River of Darkness

by Buddy Levy

  Shoumatoff’s journey illustrated, in part, that the people living far up the Nhamunda still speak of and make reference to the warrior women, and they believe they are descendants of a tribe called the Cofiori, which sounds very much like “Conori,” Carvajal’s rendering of the name of the queen of the Amazons. Shoumatoff transcribes the name as “Coftiori,” which is even closer to the Nhamunda tribe’s version. Additionally, he points out that “scholars who have tried to reconstruct the journey of the Spaniards from Carvajal’s account have placed the engagement with Couynco’s tribe on the left bank of the Amazon, before the Trombetas comes in, most likely at the mouth of the Nhamunda.”

  More tantalizing still, in 1620, Roger North (one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s captains) sailed up the Amazon nearly three hundred miles, hoping to settle, colonize, and grow tobacco. One of his hearty men, Bernard O’Brien, took fifty Indians and five of his own men many hundreds of miles upstream, where he claims to have contacted the Amazons, even meeting with their queen.

  A few years later, in 1639 (almost exactly a hundred years after Orellana), an expedition under Portuguese conquistador Pedro Texeira undertook an arduous upstream expedition, chronicled by Father Cristóbal de Acuña, who also heard and recorded many tales about the Amazon women. According to Father Acuña, “The proofs of the existence of the province of the Amazons on this river are so numerous, and so strong, that it would be a want of common faith not to give them credit.… There is no saying more common than that these women inhabit a province of the river, and it is not credible that a lie could have been spread throughout so many languages, and so many nations, with such an appearance of truth.”

  Even the highly respected Alexander von Humboldt, whose Latin American journey in 1799–1804 has been called “the scientific discovery of the New World,” leaned toward believing the legends and stories of the Amazons: “Could it have been [he wondered], that a group of women, growing tired of mistreatment by the men of their tribe, had struck out into the forest to live independently, learning the martial arts and, to perpetuate their race, periodically admitting the company of the opposite sex?” The French scientist and naturalist La Condamine, who explored the river basin in 1743 and whose published accounts enthralled and captivated the imaginations of Enlightenment Europe, also accepted the accounts of the Amazon women as plausible and true, and even reported that the Amazons had spread out, migrating up the Rio Negro.

  Finally, the noted and deeply respected botanist Richard Spruce makes a strong effort to support the claims made by Orellana and Carvajal and seems to little doubt that they saw, fought with, and even killed women warriors. Spruce spent the years 1849 to 1864 in South America, much of it traveling the Amazon and its tributaries, including the Trombetas and the Rio Negro. He gives a personal example from his own time and experiences in the Amazon, saying, “I myself have seen Indian women that can fight,” and speaks of the numerous accounts related by missionaries living on the Amazon during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that frequently reiterated tribal stories bearing witness to the Amazons’ existence and traditions. Spruce concludes, “Those traditions must have had some foundation in fact, and they appear to me inseparably connected with the traditions of El Dorado.”

  Captain Orellana knew only what he had witnessed during the recent battle, but he was definitely transfixed by the story this Indian trumpeter told—and there appears in Carvajal’s telling no doubt or equivocation of any kind. Particular elements and details—including the women’s apparent worship of the sun at temples—the Spaniards had already witnessed firsthand, for in Amazonian cosmology, the sun is among the creators of man, and indeed of all living beings. Orellana noticed that many of the villages he had encountered were laid out in circular design, often positioned in accordance with the sun.

  At last, when the sun had gone down and the trumpeter had finished his marvelous tale, Orellana and his comrades slept as best they could, another night spent in the tight and grimy confines of the brigantines, amid the whispery sounds of bat wings flitting past and the discordant croaks of horned frogs and rainfrogs and the ducklike racket of quacking tree frogs. Some of them may even have been exhausted enough to fall asleep and dream, conjuring tall, light-skinned women wielding deadly bows, their long and flowing hair, gilded with crowns, dangling past their breasts until it touched the ground.

