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12 “scholars who have tried to reconstruct the journey” Shoumatoff, In Southern Light, 18.
13 One of his hearty men, Bernard O’Brien Hemming, Red Gold, 224–25.
14 “The proofs of the existence of the province of the Amazons” Cristóbal de Acuña, in Markham, Expeditions, 121–22.
15 “Could it have been [he wondered]” Helferich, Humboldt’s Cosmos, 160–61.
16 The French scientist and naturalist La Condamine Von Hagen, South America Called Them, 249–58.
17 “I myself have seen Indian women” Spruce, Notes of a Botanist, 458.
18 “Those traditions must have had some foundation in fact” Spruce, Notes of a Botanist, 470.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: TIDES OF CHANGE AND A SWEETWATER SEA
1 “pleasantest and brightest land” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 223; Cohen, Journeys, 82; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 63; Chapman, Golden Dream, 170.
2 “There came out toward us” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 223; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 438; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 63.
3 “they came forth very gaily decked out” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 223.
4 “ruled over a great expanse” Ibid.
5 The interpreter added Ibid. Some scholars, including the well-respected J. M. Cohen, interpret this to mean that these men were almost positively Caribs, “of the kind that the Spaniards had already encountered in the Caribbean and on the shores of the mainland.” See Cohen, Journeys, 83. See also the case of Hans Staden, the German-born soldier of fortune who was shipwrecked in 1550 with Portuguese and then held captive by the Tupinamba tribe of Brazil, where he was ritually and ceremonially prepared to be eaten and witnessed much cannibalism. Hans Staden, The True History of His Captivity 1557, translated and edited by Malcolm Letts, with an introduction and notes (New York, 1929), 7–8, 92, and 99.
6 “the wound turned very black” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 438.
7 “railings on the brigantines in the manner of fortifications” Medina, Discovery, 224; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 64.
8 “like a rim … as high up as a man’s chest” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 439.
9 “tied to the oars” Medina, Discovery, 224.
10 “The flowing of the tide” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 226.
11 “With a very great clamor and outcry” Ibid.
12 The canoes impeded even the movement of the oars Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 65; Cohen, Journeys, 85. In another version the overlord is referred to by the lengthy name of Nurandaluguaburabara.
13 None of those who fell into the water The harquebusier referred to as Perucho (both Carvajal and Oviedo mention him by this first name only, which is a diminutive and informal expression for “Pedro”) might well have been a man named Pedro de Acaray, who was listed as a soldier of Gonzalo Pizarro’s at the beginning of the voyage. See Medina, Discovery, 242n; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 440.
14 “The Indian men kept uttering cries” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 440.
15 In less than twenty-four hours Soria Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 304. On poison dart frogs, see David L. Pearson and Les Beletsky, Travellers’ Wildlife Guides: Brazil—Amazon and Pantanal (Northampton, Massachusetts, 2005), 91–93. Also Dr. Robert Carneiro, editorial notes on River of Darkness, October 8, 2009. Carneiro is of the opinion that, based on their location on the Amazon at the time of being struck with poisoned arrows, “the poison that killed Orellana’s men was very likely derived from the sap of the manchineel or manzanilla tree, Hippomane mancinella. It was more commonly used by the Indians of the Caribbean coast. The Spaniards were in great dread of it, saying that someone hit by a manchineel-poisoned arrow was ‘moria rabiando,’ [pretty much what] Carvajal observed.” (Translated, “moria rabiando” means “he died raging.”)
Curare—a generic term used to describe many types of poison—was (and is) used for both warfare and hunting, but in different ways. The curare for blowgun darts is primarily employed for hunting animals and is associated with the plant vine Strychnos toxifera and its bark. Also used among some tribes (almost exclusively for hunting) is the poison from the glands of certain species of frogs that bear the apt and rather obvious name of poison dart frogs. Most notable of these is the deadly Phyllobates terribilis (terrible golden poison dart frog), whose toxicity is extraordinary: the poison from this frog is among the most lethal substances on earth, one small frog carrying sufficient poison to kill ten human beings. To harvest the frog poison, some frogs are roasted on a stick, the flames inducing the secretion of the poison. In the case of the deadliest Phyllobates terribilis, the hunter simply rubs the dart on the back of the frog and transfers the poison, and the live frog is released.
