Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 122, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1913 — AMONG THE PUTUMAYOS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AMONG THE PUTUMAYOS

F_ EW are the white men who have ever set foot on the mysterious land of Putumayo, a wilderness the size of Kansas shut in between two tributejfmgyyr? ries of the Amazon. Vhere are no railways, no roads, telephones, no • telegraph. For six months travel is possible, by boat along the rivers. For three months the rivers drown one-half of the jungle, which takes the aspect of an imprecise and treacherous lake. For another three months/the virgin forest is dotted everywhere with dangerous ooze holes, a paradise for all the deadliest bacteria, scorpions, snakes and all the

animated nuisances which constitute the seamy side of the glorious tropical nature. This is the. Sand of rubber. In whose uncharted, jious forest many crimes have been committed by the white man, if we are to believe the report drawn by Sir ffl og e r Caseiment. English (Investigator s have charged the Peruvian

government with refusing protection to the unfortunate aborigines whom the trader’s greed has practically forced into the rubber tapping business. Peruvians, and among them a Peruvian judge, who passed through New York recently, and who had investigated the charges, answered that English traders were directly responsible for the Putumayo atrocities and that Peru, with its population of four millions, scattered over 700,000 square miles, cannot very well make thajungle as safe or safer than the neighborhood of the Metropole hotel, says the New York Tribune. One man arrived In New York the other day who has traveled the length and breadth of the Putumayo, and who, in the present controversy, has the good advantage of being neither a Peruvian nor an Englishman. His testimony, therefore, is likely to be more impartial than that of Sir Roger Casement or of Judge Romulo Paredes. Georg von Hassel is German, as his name indicates, a civil engineer by profession, explorer, geographer and anthropologist by taste. He has directed in the course of ten years nine different expeditions to survey the northern regions of Peru, and has published four maps (the only ones In existence) of four different sections of the Putumayo. Finally, he has introduced in the rubber regions an automatic rubber tapping ~ machlnd which will in the near future enable the Indians to return undisturl|ed to their primeval Idleness. 1 • “There is no doubt,” Herr von Hassel said, “that the Putumayo natives have been handled very brutally on several occasions. Many have been killed, although the figures mentioned by muckrakers are ridiculously exaggerated. It has been stated that some 25,000 Putumayo Indians have been murdered In the course of the last ten years. The truth is that there are not 100,000 wild Indians in the whole republic of Peru. In the Putumayo proper, which is the most Inhabitable part of the country, being right under the equator, I don’t think there are more than 3,000 aborigines. > “On the other hand, you must not believe that the Putumayo Indian Is the meek, bleating lamb described in certain reports unfavorable to both the Peruvian government and the English traders. The 107 Indian tribes inhabiting the Peruvian forests are divided up into two main races, distinguishable by their weapons and their habits. Those living on the right bank of the Amazon are rather peaceful, using only one weapon, the bow, and they never poison their arrows. The tribes living on the left bank of the Amason (and this includes the Putumayo region) are fond of fighting and use as weapons spears and . blowpipes, whose darts are poisoned with curave. “Certain pieces of household furniture one finds very frequently in Indian huts give an inkling of what may happen to careless meddlers, be they white or' copper-colored. Catching a member of a hostile tribe and bringing home his head is considered an excellent sport. The head itself is a highly prized trophy. For reason of convenience the inside of the head Is removed, the teeth pulled out for use in making belts or necklaces, the