  Francisco Orellana, first European to descend the Amazon from its headwaters in the Andes to its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean. His voyage in 1541–1542 is considered one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of exploration and discovery, hailed by chronicler Oviedo as “something more than a journey … more like a miracle.” (illustration credit 1)

  Francisco Pizarro, eldest of the famous “Brothers of Doom,” conqueror of Peru and the Inca Empire. (illustration credit 2)

  On the fields of Cajamarca, November 16, 1532, Francisco Pizarro and his 167 men annihilated some seven thousand Incas and took emperor-elect Atahualpa prisoner. (illustration credit 3)

  The legendary Gilded One or El Dorado launched many expeditions, including that of Francisco Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro. Stories told of an Indian king so fabulously wealthy that he charged his subjects with anointing his naked body daily from head to toe with fine gold dust. At the end of each day he bathed in a lake, lining its bottom with gold. (illustration credit 4)

  Gonzalo Pizarro started his expedition with nearly two thousand war hounds, trained for battle and intimidation of the Indians. (illustration credit 5)

  The Andes Cordillera was so brutally steep and difficult that Gonzalo Pizarro lost most of his ill-clad porters and many of his horses during his initial mountain crossing in late February 1541. (illustration credit 6)

  In his dealings with the Amazonian Indian tribes, Francisco Orellana used his considerable language skills and diplomacy much more frequently than force. He found many of the tribes to be generous hosts, some allowing him and his men to remain for over a month at a time in their villages and providing the Spaniards with food and boatbuilding materials. (illustration credit 7)

  The conquistadors found the heart of the Andes stunningly beautiful and yet virtually impenetrable. They faced violent flash floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions as they descended to the Amazon Basin. (illustration credit 8)

  The fierce and powerful jaguar (Panthera onca) was the largest cat in the New World. The Spaniards would have observed the great feline’s enormous tracks on river beaches along the shores of the Amazon. (illustration credit 9)

  The rain forests that Orellana and his men encountered were filled with large cats like jaguarundi, ocelots, and pumas, and the dark woods echoed with the ominous, lionlike roars of red howler monkeys and the piercing calls of macaws. (illustration credit 10)

  During their arduous trek through the Andes foothills, the conquistadors were forced to construct numerous rope bridges similar to this one in order to cross swollen streams and tributaries. (illustration credit 11)

  Stream crossings over slick fallen trees were frequent and dangerous. me spans over high ravines were so treacherous that the conquistadors were forced to crawl across, a few plummeting to their deaths below. (illustration credit 12)

  Caripuna Indians with a large tapir near the Madeira River. One such animal sustained Orellana and his men for nearly a week. (illustration credit 13)

  Francisco Orellana and his men heard tales of cannibalism and reported seeing evidence of the practice on the lower Amazon. Certain tribes, including the Caribs, were associated with consuming the flesh of opposing warriors to acquire their enemies’ powers. (illustration credit 14)

  The Amazon under moonglow was hauntingly beautiful, but also rife with danger, the river teeming with ferocious caimans and deadly anacondas. (illustration credit 15)

  The timeless Amazon (illustration credit 16)

  CHAPTER 16

  Tides of Change and a Sweetwater Sea

  IN THE MORNING, STIFF AND SORE BUT FIRED BY THE possibility o
f further riches to explore and exploit should they ever return, Orellana’s men cast off from the scrubby grove, for the first time in days without being harried as they took their leave. They hoped that their greatest difficulties were behind them and that the stretch ahead would be uninhabited and uneventful and offer them an opportunity to rest their wounded men, eat in some semblance of comfort, and recover a bit of their strength.

