Orinoco River – Page 3 – The Pull Of The Land

Humboldt on Cannibalism

August 15, 2020August 15, 2020 Richard Barnes

To read Alexander von Humboldt’s journals of his and Aimé Bonpland’s journey to the Americas, much of which took place in Venezuela (1799-1804), is not only a pleasure, but also a rewarding experience. In many instances, I find his narratives and observations to be as helpful and profitable today as readers found them to be two centuries ago.

His praiseworthy writing and infinite curiosity does not, however, obscure Mr. Humboldt’s manifest prejudice against Christianity or his exasperating blind spot towards the enormous contributions by missionaries who loved the Americas and who travelled and lived there centuries before Humboldt’s birth. Were it not for those who went before, Humboldt’s travels would not have been possible, certainly not anywhere close to the extent he was able to achieve.

For more on Humboldt, see here, here and here. As noted in that last link (“So Far From God and So Close to the United States”), Humboldt got his passport, enabling him to travel, not from “Enlightenment France” but from “priest-ridden Spain.”

The following comments are extracted from the sections of his journals concerning his explorations in the lower Orinoco regions.

“Some of the islands are inhabited by a cruel and savage race, called cannibals, who eat the flesh of men and boys, and captives and slaves of the male sex, abstaining from that of females.” Hist. Venet. 1551. The custom of sparing the lives of female prisoners confirms what I have previously said of the language of the women. Does the word cannibal, applied to the Caribs of the West India Islands, belong to the language of this archipelago (that of Haiti)? or must we seek for it in an idiom of Florida, which some traditions indicate as the first country of the Caribs?) It is they who have rendered the names of cannibals, Caribbees, and anthropophagi, synonymous; it was their cruelties that prompted the law promulgated in 1504, by which the Spaniards were permitted to make a slave of every individual of an American nation which could be proved to be of Caribbee origin.

Note Humboldt’s allusion to a possible Floridian origin to the Caribs. Although some anthropologists make strong arguments for a Brazilian origin, meaning the Caribs came up from what is now Brazil, the Floridian, or North American origin of the Caribs is not an unprecedented hypotheses. Their features would seem to corroborate that theory. This is not due only to their physical features but also their few surviving sculptures and even their language. These things intimate an ancestry very dissimilar from that of most of the other Indians of South and Central America and the Caribbean. The Caribs seem to be evidence of ancient communications between North and South America.

Interested readers might take a few minutes to open a map of the Caribbean Sea, put a finger on the southern tip of Florida, and then trace it down to Cuba, and then move it in a pronounced southeastern arc across Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and on and on, all the way down to Grenada and finally to Tobago and Trinidad, just off the coast of Venezuela. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see an ancient land bridge which once connected Florida and Venezuela. At the least, it isn’t difficult to hypothesize that the Caribs migrated through those islands down to South America.

Humboldt seeks to cast doubt on the extent of the cruelties of the Caribs, writing “I believe [such cannibalism] was much exaggerated….” Much exaggerated? So they ate human flesh, just not as much as reported? Instead of a pound of flesh a week, they limited themselves to, say, a pound fortnightly? That might be an academic question to a detached observer, but certainly not to the ill-fated victims of that cruel and ferocious people.

We’ll conclude this post with his citing an old missionary and then going on to relate his own experience with “the perversity” of certain Indian tribes, which experience corroborates the missionaries comments.

“You cannot imagine,” said the old missionary of Mandavaca, “the perversity of this Indian race (familia de Indios). You receive men of a new tribe into the village; they appear to be mild, good, and laborious; but suffer them to take part in an incursion (entrada) to bring in the natives, and you can scarcely prevent them from murdering all they meet, and hiding some portions of the dead bodies.” In reflecting on the manners of these Indians, we are almost horrified at that combination of sentiments which seem to exclude each other; that faculty of nations to become but partially humanized; that preponderance of customs, prejudices, and traditions, over the natural affections of the heart.

