River of Darkness

by Buddy Levy

  At just before noon on June 26, 1541, the sixty-three-year-old conqueror of Peru and governor of New Castile passed away. It was recorded that before he died, a strange and wondrous celestial event took place, a sign in the heavenly skies that was witnessed by many of the townspeople: “The moon, being full and bright, presently seemed on fire, and changed colour, one half of it becoming blood-red, and the other half black. Then there was seen to dart from it certain shimmerings also the colour of blood.”

  The body of Francisco Pizarro, wealthiest man in Peru, was later hurriedly dragged to the church, while his attackers went about the city, shouting and celebrating and declaring Diego de Almagro the Younger the new governor of Peru. At the church, a man named Juan de Barbarán, a fellow native of Trujillo who had once been a servant to the marquis, offered to furnish both Marquis Francisco and Francisco Martín with proper burials. In fact, Pizarro should have been clothed in the cloak of the Order of the Knights of Santiago, but there wasn’t time. Barbarán and his wife, who had offered to help, learned that the Almagristas were coming to cut off Pizarro’s head and display it on a gibbet. So Barbarán dressed the marquis hastily, “put on his spurs after the fashion of members of the order,” and buried him, paying for the cost of the funeral mass and the candles from his own pocket.

  GONZALO PIZARRO LEARNED about all of this sordid business during his first few hours back in Quito, and his blood boiled with rage while his heart pounded for revenge. He was now one of only two Pizarro brothers remaining alive, and Hernando was locked up outside Madrid. There was much to do. The country remained in political turmoil, the control of it still up for the taking. Gonzalo knew of only one course, and that was to bide his time, rest his weary body, recover his health, and then win the empire back—for himself, and in the name of his family, his brothers, and his king.

  Gonzalo Pizarro licked his substantial wounds—his brother dead, the Pizarro political influence in question, and his grand expedition a devastating loss of men, of personal finances, and of his dream of El Dorado and a cinnamon empire. He had explained to the men of Quito his version of the details surrounding the building of the San Pedro, the split of the expedition, and Francisco Orellana’s abandonment of him and his men. Gonzalo began planning to write a letter to his king describing the events that had taken place on the river. For the time being, however, dealing with Francisco Orellana—assuming that the traitor and his men were even still alive—would have to wait.

  CHAPTER 11

  On the Maranon to the Realm of Machiparo

  FRANCISCO ORELLANA AND HIS MEN IN THE SAN PEDRO and the Victoria now navigated along the mightiest river in the world, though at the time they would not have known exactly what to call it and they could only estimate roughly where it was heading. At this point on the river, which was less than two hundred miles below modern-day Iquitos, Peru, the massive width of the glassy waterway now encompassed great incoming streams like the main Maranon and Ucayali from the south and the Curaray from the north. This staggering breadth would have overwhelmed and confused them, likely tricking them into thinking they were much closer to the river’s terminus at the sea than they in fact were. In reality, Iquitos is a jaw-dropping 2,300 miles from the river mouth at the Atlantic, and is the “furthest inland deep-ocean port in the world.”

  Orellana would certainly have been aware of the famous journeys connected to this region, and as a result would likely have believed the river he was now on was called the Maranon, formerly the Santa Maria de la Mar Dulce (sweet—that is, freshwater—sea). The exploits, expeditions, and discoveries of Spanish compatriots were well known and admired—as were those of their rivals, the Portuguese—so Orellana would have known that in 1500, Spaniard Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who had captained the Niña on Columbus’s voyage in 1492, sailed near the mouth of a great river and miraculously discovered freshwater more than one hundred miles out to sea. He decided to investigate, and following the freshwater brought him to the true mouth of the river, which he ascended some fifty miles, anchoring there. Pinzón soon ran into fishermen, reporting that they were “many painted people who flocked to the ships with as much friendship as if they had conversed with us all their lives.”

