“We’ll keep the muskets ready,” Amador said to Segge. They transferred their belongings to one canoe, abandoning the other craft.
As they drifted along, the mantle of forest was unbroken, with the crowns of silk cottons towering above terraces of myrtle, laurel, rosewood, acacia. A mesh of lianas and creepers hung motionless above reeds, ferns, and broad-leafed plants flourishing between cushions of moss and lichen on the forest floor. There were bursts of color: a tree splattered with red blooms or festooned with silvery leaves; a subtle shade of mauve orchids or a flaming spray of gold. But green was dominant — from the most delicate hint of yellow green to a vivid emerald verdure.
They saw flights of birds of brilliant plumage: scarlet macaws, snowy white egrets, iridescent hummingbirds, yellow and green parrots, gaudy tanagers, brown hawks, gray-black urubu — singing, piping, chirping, clucking, screaming as they exploded and swooped and hopped among the trees.
Their intention to shelter on islands at night was thwarted when, at the end of the fifth day’s run, they found themselves on an open stretch of water. High banks to the east offered no landing place, and the western shore was choked with jungle. They paddled up a side stream into the quiet gloom of the forest and came to a small opening.
Amador was ill at ease in this sanctuary, for often what Segge saw as exotic, Amador regarded as menacing. His experience in the sertão had taught him that such solitude could be deceptive. But they were not disturbed here, and the next morning they decided to hunt in the area. When they were ready to set out, Segge picked up his musket, but Amador cautioned him against using it save in a life-threatening situation. Instead, Amador took a long bow and a dozen arrows, silent weapons that would not attract Fish People or Head People.
As they penetrated the woods behind the stream, Segge recognized in Amador the bandeirante he’d painted . . . and also something else: a hunter-killer, moving with the instincts and skill of his distant ancestors. Amador spoke of the natives as beasts and expressed pride in being Portuguese. But Segge saw clearly in this forest that Amador Flôres da Silva was no Portuguese but a true citizen of this New World, raw and savage.
A colony of potbellied spider monkeys fretted in the branches above them, chattering defiantly and baring their teeth in mocking grins. Coming downriver, Amador and Segge had seen monkeys of every description: capuchins, their hairstyle similar to the capuche of the Franciscan; the uakari, another monk of the forest, much larger but with bald pate, lean and bony face, and pink, hairless cheeks; saki, boasting a splendid hood of hair; and the tiny squirrel monkeys, often one hundred together at the edge of the river and invariably bolting at the approach of the canoe.
They had seen many other animals of the forest and river — tapir, caiman, peccary, capybara, jaguar — but, above all, this green world was the kingdom of the insect. The ant, the bug, the fly, in their most prolific forms, dominated every level of the jungle, their possession recorded by a persistent sibilance that rose from the decaying loam into the canopy above.
The day’s hunt ended in success when Amador shot a huge red-haired monkey, known for the resonant howls with which it greeted the beginning and end of each day. They carried it back to camp, roasted it, and found its meat tough and poor. They ate the white heart of palm and forest fruits collected by Amador. They dozed fitfully, taking turns to keep the fire going. Toward midnight both were violently ill, especially Amador. The next day, Segge continued to complain of stomach cramps and by afternoon lay groaning in the bottom of the canoe. Amador paddled on listlessly, grateful for a current that helped the canoe along.
In this condition, they came upon a settlement of three families of Muras — the Fish People.
The Muras were eager to trade and offer hospitality in return for iron fishhooks. Amador and Segge were the first white men these families had encountered, but the Muras showed less curiosity than Kaimari’s people. Mura watermen occasionally had brought reports of men like these seen along the Rio das Amazonas — mixed accounts that praised the fishhooks but raised disturbing questions about strangers who, said the Mura informants, fished not for pirarucu or piraíba but for as many men as their canoes would hold.
There was no need to fear these strangers, the Muras quickly saw: The day after arriving at their shelters, both men were incapacitated by violent fevers, which would afflict first one, then the other, with chills, delirium and soaring temperatures.