Note how Humboldt, in appealing to “natural affections”, knowingly or not, cites the first chapter of Romans, which warns that any people who reject God will degenerate and that among the characteristics of a people evidencing that degeneration are men “without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful….[Emphasis mine]”

We took one who had become sufficiently civilized in a few weeks to be useful to us in placing the instruments necessary for our observations at night. He was no less mild than intelligent, and we had some desire of taking him into our service. What was our horror when, talking to him by means of an interpreter, we learned, that the flesh of the marimonde monkeys, though blacker, appeared to him to have the taste of human flesh. He told us that his relations (that is, the people of his tribe) preferred the inside of the hands in man, as in bears. This assertion was accompanied with gestures of savage gratification.

We inquired of this young man, so calm and so affectionate in the little services which he rendered us, whether he still felt sometimes a desire to eat of a Cheruvichahena. He answered, without discomposure, that, living in the mission, he would only eat what he saw was eaten by the Padres. Reproaches addressed to the natives on the abominable practice which we here discuss, produce no effect; it is as if a Brahmin, travelling in Europe, were to reproach us with the habit of feeding on the flesh of animals.

In the eyes of the Indian of the Guaisia, the Cheruvichahena was a being entirely different from himself; and one whom he thought it was no more unjust to kill than the jaguars of the forest. It was merely from a sense of propriety that, whilst he remained in the mission, he would only eat the same food as the Fathers. The natives, if they return to their tribe (al monte), or find themselves pressed by hunger, soon resume their old habits of anthropophagy.

Humboldt goes on to seek to mitigate excessive revulsion to the described practice by noting that cannibalism was widespread in thirteenth century Egypt. Howbeit, his brief dissertation on the Egyptian practice does not eclipse the yuck factor elicited by his matter-of-fact discussion about his “sufficiently civilized” travel companion.

As readers of this blog know, I very much admire Alexander von Humboldt. My father introduced me to him and I’ve introduced him to my children. He makes for exhilarating reading. But, as you read him, be sure to “prove all things, hold fast that which is good.”

We’ll visit with him again.

Alexander von Humboldt (left) and Aimé Bonpland in the lower Orinoco.

Carib Indian natives in Dominica (circa early 20th century)

Satellite photo taken “looking east”. The Meta River flows east into the Orinoco, which at this point flows south to north, but in photo it’s “right-to-left”. This and further south (right) is the vast Upper Orinoco region.

Map helps “visualize” the satellite photo (previous). Note the Meta River to the left (in Colombia). For about 150 miles before it flows into the Orinoco, it forms the boundary between Venezuela to the north and Colombia to the south. Note the Casiquiare Canal further south. Humboldt and Bonpland made it that far but were eventually turned back by Portuguese civil authorities.

Tragavenado

July 3, 2020July 3, 2020 Richard Barnes

She moved slowly, as if tentatively feeling her way up the massive mahogany in the jungle to the left of that road which formed the boundary to the outlying wilderness.

Had I seen her, as she slid up the great trunk, I would have called her a tragavenado. All boas in Venezuela were known by that name. Even the ones along the Orinoco River, more properly identified as anacondas, were invariably called tragavenados: deer swallowers. Both boas and anacondas were plentiful in the regions around El Pao during my childhood. The anacondas especially in the wet jungle areas around the rapids of the Caroní River near its confluence with the Orinoco River.

The boas are smaller than the anacondas, which have been known to grow up to 30 feet and more. Tragavenados measure between 5 and 15 feet. The largest tragavenado seen in that part of Venezuela, for which there is record, measured just under 20 feet. That was considered exceptional.

Living in the damp jungle maze for up to 25 years and even more, this one grew undisturbed, never venturing very far from that area west of the road limning the west of the mining camp. Since her habitat had not changed much in a man’s generation, she remained therein where she fed on abundant wildlife of wild pigs, stray goats, tapir, deer, chiguires (capybaras), monkeys, and large fowl. Had she wandered closer to the Orinoco, her diet would have been augmented by small caimans.

The tragavenado can act as a very quick coil. She rests midst the brambles or branches for several days. Eventually, large birds, such as jungle parrots, settle nearby, oblivious to the danger. The tragavenado slips slowly, imperceptibly towards the resting prey. She does this by sliding the upper part of her long body towards the bird in an almost circuitous route. The tail end rests on a branch at the lower left side of the tree, seemingly to dangle, like a thick vine, two feet to the lower left and up to the upper left of the bird.