  But their wishes for a proper respite would not be realized quite yet. For very soon they approached some gorgeous country—among the “pleasantest and brightest land that [they] had discovered anywhere along the river”—high bluffs and savannas with hills and valleys. Unfortunately for the Spaniards, the lovely landscape was also quite thoroughly populated, and these people possessed a fighting mien. Still nursing their wounds from the continuous skirmishes, Orellana and his men did not like what they saw. “There came out toward us in midstream a very great number of pirogues to attack us and lead us into a fight.” They came from the left bank of the river, in the district of the confluence with the clearwater Tapajos River, a tremendous tributary whose bluish water courses in from the south just above modern-day Santarém, Brazil.

  As the warriors came near, Orellana and his brethren could see that these fighters looked different from any they had yet encountered. They were inked soot-black from head to toe, and their hair was cropped tight, very short on their heads. But most noteworthy was their size—they appeared to be extremely tall, even on first encounter in their canoes. The Spaniards quickly assimilated their very large physical proportions, noting, too, their garb: “they came forth very gaily decked out.” And then the dyed-black warriors attacked.

  Orellana had spotted them early enough to prepare a counter, and with deft maneuvering of the boats and some fast and furious firing of crossbows and harquebuses, the Spaniards did fair damage to them and kept them at bay as they proceeded down the river. Orellana named this region the Provincia de los Negros (the Province of the Black Men), and he later inquired of his captive trumpeter about their origins. The trumpeter explained that all the land that they could see—as well as a large domain that they could not see from the river—was ruled by a powerful overlord named Arripuna. This chieftain “ruled over a great expanse … back up the river and across country; he possessed territory so vast as to require eighty days journeying across it, as far as a lake which was off to the north.” The interpreter added, to Orellana’s great interest and concern, that Arripuna was an exalted warrior and that his subjects, these ink-dyed warriors, ate human flesh.

  Orellana also learned that it was in Arripuna’s expansive lands, and under his control, that the survivors of Diego de Ordaz’s shipwreck remained. Perhaps even more interesting was the mention that Arripuna possessed impressive quantities of silver—yet another enticement for a possible return visit. But right now their primary concerns were avoiding confrontation if possible, and sustaining themselves with food—on which they were running short once again.

  For two consecutive days they found no safe or suitable place to land. Finally they happened on a small village that did not appear particularly well defended, and so Orellana ordered a landing. The Indians there offered what resistance they could, but they were soon overwhelmed by the Spaniards, who seized every ounce of food available and then went on. Still needing better stores, Orellana was compelled to raid the next village as well, but this one was larger and the residents fought gamely from the shore, keeping the brigs at bay and denying them landing for half an hour. During this skirmish one of the Spanish compatriots, a man named Antonio de Carranza who hailed from Burgos, was struck in the foot by an arrow and cried out in extreme anguish, exclaiming that he was mortally wounded. He begged for a priest to hear him confess his sins and square his soul with his lord.

  Carranza’s wishes were granted, but the party was initially puzzled as to how an arrow to the foot was causing him such unbearable pain. An inspection of the wound later in the day revealed that this had been no ordinary arrow, but rather a poisoned one. By the next day,

  the wound turned very black, and the poison gradually made its way up through the leg, like a living thing, without its being possible to head it off, although they [cauterized] it with fire, wherefrom it was plainly evident that the arrow had been dipped in the most noxious poison, and when the poison had mounted to his heart, he died.

  Orellana and his men came to the dreadful realization that any arrow wound was potentially fatal, and having watched the horrific and protracted death of their countryman, they carried on in fear of suffering the same demise. They had managed to sack the village where Carranza was initially impaled, taking with them all the maize that they could stuff into the putrid brigantines, because now Orellana determined that they should land only in the most dire necessity, so shaken was he by the gruesome death of his comrade. They would proceed downstream with utmost caution, staying as far from arrow range as they possibly could.

