The spider’s body was transferred to a cloth bag by the men’s side (which I could tell from its bulk probably contained other ill-fated spiders). As it was almost fully dark now, this was clearly their last catch of the day. They both stood up and made their way back to the clearing with the cooking-fires, and, fascinated – even if a little sad for the poor spiders – I wriggled out of my hiding place and followed.
It was here that I was to get my first ever cookery lesson. Once back by the empty fire, the men set to work. They removed several spiders from the cloth bag they’d brought, all of similar size to the one I’d watched them catch, and began fiddling carefully with each one. I would later learn that what they’d been doing was extracting the venom, which was clearly something useful, as they carefully squeezed it out into a small container that looked to be made from half a coconut shell.
It was difficult to see the detail, but once they’d dealt with every spider – as well as a couple of snakes that had been in the bag too – they wrapped them one by one in what looked like banana leaves, folding each leaf to make a parcel. These were then pierced with thin sticks to hold them together and popped onto the grid above the fire.
I had watched intently as they’d done this, my limbs again protesting but my stomach a great deal happier now it was anticipating food. And it seemed I was in luck because as soon as they’d prepared the parcels the two men got up again and walked out of the clearing. To hunt another kind of food? To tell the others? I had no idea. All I knew was that I wanted one of those parcels for myself.
I waited for some time, as I was frightened they might return, but once my ears had convinced me it was safe to go back, I quickly ran across to the grill and plucked out one of the parcels.
The heat was a shock. It was so hot I nearly dropped it and had to keep transferring it from hand to hand. I turned around then, to run with it back into the forest, but was stopped dead as I did so by the sight of three children, who had appeared as if from nowhere and now stood before me, staring with their huge black button eyes.
They said nothing, did nothing, seemed curious yet immobile, so I simply plunged back into the undergrowth and ran. They didn’t follow. They didn’t seem to care that I’d stolen their dinner. In fact, as I paused to take a breath before continuing, I could hear sounds that seemed unmistakeably like giggles.
I decided to stop then and get the first taste of my weirdly warm spider. I was ravenous and it seemed cool enough to eat now. I pulled the stick from the parcel and unfolded the charred leaf. The smell that wafted up made my stomach even happier, but as soon as I saw what was inside I felt sick. It just looked so horrible that I’d need to be much hungrier before I could bring myself to put anything so grim into my mouth.
My first taste of hot campfire food would have to wait. Perhaps they cooked other things, things that I could eat. I began the long trudge back to my own territory still hungry.
And hungry to see more. I would be back.
11
Once I knew where the human camp was, I couldn’t keep away.
It was like a drug to me. So much so that, day after day, I would make the long journey, the route etched on my consciousness, and spend hours just sitting silently close by, taking it all in. No small child hankering after a special toy could have been more entranced than I was by what I’d found. And no student, however diligent, could have soaked up more information.
Food was a big preoccupation in those early days. After the excitement of finding – and stealing from – the tribe’s barbecues, it had been a big disappointment to open that spider parcel and feel unable to eat what was inside it. But something kept calling me back, which I suspect might have been the hunch that other things would be cooked on those campfires that I would like to eat. And I was not to be disappointed.
Over the coming weeks and months, I was rewarded by a wide range of jungle food. I tried ant’s bottoms, which were crunchy and delicious, and some huge shiny brown bugs that I couldn’t identify, and which were not. They looked appealing on the outside, swollen and glossy with a pointed end, but inside they were raw and disgusting. I tried a tasty skinless meat that was reminiscent of sausage – looking back, it was a little like gamey chicken or maybe pheasant, but of course then all I knew was that I liked it. Sometimes the meat I tried had lots of tiny little bones in, and it occurs to me now that it was probably lumps of snake. I also ate fish and later on did try spiders, and when much later I found these tribes would routinely kill and eat monkeys, I had to concede – with great sadness and feelings of betrayal – that I probably ate monkey meat as well.
But at the time, I didn’t know. I was hungry, and their food filled my tummy like nothing I could forage for ever would.
Not that I needed to forage much now. There was always fruit in abundance at the human camp. Why climb to get it myself when it was there for the taking? Helping myself now became a way of life.
I also, I now know, discovered alcohol! I have no idea what it was made from, or any idea of how they made it – all I know is that one day, on my way back to the monkey tunnels and my own territory, I came upon a container with a long narrow neck that was probably made from clay and which was covered in woven banana leaves. I tentatively sniffed it. The smell was pungent and made the inside of my nose prickle but at the same time was strangely appealing. Being very parched, I took a couple of big, thirst-quenching gulps. But as soon as I did I got a bit of a shock. Although the smell was enticing, when the liquid hit my throat, it was strong and incredibly bitter. It was also a taste that, after drinking nothing but water for so long, came as something of a surprise.
But it was as nothing to the shock of what would happen to me soon after. It was as if I’d suddenly forgotten how to work my arms and legs. I stumbled about a bit, enjoying the strange yet pleasant sensation that everything around was moving just as much as I was. So nice was the feeling that I even took a couple more swigs, which rendered me giggly and almost incapable.