Curare was only rarely used for arrows in warfare, and when employed was more often distilled from the bark of Strychnos toxifera. In either case, the making of curare was and is an elaborate production, often attended to or orchestrated by a special tribal member called a “poison master.” The poison master harvests the bark in the forest, then pounds the bark into fibers, which is filtered as yellow liquid through palm or plantain leaves, then boiled and distilled into a black, bitter liquid. Alexander von Humboldt witnessed the process and ceremony during his time on the Amazon, amazed to discover that the toxins worked only when they came into contact with the bloodstream; one could drink the curare liquid (indeed, the poison master tasted it as he added water throughout the distillation process, and it was also drunk as a palliative, for stomachaches) with no harmful effects. For this description, see Alexander von Humboldt, Views of Nature: Or, Contemplations on the Sublime Phenomena of Creation, with Scientific Illustrations, translated by E. C. Otte and Henry G. Bohn (London, 1850), 151–52. Also described in Helferich, Humboldt’s Cosmos, 170–71.
16 This line of flat-topped hills Wood, Conquistadors, 224.
17 The land here was savanna Spruce, Notes of a Botanist, 457.
18 “We struck out among islands” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 441; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 310–11.
19 “flesh roasted on barbecues” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 442; Cohen, Journeys, 86. On the practice of cannibalism among the various Carib tribes, see also Oviedo, Natural History of the West Indies, 32–33. He says, “The bow-using Caribs … and most of those who live along that coast, eat human flesh. They do not take slaves, nor are they friendly to their enemies or foreigners. They eat all the men that they kill and use the women they capture, and the children that they bear—if any Carib should couple with them—are also eaten. The boys that they take from foreigners are castrated, fattened, and eaten.” For initial (earliest) contact with the Carib people and their cannibalism practices, see Irving Rouse, The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus (New Haven and London, 1992), 22–23. According to Rouse and others, the word “cannibal” is derived from a corruption of the Spanish word caribal, which was used to describe the practice by Island-Carib warriors of biting the flesh from their enemies in order to consume and garner their opponents’ powers. See also Hans Staden, True History of His Captivity.
20 “with the thread and brass sheath” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 441–42.
21 “A thing well worth seeing” Ibid. See also Silverman and Isbell, Handbook of South American Archaeology, 350–55, and Roosevelt, Moundbuilders, 30–51.
22 “make a very good showing” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 442; Silverman and Isbell, Handbook of South American Archaeology, 352–53; Roosevelt, Moundbuilders, 80–85. Roosevelt’s estimate of “tens of thousands of square miles in size” is the most ambitious among scholars sizing such chiefdoms. For a fascinating argument that contests some of her claims, see Robert Carneiro, “The History of Ecological Interpretations of Amazonia: Does Roosevelt Have It Right?” in Indigenous Peoples and the Future of Amazonia, edited by Leslie E. Sponsel (Tucson, 1995), 45–70.
23 “Marajoara culture was one of the outstanding nonliterate complex societies of the wo
rld” Roosevelt, Moundbuilders, 1.
24 “territories tens of thousands of square kilometers in size” Quoted in Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 282. See also Roosevelt, Moundbuilders, 1–7, and Mann, 1491, 288–300.
25 “until there remained only four finger widths” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 442; Cohen, Journeys, 86; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 312.
26 “Here we saw ourselves” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 229.
27 The Spaniards loaded what foodstuffs Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 442–43; Cohen, Journeys, 87; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 314–15; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 66–67; Chapman, Golden Dream, 170–71.
28 “We ate maize in rations counted out by grains” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 230.
29 “had been dead for only a short time” Ibid.
30 They consumed every ounce of it, entrails and all Cohen, Journeys, 88; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 443; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 67; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 317.
31 “toiled with no little amount of endeavor” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 230.