  Pinzón, rather than reciprocating the peace, captured thirty-six of the native inhabitants and took them as slaves, leaving the river before exploring any farther and before having to deal with the repercussions of his actions. The tides near the river mouth proved violent and unpredictable, sending waves crashing against his craft and threatening to swamp him, so he departed the river system, but he thereafter referred to it either as the Rio Grande (which made sense, since he estimated the river’s mouth to be more than one hundred and fifty miles wide, and he was right) or the Mar Dulce. By 1513, other Spaniards, including Diego de Lope—who eventually sailed past the mouth—began calling the river the Maranon, after either a captain of that name or, more likely, the maran-i-hobo or cashew tree (called in Peru maranon), which thrives on the banks along the river mouth. From this time, and up to Orellana’s journey, the river was referred to as the Maranon.

  AFTER DEPARTING FROM the village of Aparia the Great on April 24, 1542, Orellana and his men descended the wide river, moving and exploring steadily downstream. Although they did not possess even a compass, they would have been able to orient themselves by reading the stars, as well as from the basic observation of the sunrise and sunset. They were heading essentially due east, which supported Orellana’s supposition that the river would eventually lead them to the sea.

  Orellana had no concrete idea of what he might encounter downstream. He believed Aparia’s predictions that he would encounter hostiles, and to that end he adopted the tactic of remaining in the middle of the river so as to avoid attacks from shore. There was also the wealthy kingdom of Ica the chiefs had described, which presumably lay to the north of the main river but a long way from it. He had learned of the legendary warrior women, and he still harbored dreams of lands of great riches and high civilizations. Certainly his knowledge of the world’s greatest civilizations, and their proximity to famous rivers, predisposed him to this hope, “for along the great rivers of the Old World, the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus, the Ganges, the Yellow River, had sprung up the world’s greatest and richest civilizations.” There was every reason to think that a river of the Maranon’s magnitude and wonders, of which they had yet seen only a glimpse, would possess such high culture and wealth.

  They moved along for many days without encountering any hostile Indians. In fact, word had been sent downriver by Aparia the Great to afford the Spaniards safe passage, and Orellana found villages that had been abandoned so that they might sleep there comfortably, where the inhabitants had sometimes left the Spaniards food. This trend was short-lived, however, and after a time, Orellana “recognized that we were now outside the dominion of the tribal domains of that great overlord Aparia; and the Captain, fearing what might come to pass on account of the small food supply, ordered that the brigantines proceed with greater speed than had been the custom.”

  One morning, having just departed from an uninhabited village, Orellana’s brigantines were approached by two Indians in a single canoe. They appeared friendly, and Orellana invited them to board his boat so that he might converse with them. The older of the two men claimed that he knew the country well, knew the intricacies of the waterways and braids and channels, and Orellana ordered that he remain on board so that he might guide the Spaniards, while he sent the other man home in his canoe. Very soon it became evident, however, that the elderly Indian had overstated his knowledge of the region downstream, and he was in fact quite ignorant of the river. Orellana offered him a canoe and sent him back upstream to his own village.

  From that point on, according to Father Carvajal, they “endured more hardships and more hunger and passed through more uninhabited regions than before, because the river led from one wooded section to another wooded section and we found no place to sleep and much less
could any fish be caught, so that it was necessary for us to keep to our customary fare, which consisted of herbs and every now and then a bit of roasted maize.”

  By May 6, already running low on the foods brought from Aparia, they came to a place that appeared to have been recently inhabited and was also naturally elevated, providing safe lookout advantages. Orellana decided to stop there to scout around on land for food, while a few others were to try their luck with some hunting and fishing in the slower-moving estuaries. At this place, Father Carvajal recorded an incident that was so remarkable that he said that he would not have dared to write it down “if it had not been observed by so many witnesses who were present.”

  Not long after the hunting and fishing party had commenced, Diego Mexía of Seville, the man who had volunteered to take charge and oversee the building of the Victoria, spotted a nice fat bird perched in a tree at the river’s edge. He deftly pulled back and aimed with his crossbow, firing at the bird. The crossbow misfired, however, suffering mechanical failure as the nut—the all-important projection from the lock of the bow, which holds the string ready until the trigger releases it—popped off and plopped into the river. Though small, the nut is a key component of the crossbow, and its loss would have rendered that weapon useless.

