River of Darkness

by Buddy Levy

  * Approximately 100 gallons.

  * Other sources suggest they were woven out of palm leaves. See José Toribio Medina, The Discovery of the Amazon, 201n, and J. M. Cohen, Journeys Down the Amazon, 62n.

  * This “snuff,” frequently distilled forms of different kinds of hallucinogenic plants, was ingested during ritual religious or spiritual ceremonies. According to anthropologist Robert Carneiro, “the Indians of the upper Amazon seem to have invented the enema syringe. They used to take ayahuasca rectally, as first reported by La Condamine in the mid-1700s.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Big Blackwater River

  IMAGES OF THE IMMENSE, HORRIFIC IDOLS PLAGUED the discoverers as the sun set and they rowed on through the blackness, their oars plumbing the water, the eerie cries of hooting owls echoing across the river. Still, Orellana pushed his men, urging them on. They kept on throughout the night, trying to stay in the middle of the river to avoid any attacks. As the first skeins of light washed the várzea in a dull haze, Orellana hoped for an uninhabited stretch where he and his men might relax free from the fear of attack just for a few moments, but instead, the farther they went, the more populated the land seemed to become.

  Sometime the next day, having passed finally through 350 miles of the country ruled by the Omagua, Orellana reached a series of villages along a five-mile stretch of the river where the people appeared peaceful and greeted the Spaniards, seeming to welcome them. Once Orellana felt confident that he was not being tricked or led into a trap, he agreed to land the San Pedro and the Victoria and to learn as much as he could from this new contingent of natives.

  These friendly, docile villagers invited the Spaniards into their houses and hosted them well, feeding them—some women made bread for the visitors—and presenting them with gifts. Orellana managed to communicate, through a few boys that he had gathered up as interpreters, and learned that they were ruled by an overlord named Paguana, “who has many subjects, and quite civilized ones.” Just as with the larger Omagua population centers, here again Orellana and Carvajal saw what they described as many roads heading from the village into the interior. The villagers explained to Orellana that the overlord Paguana did not live here in the village along the river, but resided inland, and that the Spaniards should go to visit him, for he would be quite pleased to meet them and learn about them. Orellana came to understand from these boys that Paguana possessed great quantities of silver at this interior capital, and large herds of llamas, and that the land there was “very pleasing and attractive and very plentifully supplied with all kinds of food and fruit, such as pineapples and pears … and custard apples and many other kinds of fruit and of very good quality.”

  As inviting and intriguing as this place sounded, Orellana had already determined that his troop numbers and strength were insufficient for any serious inland assaults, and he had made up his mind not to split up his corps, which such a venture would require. Their safety, he and his captains felt, was best ensured by staying with the brigantines. If he and his men survived this journey, then, God willing, he would return—better armed and better prepared for conquest.

  They packed up—some of the men no doubt reluctantly—and entered the river again. As they coursed downstream, Orellana’s priest noted that here the Maranon was so wide that from one side they could not see the other. Along this stretch, during the rainy season in late May, at times the swollen river inundates the forest, ascending high into the canopy, rising as much as fifty feet and flooding thousands of square miles of forests. The rise in the river level is so dramatic that one Spaniard later reported that the tribes here built two sets of houses, one on land, often right by the main river and used during the dry season, and the other “built in the trees like magpie nests, with everything they needed to be able to live there while the river is in flood.”

  The Spaniards traveled for four days without stopping, eating in the boats, trading turns at the oars and on watch, the river overwhelming in its immensity. The first two days they remained in sight of the right or southern shore. The next two they traversed across and could discern the left or northern shore, noting one day as many as twenty villages. On Monday, May 29, they came close to a grand and flourishing village, and Orellana considered many suitable landing sites, but he remained wary about making land despite their diminishing food stores. One village extended a full five miles, with growing hordes of chanting Indians massing as they went, and Orellana tried to steer clear of them without provocation. The largest of these villages, the Spaniards reported, possessed “more than five hundred houses, and there were seen to be many inhabitants along the landing places ready to defend the harbor and the village.” Canoes took to the water and attacked the odd-looking Spanish boats, mounting enough of an offensive that, though he had wished to avoid bloodshed, Orellana ordered a reply from his crossbowmen and harquebusiers. Their accuracy and effectiveness drove the canoes away, and the Spaniards continued downstream. They named this hostile place Pueblo Vicioso, or Viciousville.

  Later that same day they came to a much smaller village, and Orellana felt confident enough to attempt an aggressive landing to secure the place and seize some food. They described this place as the “end of the province of the … overlord Paguana.” Here the men noted some changing characteristics of the landscape, significant because for such tremendous distances the river plain is so flat as to be hypnotically similar, such that any difference commands attention. This extraordinary flatness is hard to grasp: from the Peruvian border to the Atlantic, a distance of nearly two thousand miles, the main river descends a total of a mere two hundred feet, and almost a dozen of the main tributaries carry on with similar leisure, flowing more than a thousand miles each and none of them boasting a single waterfall or rapid, giving the impression of an extended, slow-seeping lake.