The Muras offered concoctions of roots and herbs and infusions of honey, and these brought a temporary respite, but always the fever returned. After two weeks, the Muras stopped ministering to the two men and left them alone in a small domed shelter near the water’s edge. Bowls of food and water would be taken to them, but beyond this the Muras lost interest. Their pagé attributed the affliction to a malevolent watersprite against whose power no remedy was effective.
Amador and Segge inspected each other’s bodies to make certain they were not suffering a long-delayed attack of The Fury. They saw that their feet were infested with minute worms that bored into the skin. Only by digging deeply into the flesh could they expel the worms, a treatment that left festering sores.
To add to their despair, the rains were approaching, heralded by storms that thrashed and shook their frail shelter. Worse, there was a perceptible rise in Love-Me-River. A few weeks more and the coming flood would trap them here for months.
On the thirtieth day, they both rose and made a valiant attempt to prepare the canoe, which was drawn up near their shelter. The Muras sat watching them but offered no assistance. “Urubu!” Amador scolded weakly. “They’re waiting for us to die so that they can steal our goods.” Segge’s blue eyes danced in their yellow sockets. “Does it matter?” he asked. They worked slowly, but exhaustion caught up with them. Amador went down on his knees at the side of the canoe. “It’s hopeless,” he said. “We can’t even get to the water. How can we expect to go downriver?” That night both suffered fresh bouts of fever, the strength they’d summoned earlier dissipated as they tossed and trembled and moaned with discomfort.
Amador woke late on the morning of the thirty-second day. Both men had scarcely moved in the forty-six hours since the attempt to ready the canoe. Segge’s eyes were already open, his gaze fixed on the fronds above; he turned his head slowly, a frown on his face as he looked at Amador. Amador did not speak, but he was also clearly puzzled by something.
Motioning Segge to remain where he was, he climbed out of the hammock.
He paused when his feet touched the ground and then stepped shakily toward the low exit. He clutched at fronds as he bent his fever-racked body to pass through the opening.
The Muras were gone.
A plume of smoke rose from a fire in front of one of their huts, a hundred yards away. But there was not a Mura in sight.
Amador took a step back toward the opening. “They’ve left us,” he said bleakly. “They’re gone.”
A groan came from within the hut.
Amador walked unevenly toward their canoe, cursing the Muras as he limped along. “They stole our goods,” he muttered.
But the canoe and its contents were exactly as they’d left them two days ago. Amador looked toward a muddy beach where the Muras kept their own craft. It was deserted. Segge had got up and was hanging onto the fronds at the entrance to the shelter.
“Every one of them . . . Muras . . . canoes, everything — gone,” Amador said. “But they took nothing of ours.”
Amador began to cross to the other huts. He’d covered sixty paces when he felt a terrible dizziness. He forced himself on toward the hut where the fire smoldered. A parrot popped out of a shelter and wobbled across the ground. Amador looked at the bird, a green blur; his nausea rose overwhelmingly.
“Amador!”
He heard Segge call his name. His legs shook and he started to faint. But he never struck the ground. The moment he began to fall, he glimpsed urucu-stained arms reaching for him. Then he lost consciousness.
When
they spoke afterward of the events of that morning and their experiences through the ensuing rainy season, they could only conclude that their preservation had been miraculous. Above all, Amador remembered what he’d once said to Segge: “Never think you know what’s in their minds, because you’ll be grievously wrong.”
The men who’d streamed out of the hut were Mundurucu, mortal enemies of the Fish People.
When Amador had come to minutes later, he found Segge and himself surrounded by the red-painted warriors. Neither offered the feeblest resistance; both cried out that their hour had finally come. They had escaped the Tupinambá and the Spaniards’ fate and innumerable other dangers, but now their luck had run out.
Yet they were wrong, for the Tupi-speaking Mundurucu escorted them to their village on a tributary of Love-Me-River, and not once on that two-day journey did the savages show animosity. On the contrary, they treated the two men with respect and admiration and evinced the gravest concern at their emaciated condition, a plight the Mundurucu blamed entirely on the Fish People, whom they vociferously promised would be chastised for their neglect of these honored guests.
