Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1917 — INDIAN TRIBE HAD WIRELESS [ARTICLE]

INDIAN TRIBE HAD WIRELESS

South American Red Men, as Long Ago as 1898, Used Unique System of Communication. In these days of wireless telegraphy It may be interesting to learn that as long ago as July, 1898, there was recorded the discovery of a wireless telegraphic apparatus in use among the Catuquinaru, an Indian tribe of the Amazon valley JS’South America, the Geographic Journal states. The apparatus, called cambarysu, consists of a hole in the ground about half filled with coarse sand; above this layers of fine sand, fragments of wood and bone and powdered mica fill it almost to the surface of the ground. These materials are surrounded by a case of hard palm wood, w’hich extends above the surface. The upper part of the apparatus consists of layers of hide, wood and hard rubber. Between the upper layers and the lower layers there is a hollow space. With a club, much like the stick used to play the bass drum, the native strikes the layer of rubber that forms the top of the Instrument. One of these instruments is concealed in each hamlet of the tribe. The villages are not more than a mile apart and placed in a direct north and south line. Although a person standing outside the building in which the apparatus is kept cannot hear a blow of the stick on the rubber top, ft is quite distinct in a similar building a mile distant. When one of these instruments is struck the neighboring ones to the north and south echo the blow. The Indian stationed at each one of the posts answers the signal, and by means of code messages a long conversation may be carried on.