  The feature here that most impressed the Spaniards was the presence of inland savannas, what appeared to be tropical grasslands with scattered trees, and huts with different kinds of thatched roofs:

  From there on we saw indications of the existence of savannas, for the huts were roofed over with straw of the kind that grows in savannas. And it was believed that they must bring it there from the inland country, toward which went out many roads which undoubtedly led to the other villages situated away from the river in the interior of the country.

  The people of this region—which was the province just beyond that of Paguana—were noteworthy as well, so belligerent that the Spaniards gained no opportunity to parley with them or learn what they were called. Orellana’s chroniclers made some observations:

  We entered into another province very much more warlike and one having a large population which forced upon us much fighting. In regard to this province, we did not learn what the name of their overlord was, but they are a people of medium stature, of very highly developed manners and customs, and their shields are made of wood* and they defend their persons in a very manly fashion.

  On Saturday, June 3, Orellana ordered his navigators and oarsmen to make port at a small village. The Indians there fought to defend their ground, but the Spaniards managed to expel them from their homes long enough to steal some food—which included, to the delight of the hungry men, some fowl, a delicacy they had gone without for too long. With a few provisions procured, the Spaniards departed, allowing the disgruntled residents to return to their homes, and later in the day, the San Pedro and the Victoria came to a magnificent confluence, a copious and ferocious tributary pouring in from the north and linking the Orinoco and Amazon basins. It was the greatest tributary they had witnessed thus far, bigger even than the impressive Trinity River (Jurua) they had encountered before. But beyond its size, what captivated Orellana and his men was the extraordinary darkness of the water. The water they described as being quite literally “black as ink,” and it coursed “so abundantly, and with such violence that for more than twenty leagues [almost sixty miles] it formed a streak down through the other water, the one not mixing with t
he other.” They named this river, as a testament to the confounding natural phenomenon, the Rio Negro—the name it still bears today.

  Orellana had “discovered” the mouth of the Rio Negro, which is near present-day Manaus, Brazil, and its confluence with the Amazon remains one of the most breathtaking natural wonders of the world. Special tour boats chartered from Manaus today still take spectators to view this wondrous meeting of the turbid coffee-with-cream Amazon with the tea-dark Negro. By most standards the Rio Negro is itself a superlative river—the sixth largest in the world, and the world’s largest “blackwater river.” Its distinctive character—its blackness—results from the nutrient-poor content of the soils it drains. A useful analogy is that the Rio Negro is a “type of tea brewed in sandy soils. The tea leaves come from the stunted vegetation that grows in sandy soils. The black water works its way from the groundwater to the streams that empty into the Negro.”*

  Ironically, though dark in color, the Rio Negro is almost distilled—amazingly clear from low angles—because of its extremely low salt content and high acidity. Its appearance captivates and transports all those who witness it, as evidenced by the assessment made by William Lewis Herndon three hundred years after Orellana encountered its then inexplicable magnificence:

  There has been no exaggeration in the description of travelers regarding the blackness of the water. It well deserves the name Rio Negro. When taken up in a tumbler, the water is a light red color like a pale juniper water, and I should think it colored by some such berry. An object immersed in it has the color, though wanting the brilliancy, of red Bohemian glass.

  Orellana and his men remained transfixed by the color differences between the waters for some time, but also by the powerful violence of the rivers as they converged, tearing away at the great beds of aquatic grasses lining the shores and carrying these off as detached, floating islands. Giant tree trunks, ripped from the earth by the surging river and yanked into the water, bobbed along like unmanned and rudderless ships, and these floating hazards the brigantine crews had to avoid at all costs, lest they be capsized and drowned.

  The next day, June 4, Captain Orellana spotted a smallish village, somewhat inland from the shoreline and elevated, and impressively fortified with a palisade of heavy timbering as if to ward off marauding tribes. Nearer the riverside sat a fisherman’s village of huts, canoes, and fishing gear, and Orellana put in here and made for the inland fort, where they came to a single gate protecting the outpost. Warriors behind the gate defended their stockade courageously, but the concerted push of Orellana’s armed men proved too much to repel, and the Spaniards crashed through, gaining entry to the village plaza. They fought hand to hand with the defenders, finally scattering them long enough to fall on their food stores, which were plentiful. The Spaniards feasted on an abundance of fish, even celebrating the holiday of Trinity by spending the night there—relieved to have comfortable and defensible lodgings, if only for the one night.

  They were still on an expedition of exploration and discovery, but their tactic now had a pattern: they would approach villages only if necessary, and then with great caution, hoping to avoid confrontation but ever wary of the potential for attack. If the natives appeared friendly, they would treat them with respect, explain their need for food, learn and take what they could, and then be on their way. If the people they encountered grew hostile, then the Spaniards would fight for their lives if forced to.