The massive middle section runs along, one or two feet away, further up and then curves along the higher branches so that it rests directly above and to the upper right of the bird. The snake completes as it were an expansive frame around the bird, so that eventually the snake’s head is beneath the bird, mere inches away.

The power of this reptile is embedded in muscles all along her 20-foot length, covering her entire body.

The head acts as a guided missile. The muscles along the 2 or 3 feet below the head are designed not only to cut off her prey’s blood circulation, but also to “launch” the head. This they do, and the bird never knew what hit him. Within minutes it is inside the snake’s jaws and beginning its final, unwilling journey into the entrails of its killer.

Other prey, such as a pig or goat, or especially a deer, requires accommodation. This the serpent does by biting and, while keeping the fangs sunk into her quarry, coiling herself around the quickly immobile body and squeezing it. This is done by degrees. When the victim struggles, it creates small spaces which the snake’s muscles exploit by taking those spaces over, thereby slowly reducing all room for maneuver, until the animal ceases to breathe, has cardiac arrest, dies, and, finally, it is slowly but relentlessly swallowed whole into the laboratory whose acids work on it, preparing it for absorption and transforming it into nutrition.

All this activity, occurring mere yards from the camp, my friends and I mostly ignored. Everyone in the camp ignored. But we knew it went on.

Once, during a game of war around our makeshift “forts” in the jungle, I had wandered off alone and stood in what appeared to be a natural, heavily forested culvert. Unexpectedly, I sensed as if the earth were opening or sliding under me. I looked down and saw a boa pulling herself, carrying me along like a jelly legged marionette. I, bravely, sprang like a jack-in-the-box, tumbled like a rag doll, and scampered like a hysterical baboon out of there, running on pure adrenaline till I reached the edge of the jungle. Only then did I catch my breath enough to call out. We all fearlessly marched to the scene of the scare. But, boas being very good at camouflage, we failed to find it.

The above is true.

Except for the “bravely” and “fearlessly”.

Tragavenado killed by machinery during the El Pao road construction

Photo of Anaconda captured in Parque La Llovizna, about 40 minutes from El Pao.

La Llovizna falls. One of a series of cataracts on the Caroní River as it approaches its confluence with the Orinoco in Ciudad Guayana. About a 35-40 minute drive from El Pao.

Atures and Maypures on The Orinoco, and Humboldt’s Parrot

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 Richard Barnes

A good number of posts on this blog either direct themselves to or reference the grand Orinoco River, which exercises a majestic “pull” on all in Venezuela, whether locals or foreign residents or long term visitors. It is more of a presence in Venezuela than the Mississippi is to the United States. I suspect the Nile exerts a similar pull in North Africa, especially Egypt, but, having never lived there, I don’t know for sure. But the literature does affirm its centrality to life in that world for many centuries. I’d say the same applies to the Orinoco and Venezuela.

Those readers who have a sense of adventure, or have children who do, cannot do much better than to explore that river, especially the Upper Orinoco. Alexander Humboldt is still a pretty reliable as well as fascinating source of information and background for this.

Shortly after arriving in Cumaná, Venezuela, the “oldest continuously inhabited European established settlement in South America,” Alexander von Humboldt wrote to his brother back in Germany, “What color of birds, fish, even crabs (sky blue and yellow!). So far we have wandered like fools; in the first three days we couldn’t identify anything, because one object is tossed aside to pursue another. Bonpland [renowned French naturalist, Aimé Bonpland, friend and collaborator with Humboldt] assures me he will go mad if the marvels do not stop. Still, more beautiful even than these individual miracles is the overall impression made by this powerful, lush, and yet so gentle, exhilarating, mild vegetation.”

As he made his way to the Casiquiare, that natural channel which connects the Orinoco with the Amazon, via the Rio Negro (see “Orinoco, Casiquiare, Humboldt, and Monster Aguirre” for more Here), Humboldt and his party, including untiring and powerful Indians who at times jumped into the water to pull the canoe from the unforgiving currents, eventually came to the rapids between Atures and Maypures.

