (New York, 1969), 5–52; Peter O. Koch, The Aztecs, the Conquistadors, and the Making of Mexican Culture (Jefferson, North Carolina, and London, 2006), 28–31; Wood, Conquistadors, 29–31.
14 They lived among various tribes The journey is well documented, with some recent very good works. Most highly recommended is Andrés Reséndez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (New York, 2007). Also see Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, translated by Fanny Bandelier, revised and annotated by Harold Augenbraum, introduction by Ilan Stavans, Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition (New York, 2002).
15 “We decided to press forward” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 211.
16 He ordered the men to sleep Ibid.; Cohen, Journeys, 73; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 57. Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 431. In Oviedo’s version the Spaniards interpret the indications toward the interior made by the two Indians in the canoe to also be references of communication regarding the shipwrecked members of Diego de Ordaz’s party.
17 “buried in ashes” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 432; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 57; Smith, Explorers, 72.
18 “storehouse filled with liquor” Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 57.
19 “many military adornments” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 432. Also in Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 57. Carvajal says that the miters or hats were of neither cotton nor wool, but of some other, unknown fabric.
20 “their houses were glimmering white” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 212.
21 “During the whole day” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 433; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 58; Cohen, Journeys, 73–74.
22 Because it was tucked away on the river bend Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 433; Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 212; Cohen, Journeys, 74; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 58; Meggers, Amazonia, 133.
23 “dwellings of fishermen from the interior of the country” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 212.
24 “Here we came suddenly upon the excellent land” Ibid.
25 “He gave orders to shoot at them” Ibid.; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 58; Smith, Explorers, 72; Chapman, Golden Dream, 164.
26 “At the same moment there came out many” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 433; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 58; Chapman, Golden Dream, 164; Smith, Explorers, 72.
27 Cloudbursts of the arrows Cohen, Journeys, 74; Hemming, El Dorado, 118–19.
28 “Had it not been for the thickness of my clothes” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 214.
29 Sparked by their captain’s rallying cries Cohen, Journeys, 74; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 58; George Millar, A Crossbowman’s Story (New York, 1955), 284.
30 “They are very robust” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 214; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 434; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 59; Chapman, Golden Dream, 165; Smith, Explorers, 73; Hemming, El Dorado, 119; Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 32; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 283; Bernard, Exploration, 84.
31 the Amazons “fought so courageously” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 214. Also in Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 59; Chapman, Golden Dream, 165; Smith, Explorers, 73; Bernard, Exploration, 81–83.
32 “for these we actually saw” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 214.
33 Orellana ordered a seized Indian trumpeter … down this magical waterway Ibid.; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 59; Chapman, Golden Dream, 166; Smith, Explorers, 73; Hemming, El Dorado, 121–22; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 385.
34 “The Captain told them that he did not want to” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 215.
35 The arrow had pierced one eye and exited the opposite cheek Ibid.; Cohen, Journeys, 76; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 60; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 435. The Oviedo version offers a different version of Carvajal’s report, in which Carvajal speaks of the arrow passing “through my head and sticking out two fingers’ length on the other side behind my ear and slightly above it.”
36 they managed another hasty retreat Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 216; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 435; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 60; Cohen, Journeys, 76; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 287–88.
37 terra preta or “Amazonian dark earth” See Mann, 1491, 306–10. See also Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 383–84; Roosevelt, Moundbuilders of the Amazon, 128–29; and Meggers, Amazonia, 134. Also Dr. Robert Carneiro, editorial notes on River of Darkness, September 7, 2009.
38 The open savannas they imagined filled with game, too While Carvajal described “many kinds of grass,” in actuality two main grass types predominate the central Amazon River floodplains. These are Paspalum repens and Echinochloa polystachya. The Spaniards could certainly have seen other herbaceous species that they considered to be “grass,” however. See Goulding, Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon, 51; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 435.
39 they reached an uninhabited island Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 436; Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 217; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 60; Cohen, Journeys, 76; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 288–89.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE TRUMPETER’S TALE
1 “When they saw us” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 218. See also Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 436; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 60–61; Chapman, Golden Dream, 167; John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conque
st of the Brazilian Indians (New York, 1978), 194.
2 “greatest of all riverbank chiefdoms, the Tapajos” Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 33.
3 It was the twenty-fifth of June, 1542 Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 436; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 61; Chapman, Golden Dream, 167.
4 “The Indian answered” Quoted in Cohen, Journeys, 79–80. Alternate versions of this text, all very similar in their details, can be seen in Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 219–22, and in Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 437; Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 222; Cohen, Journeys, 80; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 63.
5 “and anyone who should take it into his head” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 222.
6 “because he was an Indian of much intelligence” Ibid.
7 “Amazon in the Greek language” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 437.
8 “the islands of California” Anthony Pagden, in Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 298–300 and 502n.
9 “When we saw all those cities and villages” Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, translated with an introduction by J. M. Cohen (New York, 1963), 214.
10 “To a large extent people are only capable of perceiving” Alex Shoumatoff, In Southern Light: Trekking Through Zaire and the Amazon (New York, 1986), 19–20.
11 “It is unnecessary and probably unfair” Ibid., 19 and 23. Shoumatoff’s journey and remarkable essay about it are well worth the read. See Alex Shoumatoff, “A Reporter at Large: Amazons,” The New Yorker, March 24, 1986. Also see Hemming, Red Gold, 224–25; Cristóbal de Acuña, in Clements R. Markham, Expeditions into the Valley of the Amazons, 1539, 1540, 1639 (New York, 1963), 121–22; Gerard Helferich, Humboldt’s Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World (New York, 2004), 160–61; Victor Wolfgang von Hagen, South America Called Them: Explorations of the Great Naturalists La Condamine, Humboldt, Darwin, Spruce (New York, 1945), 249–58. Another fascinating book for further inquiry and background is Abby Wettan Kleinbaum’s The War Against the Amazons (New York, 1983). For origins and antiquity, going as far back as the Scythians and the steppes of Asia Minor and the Black Sea, consult Lyn Webster Wilde, On the Trail of the Women Warriors: The Amazons in Myth and History (New York, 1999). Finally, fascinating and informative is the excellent chapter on the Amazons called “The Women Warriors of the Amazon: A Historical Study,” in Richard Spruce, Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes (London, 1908), 456–73. Spruce cites numerous credible and dependable firsthand sources who make direct references to the Amazon women warriors and their location, many of which confirm the locations generally described by Orellana and Carvajal (consensus is north of the main Amazon, up the Trombetas and/or Nhamunda river).