It was a first and last experiment with underage drinking for me, as I felt strange and unsettled for the rest of that evening and far from bright eyed and bushy tailed the next day.
*
But it wasn’t just food and drink that called me back to the Indians’ camp. I continued to feel the strong sense of yearning I’d first experienced when I saw the new mother. I wanted to know everything about this human family and was keen to absorb all the minutiae of their everyday lives.
They wore little in the way of clothing – why would they, in the jungle heat? The men simply wore loincloths, as did the women. In fact, the only woman I had seen in something that covered most of her body was the woman who gave birth that first day. I wondered about the lack of teeth in the adults, as it looked so strange. In fact, it bewildered me. Had they fallen out? Been taken out? Was it a part of their grooming? There was so much to learn, and though some of what I saw stirred up memories of the life I’d lived before, most of it felt alien and strange.
But some things are universal across both animal and human kingdoms. I would watch the children play endlessly, loving how like me they seemed. They even did as I’d done when I’d first come into the jungle – found teasing the poor, long-suffering spiders a particularly pleasing way to pass the time. The women seemed busy every single second – they worked tirelessly. Unlike my monkey family, who spent much of their time sitting grooming one another and dozing, the women of this family seemed always to have so much to do. They would collect twigs to make the containers in which they stored their fruit and other things. They would lash together sticks of bamboo they had gathered before adding them to the already thickly covered hut roofs. They would also sew huge mats of bamboo and vine-string, which could be used both to lie on and also bent to make new walls to repair broken sections of their huts.
The men, too, were busy, and I soon came to understand how the work in the camp was divided. While the women kept the camp (and the children) neat and tidy, the men would go off
in their wooden boats, down the river, or else spend time making poisoned darts, bows and arrows, and catapults. There seemed no end to the ways they had devised to kill things.
They had also made tree climbing much simpler than it was for me by tying a loose grassy rope between and around their ankles so that the rope tightened and gripped the tree trunk as they climbed. I could readily see how much pressure it took off their legs and feet, and they could scale a tree in no time, to get to the fruits above.
They also had a novel use for corncobs. Where I’d been dealing with my bodily functions both by using bits of moss and by doing as the monkeys did, I noticed one day, watching a child in the bushes, that they would use a hairy corn husk to do the job much more efficiently. It became a technique I adopted from then on.
*
So the days passed and the weeks passed, and my life became focused. Though I’d scamper back to my monkey troop every evening at around nightfall, most of my waking hours were now spent at the camp. I would carefully climb up into a tree close to the perimeter and spend hours, a silent wraith, just looking and listening. And the more I saw, the more I nursed a burgeoning belief that this was where I belonged, if only they would accept me.
Fear is a powerful emotion, and I was still very frightened. I had made a life with the animals and knew what to expect of them, and all I knew of humans, bar those fuzzy memories of home and mothering, was that two humans had stolen me and dumped me here. They had left me in the jungle not caring if I lived or died. Were these humans any different? I desperately wanted to believe they were. But what if they weren’t? It would take courage to show my face here.
But as the time passed, the images of family here were so enticing. I would stare in at scenes that were tantalising and inviting: children playing, fires lit, all the family together. How wonderful it would be, I thought, from my viewpoint in the dark bushes, to be one of those cherished children, playing within the cosy confines of their cheerful camp.
I don’t know now what made that particular day different from any other. I’m not sure if something triggered my sudden flash of boldness or whether I’d just had enough of being excluded from it all. Perhaps it was because there was so much going on that I thought I could slip in unnoticed.
It was around the middle of the day, and everyone seemed occupied. I’m not sure if anyone saw me, but if they did, they didn’t make me aware of it. And perhaps I was oblivious to any attention anyway: I was completely focused on my mission to go inside. I had got it into my head that the pregnant woman who’d first led me here could be my route to being accepted by the camp.
I stepped out from the scrubby undergrowth and planted my feet on the beaten sandy earth beyond the fence. I didn’t stand there for long, though. Open space was too frightening. Instead, I dashed to the nearest hut and peered cautiously inside it.
The interior was dark but every bit as enticing. There were comfortable-looking beds made from grass and bamboo on the floor, as well as lots of mats, some plain and some patterned. The walls were hung prettily with bananas and other fruits – so many kinds of fruit, some of which I hadn’t seen growing in the jungle. Where had they come from? There were a couple of hammocks slung from a pole in the centre and all around were items that the people had made: baskets and jugs, things made from raffia and branches, and clay.
The hut itself was empty, so I quickly turned my attention outside again. Just beyond it, and previously invisible to me, was a water butt. It looked like a giant version of the flask I’d drunk from. It was very wide at the bottom but quite narrow at the top and had a long neck – was this perhaps to keep bugs out? It was just wide enough at the lip to scoop water out of (for which they used some sort of half-shell), though this would have been difficult for a child if it was less than full.