Here is a description of this section of the Orinoco, in Humboldt’s own words: “Nothing can be grander than the aspect of this spot. Neither the fall of the Tequendama, near Santa Fe de Bogota, nor the magnificent scenes of the Cordilleras, could weaken the impression produced upon my mind by the first view of the rapids of Atures and of Maypures. When the spectator is so stationed that the eye can at once take in the long succession of cataracts, the immense sheet of foam and vapors illumined by the rays of the setting sun, the whole river seems as it were suspended over its bed.”

That’s quite a compliment, considering it was written by one of history’s most accomplished travelers and explorers.

Atures and Maypures are names missionaries took from nearby tribes. Some years before Humboldt’s voyage, the Maypures had been exterminated by the violent Caribs (see more on the Caribs here and Here) and, according to legend, had taken their domesticated parrots as spoils. Humboldt had come across some Caribs one of whom gave him his parrot as a gift.

The explorer noticed that the words spoken by the parrot did not correspond with the Carib dialect and he asked his host why. The Indian told him that the words he heard were not Carib, but Maypure, the now extinct tribe. So Humboldt was hearing language from a tribe that no longer could speak.

That’s a fascinating tale, although I’ve not been able to confirm it in Humboldt’s massive, multi-volume Narrative.

A few more observations by the great explorer about this area of the Orinoco:

“We passed two hours on a large rock, standing in the middle of the Orinoco, and called the Piedra de la Paciencia, or the Stone of Patience, because the canoes, in going up, are sometimes detained there two days, to extricate themselves from the whirlpool caused by this rock.”

And, finally,

“The Indians would not hazard passing the cataract; and we slept on a very incommodious spot, on the shelf of a rock, with a slope of more than eighteen degrees, and of which the crevices sheltered a swarm of bats. We heard the cries of the jaguar very near us during the whole night. They were answered by our great dog in lengthened howlings. I waited the appearance of the stars in vain: the sky was exceedingly black; and the hoarse sounds of the cascades of the Orinoco mingled with the rolling of the distant thunder.”

We will continue to visit with Mr. Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt’s map of a section of the Upper Orinoco River.

Alexander von Humboldt camped on the shores of the Orinoco River.

Between Atures and Maypures rapids. Note one of the granite stones which so impressed Humboldt.

Orinoco rapids between Atures and Maypures. These delayed, fascinated, and at times frightened Humboldt’s party as they made their way on the Orinoco towards the Casiquiare.

Security

May 7, 2020May 7, 2020 Richard Barnes

“Security can get on the nerves just as much as danger.” (Brown in Graham Greene’s The Comedians – 1965)

I am in a minority in refusing to see politicians and bureaucrats as beings before whom we, as bleating sheep, must bow the knee as if they were our wise and compassionate shepherds.

In general, I do not think they are wise, and I do not think they are compassionate.

I am in an even smaller minority in my viewing church leaders with deep disappointment in how we are responding to the current state of affairs. (But those country churches, mostly non-denominational, whose leaders still have the backbone of our forebears, have earned my respect in recent weeks.)

It has become very clear that, in general, if our founding era’s church leaders had been like those of today’s, we’d still be speaking the king’s English.

Spare me the theological expositions and explanations. Looking at the fruit tells me what I need to know. And that fruit lacks courage.

This is the context in which my respect for my father, which was already of the utmost, has in recent weeks done what I would have considered to have been impossible a mere month ago.

It has grown.

He was not a great reader or student of philosophy or theology, although he, and my mother, played a key role in preparing me to appreciate such, and more.

But he was courageous.

And he was loyal.

He loved God and he loved country and he loved home. Besides him, I can think of very few men — very few — whom I would want with me in a foxhole, or in any trial or crisis of life. One I can think of died many years ago. I still see him as he walks from his little shack up to the labor camp alongside his burro. Another, died relatively recently. I see him as he drives his truck up my driveway on a Sunday afternoon as I’m listening to the BBC on short wave radio.

I used to think I am easily impressed. I guess I’m not.

The scene: San Félix, a town on the shores of the Orinoco River. It’s about 10 P.M. on a night in the 1940’s. Communist militants and sympathizers have been active. My father and the company controller, Mr. T, have been at the town’s movie theater and are now heading to the company pickup to drive back to Palúa, the riverfront camp.

A group of about 10 men accosted them and one ran up to Mr. T and struck him in the face, knocking him down. His glasses hit the ground and cracked.