lips are sewed up and the head is then shrunk until it is hardly larger than a child’s fist. In certain tribes no man is allowed to marry unless he can show one of those little heads as evidence of his valor.” "Another ghastly thing which you see now and then is a ladle whose handle is made up of a dried human arm. This does not mean that the Indians are especially cruel and murderous. The white man has little to fear from them? provided he finds out all about a tribe’s habits and customs before venturing into'an Indian settlement. If you see three round stones at the entrance to a hut it means: ‘Keep out, the master is out; there are only women and children within.’ “Disregard the warning, let the chief find you in his hut and soon after your head, conveniently shrunk, may adorn the door of his tent. "Three sticks laid on one another at a certain angle in front of the hut means: ‘Everybody out.’ Again death would be the penalty for trespassing. Shoot some of the Indians* domestic animals and a little poisoned arrow will soon dispatch you into eternity It is the lay of the forest, and much as we may object to such a code of laws, It must be confessed that the Indians are very law-abiding people. "A rubber tree bearing the brand of one tapper Is never tampered with by anothei* tapper. Masses of coagulated rubber may be left in the forest unprotected. The owner’s mark stamped upon each piece is enough to keep thieves away. "While forest Indians are not likely to molest a white mat} who observes all the of the jungle code, they seem to abhor the sight of a black man. Many of the difficulties which arose in the Putumayo between Indians and rubber traders and' led to acts of brutality on the part of the latter were due to the fact that the English-Amazon company employed Barbados negroes as foremen. The Indians called them ‘Talfe’ or devils, and only worked under them when compelled by sheer violence. "The Huitoto tribe, from which most of the rubber tappers are recruited, presents curious characteristics. As many as a hundred families live in common under a strange-look-Ing edifice called tombo, or tolpa. It is a sort of a cross between a h'-t and a tent, rising to a height of 40 or 50 feet. Jungle creepers are stretched upon a light conical timber frame, and then the whole thing Is covered up with bamboo. From a die* tance it gives the impression of a traveling circus tent It has no windows, and the doors are so low that one has to stoop considerable to penetrate Into the tolpa. Around the circular space covered by the tolpa are separate groups of hammocks for the various families. Every family has its fire, on which a large kettle is kept simmering continuously. It contains a sort of meat .stew which never seems to become exhausted, for. after every meal the women refill the kettle with fresh meat and seasoning, without ever emptying IL Over the fire hang pieces of fish or venison which are being cured by smoke. “The Hultotos have no definite form of worship. They believe in the existence of a superior being called Usinamu and of a. lower element called Talfe. They admit a future ex-

istence and manifest a certain respect. to Itoma, the sun, and Fuel, the moon. They generally bury their dead in their own tent wrapped up in. a new hammock, which .contains all the weapons and utensils they used In the course of their lives. “The young Indian who wishes to be married goes to the tent where his beloved lived, cuts some wood for his future father-in-law and presents the cacique with a certain quantity of cocoa and tobacco. Some fourteen days afterward the young woman is allowed to follow her husband to hie tolpa. This Is the occasion for very picturesque festivities, parades and dances at which Huitoto belles display their talent in skin painting. All the time is heard the booming sound of the mangare calling from every hin. “The mangare is a curious instrument, a sort of wireless of the jungle, which is used not only to express a tribe’s rejoicing, but to communicate the cacique’s orders to the men at work in the forest. It is a sort of drum made by hollowing out two tree trtfnks of slightly different size. By striking the surface with a mallet two different notes are produced, and the various combinations of those two sounds permit the transmission of code signals very similar to the signs in the Morse alphabet. As the tents are generally built on top of high hills the sound of the mangare carries to a distance of from ten to fifteen miles. “Certain travelers have stated that the Huitoto Indians, especially those of the Nonuya tribe, are anthropophagous. In the course of ten years I have never observed a single case of cannibalism nor heard one mentioned by any reliable witness. As I said before, forest Indians are absolutely harmless as long as travelers respect the law of the various tribes. When forced to work beyond a certain limit or in unfavorable weather, they may revolt, as they did in 1903, and drive their persecutors out of the forest For that matter, they simply acted as perfectly civilized working men would act under similar circumstances. “Indians have no sense- of value and no desire to earn money. They buy supplies at any price, paying for them with large quantities of rubber, and seem to have no idea of profit It is rather difficult to demand steady labor from such a type of humanity. Traders have therefore tried to -employ Chinese and Japanese laborers and also African negroes at gathering rubber. No other race, however, can stand life in the tropica) jungle. The slightest exertion, even for those fortunate enough to escape the jungle fever, means a gradual weakening of the organism and death. “The tapping of rubber trees is arduous work, and the fitting out of rubber tapping expeditions is a costly enterprise. With the .present methods of work, rubber trees can only be tapped six months a year, from October to December and from April to June. During January, February and March continuous tropical rains cause air the rivers to overflow and the forest becomes an uncharted swamp. All work must cease, human beings and animals alike must take refuge on the hills. “In July, August and September the rubber trees shed their leaves and relapse into their annual slumber. Viey hardly give any latex or milk at that time, and the slightest wound on their trunk is likely to kill them. During that period, however, rubber trees can be more easily distinguished from the tropical growth which sometimes hides them entirely from view, and the Indians roam the forest locating new gomales. They make slow progress, for as soon as they leave the river bank they must travel on foot, carrying on their back provisions for several months. As soon as they have located a. tree they cut down the underbrush around it with their machete and make a notch of a special design on its bark. The tree thus becomes the absolute and undisputed property of the cauchero who finds it"