  Just a few minutes later another man named Contreras began fishing in the same spot, casting out with one of the group’s handmade poles, and by good fortune he snagged a large fish that swallowed his hook. As hooks were few and scarce, Contreras decided to gut the fish in order to retrieve it, and miraculously, “the fish, being opened up, in its belly the nut of the crossbow was found, and in that way the crossbow was repaired, for which there was later no little need, because next to God it was the crossbows that saved our lives.”

  Orellana and his men might yet need a few more miracles. By May 12, six days later, they reached the first village of Machiparo’s territory, and Orellana ensured that all the crossbows were in excellent working order.

  Just as Aparia the Great had predicted, the Spaniards were greeted not with offerings of food, but with a welcome of quite another sort, according to Carvajal:

  Before we had come within two leagues of this village, we saw the villages glimmering white, and we had not proceeded far when we saw coming up the river a great many canoes, all equipped for fighting, gaily colored, and the men with their shields on, which are made out of the shell-like skins of lizards and the hides of manatees and of tapirs, as tall as a man, because they cover them entirely.

  Orellana had cause for great concern, for Machiparo was rumored to be a tremendously powerful overlord with numerous tribes under him. Within his chiefdom, which extended some 200 to 300 miles downriver and was heavily populated, there was scarcely a space between settlements, with the largest group of villages, according to the reports, possessing a full twenty consecutive miles of houses. Most daunting of all, Machiparo, who ruled from headquarters on an elevated bluff just off the river, had the capacity to organize huge armies quickly—many thousands of warriors young and old. And now, large numbers of these warriors came straight at the Spaniards, paddling furiously in well-organized squadrons, screaming battle cries and accompanied by the menacing pounding of war drums and the high-pitched wail of wooden trumpets, “threatening as if they were going to devour” Orellana’s entire party.

  Orellana had only moments to organize his defensive tactics. He called for the San Pedro and the Victoria to join together, rowing abreast to present effectively one large, wide craft, so that each vessel might support and defend the other.*

  The attackers closed on the Spanish boats, holding their tight and orderly formations and surrounding the brigs in a pincer movement. Orellana bellowed for the crossbowmen and harquebusiers to make ready, but he soon discovered devastating news: the gunpowder in the harquebuses had gotten damp, rendering the guns temporarily useless. It would be up to the crossbowmen to repel the attack, and they immediately rallied to fire away on the Indians, who were right upon them. These men wore thin, dark mustaches, different from any the Spaniards had seen previously. The crossbowmen sent their bolts whirring at these warriors, killing some and wounding others, and reloading with their customary celerity. Although the damage they inflicted momentarily stunned and halted the first waves of canoes, countless reinforcements were right behind in support, attacking the Spaniards so violently and at such close range that “it seemed as if they wanted to seize hold of the brigantines with their hands.”

  This floating fight raged on, Orellana and his men leaning over the gunwales to deliver blows with their swords and lances while the crossbowmen reloaded, the Indians swinging back with wooden clubs and slinging spears from deadly handheld throwers. The combined flotilla drifted into close proximity of the village, where the ferocious attack continued. More Indian warriors poured into the water from the shore, their canoes surging toward the Spanish boats from all quarters. Orellana noted later, with some understatement: “There were a great number of men stationed on the high banks to defend their homes; here we engaged in a perilous battle.”

  Despite the dangers involved, Orellana determined to change tactics: they must try to land. The crossbowmen fired, furiously reloaded, and fired again, and Orellana charged the oarsmen to dig with everything they had. As the two boats powered into the shallows, half of the Spaniards leaped overboard, landing waist-deep in the river and charging violently with their swords flying, scattering many of the Indians into the trees and behind the houses of the village. Meanwhile, the rest of the Spaniards remained on board the beached brigantines, defending the boats from Indians still attacking from their canoes.