At the Mundurucu village, Amador and Segge recovered with the help of medicine men who sent assistants on a search for the bark of a tree that flourished far to the west. The pagés prepared a bitter drink with this bark and served it to their patients. Within days they began to feel better, their temperatures dropped, and their appetites improved.
Amador and Segge grew stronger, but not strong enough to continue their journey. The warm, moisture-laden air masses from the north swept the forest, and the rainy season closed in. Small streams rose steadily until they broke their banks and spilled into the forest. The great rivers were swollen foot by foot, their flood roaring north to join that of the Rio das Amazonas.
Segge and Amador observed that the Mundurucu shared many aspects of life with the Tupinambá and the Paresí: cultivation of manioc and maize; body paints and feather adornments; mode of warfare and weapons; fear of forest spirits. And, like the Paresí men, the Mundurucu were fond of ceremonies, speechmaking, and dancing, and kept sacred trumpets their women were forbidden to see. However, they took their precautions against the opposite sex a step further: At no time were Amador and Segge permitted to sleep overnight in the company of women. They had to hang their hammocks in a men’s house, where all Mundurucu males above adolescence lived. The men went to the women’s dwellings to visit their children and have sex with their wives, but it was taboo to stay longer than necessary.
In their first days at the village, Amador and Segge had plied the Mundurucu with gifts of cloth, fishhooks, and beads. They seen little of the village, and had been unaware of ceremonies held on their behalf: When the rituals had ended, Mundurucu elders danced into the men’s house to offer their guests reciprocal presents.
The grateful Mundurucu gave Amador and Segge each a shrunken head.
The skulls and brains were carefully removed, the skin gently daubed with urucu, the lips sealed with fiber strands. The head was filled with sand and left until it dried and shrank to the size of a man’s fist. Then it was ready to be worn around the neck of the warrior who had taken it: a medallion of honor.
The presentation was made with profuse apologies that these were the heads of old enemies and not Fish People, whose evil had afflicted the guests. However, the Mundurucu assured them that these symbolic trophies would be exchanged for the real thing when the waters fell and “Reed Rat,” as this Mundurucu clan was known, could pursue the hated Muras.
Why their own heads were not taken to dangle against the chests of Mundurucu greatly perplexed Amador and Segge. They could only surmise that their hosts spared them because of their shared loathing of the Fish People. Thus, from December 1643 till May 1644, though they were constantly on the alert, the Mundurucu never treated them with anything but the greatest kindness and respect. And when the rains began to let up and they spoke of leaving, this was accepted without question, and warriors offered to guide them to “river-at-the-top-of-the-earth.”
They took this to be a Mundurucu description for the Rio das Amazonas, but the elders explained that Love-Me-River was “river-at-the-bottom-of-the-earth” and that far above lay river-at-the-top.
Gradually, Amador and Segge came to understand that the world of the Mundurucu was contained between two rivers that were tributaries of the Rio das Amazonas, river-at-the-top being the one farther east.
“What is special about river-at-the-top?” Segge asked the elders.
“Other Mundurucu live there.”
“Is it far?”
“Very, very far,” the elder said. “Near where the Tapajós live.”
“Tapajós? Did you hear, Amador? Tapajós! The river people the storyteller Ibira spoke of! Where he said we would find the Amazons. El Dorado!”
It took the three canoes that carried Amador and Segge and their Mundurucu guides three and a half weeks to travel from the Reed Rat’s village to the mouth of Love-Me-River.
They hugged the left bank or the right, avoiding the midstream current, where dislodged trunks, flanked by numerous smaller branches, plunged through the short waves.