32 so on about July 25 This date is approximate. Carvajal (and Oviedo) say that they departed from “Starvation Island” on August 8, and most sources say that they had been there for two weeks.
33 Anticipating the very high likelihood of taking on water Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 318; Wood, Conquistadors, 225.
34 “for we did not eat anything” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 231; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 444; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 68; Wood, Conquistadors, 225; Chapman, Golden Dream, 171; Smith, Explorers, 76.
35 Couple all this with the very real fact A fascinating study on starvation is summarized and used to compare the test subjects to the crew members of the whaleship Essex in Nathaniel Philbrick’s excellent book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (New York, 2000), 158–59 and 166–67.
36 “What grieved us most” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 444.
37 As they zigzagged … without food Pearson and Beletsky, Travellers’ Wildlife Guides: Brazil, 314–19; Medina, Discovery, 232; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 68; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 320; Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 444.
38 But to the Spaniards’ great relief Cohen, Journeys, 87; Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 232; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 68.
39 “not far away from there” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 445; Pohl and Robinson, Aztecs and Conquistadors, 40–41.
40 “In this manner we got ready to navigate by sea” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 232; Cohen, Journeys, 89; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 68–69; Chapman, Golden Dream, 172; Smith, Explorers, 76–77; Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 322.
41 “I am telling the truth” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 430.
42 What Orellana would not have known For locations and early descriptions of the Pearl Islands, see Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, edited and translated by Nigel Griffin with an introduction by Anthony Pagden (New York, 1992), 86–94.
43 Most fortunate, though Goulding, Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon, 28–29.
44 “had been navigating along the most dangerous and roughest coast” Oviedo, in Medina, Discovery, 447.
45 “When we found ourselves within it” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 233; Muller, Orellana’s Discovery, 69; Cohen, Journeys, 89; Morison, European Discovery of America, 144–57.
46 After a week of constant struggle … cracked and bleeding Millar, Crossbowman’s Story, 335.
47 “something more than a journey” Quoted in Wood, Conquistadors, 226. Another version of this quote appears in Hemming, El Dorado, 123, in which the journey is described as “something more than a shipwreck, more a miraculous event.”
48 “So great was the joy” Carvajal, in Medina, Discovery, 234.
49 Only three had been killed in battle Smith, Explorers, 82; Cohen, Journeys, 90. Gonzalo Pizarro, in his return expedition to Quito, lost about ten times as many men.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE HOMEWARD REACH
1 Father Carvajal also discovered Prescott, Conquest of Peru, 378–79; Medina, Discovery, 16; Lockhart, Men of Cajamarca, 205–6.
2 “I, Brother Gasper de Carvajal” Quoted in Medina, Discovery, 235.
3 Nearly all of these men eventually sailed Ibid., 124; Cohen, Journeys, 91; Smith, Explorers, 82.
4 Maldonado, a driven and ambitious conquistador … a trusted leader and fearless soldier Medina, Discovery, 121 and 125; Cohen, Journeys, 91; Hemming, El Dorado, 92; Bernard, Exploration, 97.
5 “Item, whether they knew that” Quoted in Cohen, Journeys, 92; Medina, Discovery, 87 and 269; Bernard, Exploration, 97–98.
6 His responsibilities in Hispaniola Oviedo, Natural History of the West Indies, ix–xvii. Oviedo is credited, among many other early observations, with being the first European to describe in detail the pineapple, the hammock, and tobacco.
7 “letters written in August, 1542” H.C. Heaton, in Medina, Discovery, 384.
8 The court historian Cohen, Journeys, 93.
9 “other hidalgos and commoners” Heaton, in Medina, Discovery, 383–84. Also Medina, Discovery, 27–28 and 28n.
10 “one of the greatest things that have happened to men” Oviedo, Historia general y natural de las Indias, vol. 4, 384.
11 Oviedo deemed the discovery of the world’s largest river Medina, Discovery, 27.
12 Treaty of Tordesillas Henry Kamen, Spain’s Road to Empire (London, 2002), xvi, 42, and 199; J. H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (New York, 1974), 47; C. H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (New York, 1947), 9n7, 17, and 98; Hemming, Tree of Rivers, 18–19.