  The uppermost portion of the village now momentarily under control, Orellana dispatched Lieutenant Alonso de Robles and twenty-five men to race through the settlement, driving out any lingering Indians and searching for food—for if they might hold here for at least a few days, he hoped to reprovision and rest. Robles drove his small force into the village, fighting all the way, for though the Indians appeared to be retreating, they still defended their homes. Robles could see that the village went on and on—it was enormous, impressively organized, and well stocked with food. He thus decided, rather than pressing forward, to return to Orellana at the landing site and explain “the great extent of the settlement and its population … and tell the Captain what the situation was.”

  Robles returned to the landing area and found Captain Orellana and some of the other men temporarily ensconced in a few of the houses, though the attacks from the Indians on the water persisted. Other than tending to various wounds, there was no rest. Robles took Orellana aside and told him what he had seen as he had raced through the village: “There was a great quantity of food, such as turtles in pens and pools of water, and a great deal of fish and biscuit, and all this in such great abundance that there was enough to feed an expeditionary force of one thousand men for one year.”

  Robles’s account of Machiparo’s land of plenty appears not to have been an exaggeration, for these people were highly sophisticated and industrious, raising a variety of crops including manioc, maize, beans, yams, peppers, pineapples, avocados, sweet potatoes, and peanuts. They kept “large quantities of honey from bees” and fished successfully for manatees, using the hides for shield covers and drying the meat on racks for storing. The manatee was not only a delicious delicacy, but highly nutritious. Noted one Spanish chronicler, “with a small amount [of manatee] a person is more satisfied and more energetic than if he had eaten twice the amount of mutton.”

  Their turtle farms were extensive and elaborate: controlled corrals or tanks surrounded by wooden fences, the nutrient-rich waters holding thousands of turtles, whose high-protein meat was delicious and much prized by the natives. The turtle farming technique was highly developed and well orchestrated. During breeding season, the Machiparo people released females into the sandbanks along the river, where they would lay their eggs. When the baby turtles hatched and began moving along on foot, the Machiparo
tossed them on their backs, drilled small holes in their shells, strung them through with long lianas, then towed the strings of young live turtles behind their canoes, taking them back to their holding ponds at the village. Here they would be fed and fattened with leaves and other forest vegetation for later consumption. Each turtle was said to be “larger than a good sized wheel,” and one turtle could feed an entire family.

  Given its abundance and advantageous position, Orellana and his captains very much wished to stay in this village if they could manage to, but that was questionable at least, given the constant attacks against them. Capturing the entire village, given its apparent vast size, was out of the question, but they had managed to win a few families’ worth of huts, and the brigantines had a solid, well-protected, and defensible anchorage. At the very least, Orellana determined that gathering and securing food should be their primary objective. Orellana called upon Cristóbal de Segovia—nicknamed Maldonado—and directed him to lead a dozen or so companions on a food-raiding sortie, gathering everything they could safely carry back to the landing site. He told them to hurry, because Robles had reported having seen villagers removing their foodstuffs from the houses.

  Maldonado and his men set off immediately, and as they penetrated deeper into the village they discovered that Robles had been right—the Indians were indeed running off with as much food as they could carry on their backs, in baskets, and bundled in their arms. Maldonado turned his attentions to the turtle pens, collecting more than a thousand turtles from their elaborate holding corrals until armed warriors began to appear, looking fierce and severe and, to the Spaniards, grotesque, for their foreheads had been flattened, a feature distinct from other tribes the conquistadors had encountered. This effect was achieved in infancy by “applying to the [babies’] forehead a small board or wattle of reeds tied with a little cotton so as not to hurt them, and fastening them by the shoulders to a little canoe, which serves them for a cradle.” The Spaniards described the distorted heads as looking “more like a poorly shaped bishop’s miter than the head of a human being.”* Their appearance, with their heads compressed like those of hammerhead sharks, coupled with their bloodcurdling shrieks and the pounding of drums and blowing of whistles, much terrified the Spaniards.