With debris stuck fast near one bank, often the canoes had been forced to cross Love-Me-River, lookouts posted in bow and stern as the brown-silted river swirled around the canoes and projectiles raced alongside. They were buffeted by free-floating logs; huge sawyers slammed into the rear of their canoes until they gained the calms. Even here the river was deep and active enough for a slower-moving log to cause serious damage. But the Mundurucu were excellent canoeists, and late afternoon of July 24,1644, they approached the mouth of Love-Me-River.
A green island divided the mouth into two channels. The rains had swollen Love-Me-River to forty feet above low water. When the explorer Pedro Teixeira, the first man to ascend the Amazon, passed this way five years before, he had seen that the torrent from the south carried hundreds of trees torn from its banks. He had named the tributary Rio Madeira (“River of Wood”).
The Mundurucu now called out excitedly as they passed along the east bank of Love-Me-River, with the island to the left. Amador and Segge shared a thrill at knowing that they had reached the Rio das Amazonas. But only when they saw the waters of Love-Me-River rolling into those of the Rio das Amazonas did they realize the immensity of the river. The opposite bank was but a blur in the distance.
“Dear God, what a stream!” Segge exclaimed. “The river sea!”
There was a monotony to the voyage downriver, and this heightened the sense of limitlessness. Days on end, the line of trees on the opposite bank remained unchanged: enormous gnarled roots exposed by the torrent; stricken trees leaning precariously toward the water for the final assault that would hurl them downriver.
It was not excessively hot, as long as fair breezes wafted across the water, but when these died, the humidity rose to a stifling degree. This airlessness, the repetitive rhythms of the paddles, and a general lassitude added to the monotony and sense of infinity.
But what spectacular surprises to break that sameness!
To come to an island in the Rio das Amazonas a few days after leaving the mouth of Love-Me-River and discover it to be so large as to suggest a circumference of at least one hundred miles, and to learn that it was home to thousands of people, the Tupinambara, descendants of a great exodus from Pernambuco.
To see the Rio das Amazonas split into a dozen serpentine channels — each itself a good-sized river — coursing between low, half-flooded lands for miles until they abandoned these small diversions and were again united. A shock, then, to find the river shrinking to one mile and its bank rising to a bluff sixty feet above them, the only narrows encountered on its main course and through which the compressed flow of water poured at an astonishing rate.
The constant green and gray and blue was also relieved by the dance of sun and moon on the equator. Daybreak and a faint blush in the gray would presage the rim of orange sun behind
the trees. The surface of the river would be painted in a way no mortal artist would emulate, passing through a spectrum of shades, from soft pinks and mauves to a fiery blaze that turned the waters of the Rio das Amazonas into molten gold. At sunset the flaming ball would sink, sometimes seen hovering full circle at the very edge of earth, where there was a gap in the foliage. After the briefest pause, a small, yellowish moon would rise above the horizon and climb swiftly, the constellations growing pale the higher it rose.
Where the canoes hugged the bank, the variety of birds was clearly noticeable, but opposite, there was nothing but a silent green belt; and far ahead, a full flight of flamingos or herons was no more than a smudge of pink or white between water and sky.
One species of bird, however, appeared in flocks of hundreds, sometimes crouching together on the limbs of a single tree, motionless, waiting: urubu. The vultures circled above, forever searching the flood for rotten carcasses; they floated on the surface, riding the current as they surveyed slimy mudflats, hoping to detect a stench that would lead them to their meal.
All along the passage from the mouth of the Rio Madeira to the Rio Tapajós, the voyagers found evidence of death and suffering among the river tribes, not from the natural hazards of this wild and dangerous kingdom, but from the depredations of Portuguese and Spaniard.
Every infamy that had occurred in lands to the south during the previous century was being reenacted here now. Bloody encounters between Portuguese and French (and Dutch and English); the frustrations of Jesuits and priests, who sought to establish aldeias among the river nations; the annihilation of clans who resisted; and, above all, the systematic capture of tens of thousands of natives, for whom the Mother of Rivers became the hell of waters along which they rode to perpetual slavery.
At a major village of the Tapajós nation on the south bank of the Rio das Amazonas, Segge Proot’s second Eden offered a perfect vision of hell.
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