Striking a man with glasses was considered cowardly. Striking an older man, such as Mr. T, was unforgivable.

My father instinctively swung and landed his fist with a violent blow against the jaw of the perpetrator, who fell back awkwardly and heavily with a muffled thud on the dusty street. Then he realized: the man was drunk.

He looked up and saw that the other men stood, staring at him. Some were drunk, while others seemed sober, but sullen.

“Men, your friend is drunk. Otherwise, I am sure he would never have struck an older man wearing glasses. I assume you do not want to see your friend get hurt. Help him get up and return to his home! There is no need for us to fight. If you have any grievances, you must know by now that we will happily [con gusto] receive you and talk with you about it. Will you help your friend?”

As he spoke to the men, in perfect Spanish, Mr. T, following my father’s whispered commands, slowly made his way, undisturbed to the pickup, glancing back at my father, knowing that if the situation got out of hand, there would have been little for him to do to help out.

No one moved, except for the man on the ground, who rolled over on his stomach and vomited.

He clearly was not going to get up unassisted.

A man stepped forward and knelt by the fallen man, taking his left arm and wrapping it over his shoulder, “B, listen to me, I am going to stand up slowly, but I need you to hold on to me. Escúchame!” Then, looking over his shoulder, “Men, I need your help! Vengan!”

At this, the men stepped forward, almost in unison, and, having come to the area where B had fallen, strove to help the kneeling man rise along with the other, who was rapidly gaining full consciousness.

Eventually, about 5 or 6 of them accompanied the man helping B towards the south end of the town. The group, composed of individuals insistent on helping out one-by-one or two-by-two, continued southward, looking like a receding Rorschach test image. Others remained nearby, looking at Mr. T in the pickup as my father, leaning on the passenger side’s door, talked with him while also looking back, off and on, at them.

I did not learn about this incident from my father. In fact, I never heard him talk about it.

One summer, in the 1970’s, I interned at the mining office and, during my breaks, I’d visit the archives and read the dusty, decades-old memoranda submitted over the years by the general managers and controllers to the Pennsylvania home office. I came across a memorandum with a vivid description of my father’s actions many years before. The controller freely admitted, in his own writing, that my father likely saved him from great bodily harm that night in San Félix.

I know of several other such incidents involving my father, at least one of which occurred in my presence.

The circumstances for each were different. But they all pointed to one common constant: courage. A man’s refusal to be governed only by security. In doing so, he, ironically, created security for himself and for others.

We need to learn from such men again.

Palúa was about a mile west of San Félix (now part of Ciudad Guayana), and 180 miles from the Orinoco River delta.

San Félix, circa late 40s, early 50s. The theater (not pictured) was about a block to the right.

San Félix at the Caroní River ferry crossing, circa mid-50s

My father and Mr. T, circa 1948. San Félix, Venezuela.

My father and Mr. T, circa 1960. El Pao, Venezuela.

My father and me, circa 1963, on the Orinoco River, headed towards the great Orinoco delta on the Atlantic Ocean

El Loco

April 17, 2020 Richard Barnes

El Loco’s haunts were unknown. For the most part.

Mining camp residents spotted him occasionally, and only when they journeyed to or from San Felix, the port town on the banks of the Orinoco River, about 40 kilometers north. If they were lucky, their trip would coincide with an El Loco sighting. He’d be seen walking jauntily, swinging his arms in an exaggerated, yet nonmilitary-type, arc; unmindful of the storms of dust raised by cars or trucks as they passed him, always slowly, because everybody wanted to see El Loco and laugh with him, and the sightings seemed too few and too far between.

He’d always laugh and lift his arms in childlike, yet firm salute; one hand always gripping a staff, as if some sort of rudderless Moses wandering the El Pao – San Felix road for generations.

Probably no American had seen him up close. But, judging from 30 or 40 feet away, a consensus of sorts had developed among them affirming El Loco was probably in his early thirties

He seemed to be much taller than average in that era and in those regions, maybe five feet nine or ten inches; wiry, strong, virile, and with huge hands. These judgments-from-afar were about as much as could assuredly be said about him, as the distance did not permit inspection of his physiognomic features. More on that further below.