  Rested and well fed on fish, they left the military outpost village, whose tribe name they never learned. They rowed warily along, surveying the villages with deep interest, continually amazed by the teeming population all along the way. Late on Monday, June 5, they approached a medium-sized village that appeared less intimidating than the more populous ones, and Orellana ordered a slow but decisive approach. They made port, and were delighted to see that the villagers allowed them to stroll right up to them and through the central square. There, the Spaniards discovered a rather curious structure, one that suggested a different culture than they had thus far encountered. In the center of the plaza was a hewn tree trunk, some ten feet around, on which was carved in relief a walled city, enclosed with a single gate:

  At this gate were two towers, very tall and having windows, and each tower had a door, the two facing each other, and at each door were two columns and this entire structure … rested upon two very fierce lions, which turned their glances backwards as though suspicious of each other, holding between their forepaws and claws the entire structure, in the middle of which there was a hole through which they offered and poured out chicha for the Sun, for this is the wine which they drink, and the Sun is the one whom they worship and consider their god.

  The Spaniards moved around this worship tree with fascination, noting also that the chicha was poured into the hole and then ran out the tree and onto the ground. They found a communicative Indian, and Orellana, trying his luck with the language as best he could, pressed him to explain the wooden structure in the square in greater detail. The Indian responded with a bit of truly compelling information: that

  they were subjects and tributaries of the Amazons and that the only service which they rendered them consisted in supplying them with plumes of parrots and macaws for the linings of the roofs of the buildings which constitute their places of worship, and that all the villages which they had were of that kind, and that they had that [carved tree] there as a reminder, and that they worshipped it as a thing which was the emblem of their mistress, who is the one who rules over all the land of the aforesaid women.

  After the wanderers had marveled at the sacrificial tree structure and the story they had just been told, they inquired about another conspicuous structure nearby in the square, a good-sized edifice standing somewhat apart, which they were told was for worship connected to the sun; it was here, they were given to understand, that the Indians performed certain ceremonial rites. On closer inspection of the interior, Orellana and his men found many robes fabricated from feathers of various colors, the reds of the scarlet macaw, the greens of parrots, the feathers fastened to or woven into robes and vests “which the Indians put on to celebrate their festive occasions and to dance, whenever they came together there for some holiday affair or rejoicing, in front of their idols.”

  It was all quite fantastic, and a little unnerving, given what they knew about the sun sacrifices in the Aztecs’ religion and worldview. This was not the first time they had heard of these Amazons, and their apprehension now grew—especially on seeing such tangible evidence as sacrificial idols and prayer houses.*

  Orellana had seen enough. It was time to move on. He accepted the little food offered, then ordered his men back onto the boats. Once more on the river, they approached another village—this one quite large—where they spied a similar carved tree trunk and symbolic icon such as the one that had so captivated them. Orellana determined to check this village out, too, but here they met unexpectedly strong opposition. For more than an hour the brigantines maneuvered and yawed for position, battling canoes and foot soldiers simultaneously trying to access the beachhead. Finally the Spaniards managed a landing, firing crossbows and harquebuses as they stormed the banks, but though the Indians fell back initially, they returned with renewed numbers over the next hours, each time attacking the Spaniards and then retreating. The ebb and flow of attacks ultimately subsided long enough for Orellana to procure some food, but he did not like the number of Indians he saw, and he ordered his men to fight their way back onto the boats for a hasty departure.

  From here they passed village after village where Indians lined the banks, standing there armed and ready to fight should the Spaniards attempt to land. Orellana came to understand that word of his coming traveled downstream—most likely by teams of canoe messengers—much faster than he did. Warriors waved their arms defiantly and called out to the Spaniards, taunting them with their spears and shields held outstretched. Orellana kept the brigantines at a safe distance from shore whenever possible, tr
ying to pass peacefully, but in some villages, warriors congregated so thickly as to form what looked like a solid wall, hurling spears and arrows in such flurries as to prompt a response from Orellana—in the form of crossbow and harquebus fire.

  By now, Orellana and his men must have wondered whether the mighty river would ever end. By some estimates—when not stopping often, rotating shifts on the oars, some men resting or eating while the others kept up their momentum, and sleeping for just a few hours at uninhabited islands or midriver—they could make up to a hundred miles a day. But on and on and on rolled the huge river, a seemingly interminable reddish-brown wash cutting its way at a manatee’s pace through a green inferno. The men lay sweating in their armor, swatting mosquitoes and black flies through the stifling heat, watching listlessly as flocks of macaws or parrots or toucans darted past overhead or river dolphins played in the brigantines’ wakes.

  On June 7, 1542, a Wednesday, Captain Orellana spotted a relatively small settlement and gave orders to land—provisions were dwindling once again. They had been reduced to scavengers and raiders, landing only to steal food or fight for it, unless the natives—as they continued to do in some instances—readily offered sustenance. This particular village was small enough and so sparsely populated, or so it appeared at the moment, that the Spaniards managed to land and overwhelm the settlement with no resistance whatsoever. Orellana and Carvajal noted that there were only women moving about the village, and not very many at that. The Spaniards found an abundance of drying fish—enough, they surmised, that they could have filled both brigantines to the gunwales with them. The amount of fish drying on racks suggested that this was a center for fish production and trade, and that from here it was transported into the interior and sold where the commodity was less plentiful. In addition to the drying racks, the fish was also being roasted on spits and barbecues.