13 “acquainting himself in very great detail” Quoted in Medina, Discovery, 125; also Orellana’s Petition and Opinions of the Council of the Indies, in Medina, Discovery, 323. See also Bernard, Exploration, 97; Cohen, Journeys, 93–94.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE LAST STAND OF THE LAST PIZARRO
1 “[displayed] toward the whole expeditionary force” Gonzalo Pizarro, letter to the king, September 3, 1542, in Medina, Discovery, 248.
2 “Orellana had gone off and become a rebel” Ibid., 249.
3 “previous royal concession” Lockhart, Men of Cajamarca, 16.
4 “return to his estates” Birney, Brothers of Doom, 259.
5 Gonzalo Pizarro had been dismissed Ibid. Also Lockhart, Men of Cajamarca, 184–85 and 188; Vega, Royal Commentaries, 900; Philip Ainsworth Means, Fall of the Inca Empire and the Spanish Rule in Peru: 1530–1780 (New York and London, 1932), 82.
6 By 1542 he had been back to Spain Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the Indies, translated and edited by Andrée Collard (New York, Evanston, and London, 1971), ix–xxvi; Haring, Spanish Empire, 11–14. Also Hemming, El Dorado, 138–39. For Las Casas and the New Laws, see also Vega, Royal Commentaries, 935–39. An interesting analysis of the man and his thinking is also Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man (Cambridge, London, and New York, 1982).
7 “branding of Indians” Haring, Spanish Empire, 56. On the practice of branding prisoners as slaves, see Levy, Conquistador, 208. See also William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico (New York, 2001), 634.
8 If carried out, the New Laws Haring, Spanish Empire, 56–57; Birney, Brothers of Doom, 262–63; Means, Fall of the Inca Empire, 82–86. For a full analysis and explanation of the complicated encomienda system, see Lesley Byrd Simpson, The Encomienda System in New Spain: Forced Native Labor in the Spanish Colonies, 1492–1550 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1929) and James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532–1560: A Colonial Society (Madison, Milwaukee, and London, 1968), 11–33.
9 “[Spain wishes] to enjoy what we sweated for” Quoted in MacQuarrie, Last Days, 350. Also in Sarah de Laredo, editor, From Panama to Peru: The Conquest of Peru by the Pizarros, the Rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro, and the Pacification by La Gasca (London, 1925), 328.
10 “Anyone who spoke favorably of Gonzalo Pizarro” Birney, Brothers of Doo
m, 267; Means, Fall of the Inca Empire, 89.
11 It was, in effect, a declaration of war Cieza de León, The War of Quito by Pedro de Cieza de León and Inca Documents, translated and edited by Clements R. Markham (London, 1913), 90–91.
12 “See here,” he railed, “I am to be Governor” Quoted in MacQuarrie, Last Days, 350; also in Laredo, From Panama to Peru, 416–18.
13 “set astride mules” Birney, Brothers of Doom, 271; Means, Fall of the Inca Empire, 90.
14 Clearly Gonzalo had no scruples Vega, Royal Commentaries, 1009.
15 “because they were skilled” Ibid., 1053.
16 “which was stuck on a pike” Birney, Brothers of Doom, 275; Vega, Royal Commentaries, 1055.
17 By late January 1546 Vega, Royal Commentaries, 1056–57; Zárate, Discovery and Conquest of Peru, 243; Hemming, Conquest of the Incas, 267–68; Prescott, Conquest of Peru, 427–33; Lockhart, Men of Cajamarca, 127.
18 In a drunken and raucous postvictory celebration Prescott, Conquest of Peru, 437; Means, Fall of the Inca Empire, 91; Birney, Brothers of Doom, 275–76.
19 “A procession was formed” Prescott, Conquest of Peru, 434–35.
20 The vein was so rich Ibid., 436, 436n, and 450; Vega, Royal Commentaries, 1068; Birney, Brothers of Doom, 291.