Of course, everybody understood that someone had to be “taking care of” El Loco, else he could not survive. Here, perhaps, the legendary Venezuelan hospitality played a critical but hidden role.

An American cattleman with business interests in Venezuela once wrote his personal impression of Venezuelan society saying that it was the most open and cordial in all of South America. He further noted that, unlike the Argentines and Brazilians, who used hotels or restaurants or clubs to entertain visitors, the Venezuelans entertained in their own homes; in that respect, he concluded, they were very much like the Americans.

That observation was true, though too limited. Venezuelans didn’t invite only known, or business, guests to their homes; they compelled strangers, especially the poor, and the “locos”, apparently mindful that, at times, some, unawares, had entertained angels.

Then weeks would go by with no one having seen him. Where was he? At such times I would hear speculation when accompanying my mother at the commissary in the Otro Campo (known to the Americans as the labor camp), or with my father in the American Camp bar. Some voices affirmed, as if they were eye-witnesses, that El Loco was still on the road, but, in fact, no drivers or passengers had seen him. Others rumored El Loco was on jungle paths, headed temporarily for other destinations, as if looking for side adventures to spice up his El Pao – San Felix routine. Still others did not really care or think about it, and just assumed El Loco would reappear on his favorite road soon enough. And he eventually did, as if he had been nowhere else. As if he would live forever.

Regardless of opinions as to his whereabouts, the Venezuelans along the El Duo road just shrugged, confident in the truth of the old Spanish aphorism, “God takes care of the widows, the orphans, and the crazies.” It did not occur to them that God used them to do the caring.

El Loco walked with a swinging gait, a long, thick staff in one hand. His dusty jet-black hair shagged over his collar and a bit over his ears. He always walked with, never against, the traffic. Whenever I heard or read about a man in rags, I’d picture El Loco. His rags were always in khaki, just like the men in El Pao, only very worn and torn. And, instead of a dull yellow, El Loco’s khakis seemed rusty red.

Once, on a drive to San Felix, we saw him up close.

As we approached him in our car, to my utter, indescribable delight, El Loco swung round and stopped, looking toward the Oldsmobile as it slowly approached. El Loco began jumping in place, raising his arms and waving them. He was strong; he could wave the arm carrying that staff as easily as the other. Then he yelled a loud, croaking-like cheer as he laughed. His entire face laughed. And his teeth shone a bright white.

To me, laughing with my parents as we all saluted El Loco, it seemed even the Oldsmobile laughed. We drove slowly by El Loco, as we waved at him while he waved back, croaking, yelling, laughing, screaming, jumping. His cheeks’ bony arches seemed like sharp hills guarding his oviform eyes, whose color matched his hair, only brighter. And they seemed, to the boy, to be looking right into his own eyes.

Unlike most adults, El Loco was able, with absolutely no awkward self-consciousness, to look at someone in the eye, no matter what the age, and sustain that look until naturally broken. I just knew El Loco looked only at me, as if he knew me. As if we’d met before. Somewhere. There was no fear in me. On the contrary, like all children, I considered El Loco as very approachable, a dear friend and protector.

I stuck my head out the back window resting it on my arms on the frame as I looked back at El Loco, who was still jumping and yelling and laughing, forming a striking, puppet-like silhouette against the green, as the dust rose behind the car.

What most knew about El Loco was limited to the fact that he spent his days and years striding between El Pao and San Felix. Clearly folks cared for him; after all, it was assumed, he ate and slept. The I recall once, and only once, during an unusual mid-day drive to San Felix, seeing El Loco sitting peaceably in a chair in the front, porch-like structure of one of the cabins off the road. The farmer sat across from him, as the wife served him lunch and the children stood by. Sometimes El Loco would not be seen for what seemed to be weeks, before he’d reappear again on the road bringing joy to folks, especially children, who drove by.

I don’t remember the last time I saw him. He just melted away, like a mirage, into the jungle and before I knew it, I realized I had not seen him in years, maybe decades.

But I think about him. I can see him walking firmly, soldier-like, on the right side of the road, gripping his staff with his right hand, wildly swinging the left. El Loco whirls round and there is that wide grin once again, mouth way open, white teeth flashing. He lets off that loud cheer as he raises his hand and staff, pointing to the heavens.