  They moved on nervously, eyeing the shores with a newfound fear and respect. By the afternoon of the next day they were exhausted and needed sleep. Orellana spied a wooded grove at the mouth of an incoming river tributary that appeared safe. There were no huts in sight, and he thought they might be able to sleep without incident. Here some of the men rested while Orellana put others to work on some protective measures. Badly shaken by the grotesque Carranza death, he instructed a small crew to harvest timbers from the nearby forest to make “railings on the brigantines in the manner of fortifications.” These bulwarks or bulkheads extended upward and inward from the brigantines’ gunwales “like a rim … as high up as a man’s chest, and covered with the cotton and woolen blankets which we had brought along,” adding, Orellana hoped, a surrounding shield against further poison arrow attack.

  The timing of this defensive measure could not have been more opportune, because no sooner were the railings and bulkheads constructed than Orellana noticed great flotillas of canoes spreading out on the river behind and below them, not attacking so much as observing their actions. Orellana regarded these natives carefully, but as they did not attack, he maintained watch only, and they continued to rest for a day and a half, both sides at something of an impasse.

  As night of the second day approached, Orellana again looked out over the main river. A multitude of canoes and natives idled on the water and along the shores, and Orellana feared that their position at the river mouth was too vulnerable—he suspected that they would be attacked should they remain there through the night. Some Indians sneaked along the shore, so close to the tied-up brigantines that Orellana and his men could hear them talking among themselves, and the captain told his men to remain absolutely silent and to proceed with a stealthy but hasty departure. With little sound, the Spaniards once again boarded their now reinforced brigs and slipped out onto the glassy waterway to make good their escape.

  Orellana, spooked by what had almost befallen them and wanting to make distance, ordered his rowers “tied to the oars” all night long, with no breaks. They rowed rhythmically, backs and arms and legs aching against the pull, until daylight. As the sun rose in their faces, the rowing became even more difficult, the water now exhibiting tidal tendencies. Remembered Carvajal, “The flowing of the tide extended to where we were, whereat we rejoiced not a little in the realization that now we could not fail to reach the sea.” They might have been less heartened had they known they were still some three hundred miles from that goal.

  Very soon they came to a narrow branch of a river that further cut short any celebration. Two detachments of canoes in full battle cry poured forth, attacking with spears and arrows the instant the brigantines were within range. Immediately, Orellana’s precautionary protective bulwarks paid off:

  With a very great clamor and outcry … they began to attack us and fight like ravenous dogs; and, if it had not been for the railings that had been built farther back, we should have come out of this skirmish decidedly decimated; but with this protection and with the damage
that our crossbowmen and harquebusiers did to them, we managed … to defend ourselves.

  This battle, pitched at midriver, raged on continuously from sunrise until midmorning, and at no time did the Indians allow the Spaniards even a moment to rest or cease fighting. With every hour came more and more reinforcements, until the water was so cluttered with canoes that the Spaniards could scarcely see the surface between the enemy boats. Closer and closer they pressed up against the brigantines, until navigating an escape seemed desperate and the two Spanish ships were almost completely netted by canoes. The canoes impeded even the movement of the oars, placing the Spaniards in absolute peril, ducking as they now were beneath the protective railings and listening to the war chants of the horde, who fought under an overlord named Ichipayo.

  Orellana could wait no longer to act, lest they all be slain right there. He called on Lieutenant Robles to rise to the occasion, and Robles proved true, standing up in the prow of the brigantine and firing his harquebus with precision, killing two Indians with one shot. The instantaneous deaths of the Indians, coupled with the concussion of the firearm booming like a violent thunderburst overhead, caused great fear and panic among the Indians, and they began to spin and wheel their boats away in terror and confusion. At this exact moment, another brilliant shot rang out, this one leveled by a loyal harquebusier from Biscayne named Perucho. His deadly aim felled another leader, and the explosion caused most of the Indians to leap or fall into the water, affording the Spaniards easy, slow-moving targets for their swords and crossbows. In the end, the canoes that were still upright fled for safety, leaving the natives in the water to drown or be slain by the Spaniards. None of those who fell into the water escaped with their lives.