The water, I had worked out, didn’t come from the river – though I had no idea why, because it was fine for me to drink. Instead, it seemed to come to them in giant metal containers, which they would carry in pairs from some place I couldn’t see. They would put holes in the top and fix two cans together by means of a long pole, which they would use to balance two of them on their shoulders. This triggered a memory, as I had seen adults carrying water in this way at my home.
Beside the water butt, and drinking from it, was a woman. And she was not just any woman, she was the woman who’d first drawn me here. My heart leapt at the sight of her. It was a sign, I felt sure, that I’d been right to approach. She was a mother and if she just looked in my eyes, then perhaps she’d love me the same way as she loved her baby.
What an intense thing it is – this human need to be loved. It’s one of the most profound things that make social animals social. Just as the monkeys cared so much for one another, so I had learned that these human animals did too. And that was all I wanted: to be loved by them and cared for. And all it would take, or so I believed, was for a mother to see that need in my eyes.
But she didn’t. As I stood there, not knowing quite when to reveal myself, she turned from the water butt and saw me. And her response was the opposite of what I’d expected. Yes, she looked into my eyes, but all I could see in hers was fear. She started skipping away immediately, keeping her eyes on me as she did so, as if I wasn’t like her but some disgusting, filthy creature, utterly repellent to her.
Her fear didn’t seem to diminish as she backed away from me. If anything, the more she looked at me, the more afraid she became. She began stumbling over stray objects in her panic, and all the while she kept shouting at me, over and over. I didn’t know what she was saying, but it was clear that she wanted me to go away.
Whatever it was, the drama of her delivery drew attention from other people, and as I tried to make myself as small and submissive as I could, a well-built man came running from one of the nearby huts, obviously keen to find out what was happening. He wore a fabric headband into which were stuck a pair of feathers. One was a bright gorgeous blue, the other a deep green, and as well as these he wore other brightly coloured jewellery made of beads. He also had two stripes – one red and beneath it one black – daubed in some kind of paint, across his cheeks.
I instinctively knew he was the chief here. I knew about leaders from my monkey family, of course. In our troop, it wasn’t Grandpa who ran things. For one thing, with his injured arm, he sat down too much and just raised an eyebrow at the things that went on. Our chief was younger, bigger and definitely stronger. He could snap big thick branches that others could not, and this made the whole troop respect him. He was forceful and pushy, and definitely not my favourite, but that was troop life. He was the one we trusted to lead us.
This man was like that monkey: confident and strong. And, having seen me and clearly not found me at all frightening, he approached me accordingly. I watched his eyes narrow as he appraised what he saw. Now it was my turn to be terrified again, because he immediately reached out and placed a strong hand on one of my shoulders, while his other hand grasped my face and pulled it forwards.
If he was shocked to see me there, or in the least bit confused by me, he didn’t show it. And his inspection of me took no time. While my heart thumped in my chest and my limbs quaked in terror, he opened my mouth to inspect my teeth, pulled my head down to see the back of my neck and all the time mumbled some incomprehensible babble. The job done, he simply shooed me away.
As a gesture, it was unmistakeable. The monkeys would do it. It was the sort of gesture a bigger, stronger monkey would make if a smaller, weaker fellow monkey tried to steal their nuts. I was devastated. Couldn’t he at least give me a chance? I tried begging to him, making gestures to convey my wish for food and shelter. But my voice and actions were those of a monkey, not a child, and he took not the slightest notice, just kept on shooing me.
Yet still I persisted. They had so much food and shelter! I needed so little and could help them so much, yet he was implacable and now began to push me. His hands were rough, his strength considerable, and he was determined to
be rid of me, even making a gesture that I immediately understood – of a finger being dragged across his throat in great anger.
I needed no further encouragement to go then and ran back into the undergrowth before slinking away into the jungle, feeling wretched. I didn’t stop till I was back in my own territory, with my dear, familiar monkeys, who seemed, if not exactly thrilled that I’d returned to them, at least happy, as they always were, to let me stay.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. And an enduring one, too, because it resonates with me still. Family is not just about who you appear to belong to, or what it says on your birth certificate, or who you look like, or even what they’d find if they studied your DNA. Family is found anywhere you are loved and cared for. That might mean friends or foster parents, a group or even a charity. What matters far more – so much more than chemistry or ancestry – is that precious bond, that reassurance that they won’t let you down.
I thought hard over the coming days about what had happened to me and how to cope with it. A new feeling had now wormed its way into my consciousness. Somehow I knew that I really belonged in the human world, but I had been turned away. I felt raw and rejected, unwanted and hurt. Where did my future lie, now that my own kind had rejected me? But again and again I kept coming back to the same truth. That my family were the ones who had never let me down. Because the monkeys hadn’t, had they? Even though I’d tried to replace them. Even though I’d been so dismissive and so disloyal to them. I realised I must put all thoughts of humans firmly out of my mind. The monkeys, not the humans, were my family.
12
Life, after a time, continued as it had always done, and as the days passed so my yearning for life at the camp faded. I did go back from time to time, but now it was for purely practical reasons. There was food there that I liked, and I was very adept at stealing it. So why wouldn’t I? But that was where it ended.
The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys Page 8