PART ONE

RUSTLERS

Crackling leaves underfoot kept me mindful of how rapidly the vast pluvial forests of the Amazon Basin shed moisture. Scarcely 12 hours had elapsed since the last downpour, a cataclysmic event that left the maloca (communal house) I was sharing with its Karapana Indian owners stranded in inky, roiling waters of the Tí river. Yet already the place seemed parched. Still sleepy, the forest was slowly coming to life as the sun's equatorial rays knifed through the canopy. Anticipating another day at the Greatest Show on Earth, I smiled.

Stopping in the damp flutter of swirling butterflies beside a stream, I waited for Luis, my hunting companion, and reflected on our morning strategy. I had come, by plane and five days' paddling, to this remote sector of Vaupés, Colombia, seeking an enigmatic creature then known from a mere handful of specimens: the Red Toad-headed Turtle, Phrynops rufipes. The Karapanas surprised me with the news that these denizens of forest creeks were stunned by barbasco (Lonchocarpus sp.), a plant toxin they used to kill fish for food.

Why? I wondered. How could poisoning the stream affect a turtle? Were the turtles drinking the water? Did consuming poisoned fishes cause a reaction? Did they respire partially through the skin? [The phenomenal cloacal-breathing Fitzroy River Turtle Rheodytes leukops of Australia had yet to be described.] I wanted to see for myself.....but, that's another story.

CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK!!! A scuttling sound from a hole ten feet up a dry sapling snatched me from my reverie. Curious, I cut down the tree, dragged it onto the trail, and began shaking the trunk. KRYPTONITE!!! The lizard that fell to the ground glowed outrageous green like Superman's lethal nemesis in the comics of my youth. Laced with adrenalin, I chased it....and got an even bigger surprise.

Struggling in my grasp was a creature that didn't look like a typical lizard. Its tail was short, flattened, and spiky. I recalled seeing something similar, a museum specimen of Tropidurus [Uracentron] flaviceps, but it was not green. Was I holding a dramatic new Tropidurus?! Twenty years in rainforests have since made clear what I didn't know then: that great finds are seldom so obvious and dramatic. But it doesn't matter...the thrill of discovery is the ultimate addiction.

I stood in the path like a happy four-year-old, heart pounding, knees dirty, lizard in-hand, as Luis arrived with the barbasco to treat the stream. Eyeing me warily, he peered into the discarded tree trunk. I gave him no heed, opting to jabber in my excitement. "Want the mate, too?" he murmured, gesturing towards the opening from which my prize had emerged. Spoken like a hunter. Rising to my role as the perfect idiot, I realized he had found another lizard in the same place, and that he knew one would be there.

I cornered the second specimen while Luis kept his distance. He said that several of the men considered these lizards--let's call them Thornytails-- to have a venomous bite, capable of killing humans. Whipping out my soapbox, I waxed eloquent, explaining that there were only two kinds of venomous lizards in all the world, and none in South America. I was rewarded immediately with a bemused, sympathetic look.

Alberto told me matter-of-factly that his father had been killed by a Thornytail. He serenely accepted that I, a non-Indian, could handle them with impugnity. Viviano, Luis' father and the Karapana headman, just shrugged and mumbled when I asked him why the animal was important. But my questions always engendered shrugs, and it was only after weeks of sharing hearth and hammock that the Indians, no doubt pitying the ignoramus in their midst, began to answer.

To accompany Indians is a privilege, but they do not impart their wisdom casually. Borne of deep forest, their personalities, like their lives, lie hidden among shadows. It helps to have no agenda, to have little or no regard for time (in the western sense), and to be prone to spectacular falls, random acts of idiocy, and other sources of amusement. Excelling in all of these areas, I had an additional weapon in my arsenal: I went out alone every night into the forest and brought strange creatures back to the maloca. This gave me an edge with the hunters; as both object of their curiosity and target of their mirth I became approachable...less alien.

Their piecemeal narratives, spiked with astonishing lessons in natural history, were like windows opening. Wisps of understanding began to displace the dullness of years in temperate urban environments. I learned about communities and associations of animals. Where my western orientation drove me to discuss the colors and appearance of a snake, the Indians would talk of its male combat ritual, best seen near mineral licks, when armadillos in estrous wandered below flocks of red- rumped caciques. My teachers.

And a varied lot they were. Karapanas are exogamous, marrying outside their tribal unit. Spouses often must communicate in the tongue of their grandparents for want of a common language. The maloca was a world unto itself, a polyglot place with a steady stream of visitors, family or friends of someone. I met Tatuyo, Yurutí-Siriano, Tuyúka, Pirá-Tapuyo, and Desana tribespeople. Their woodsmanship was similar, but their cosmology was as varied as their names.

Antonio, a Desana hunter from the Tiquié river, was a talker. "Kumú ye'e," he said when I asked about the Tropidurus. Much later, I struck up a friendship with Gerardo Reichel, a cerebral anthropologist who knew the Desana well. He told me the Desana consider this Thornytail to be the personification of Kumú, a direct representative of the solar divinity. In Desana animism, the Sun Father is the creator of the Universe, his plangent yellow rays pouring life into the earth, its rivers and forests, its animals and plants. He is the ultimate source of life, stability, and of all Desana. Kumú's role, one of great tribal importance, centers around preservation of traditions.

Stories of origin were celebrated periodically in gatherings called bayári, robust festivities replete with food, music, and dance. Men wore imposing feather crowns as part of their ritual regalia. The whorls of spines on the lizard's tail, like the radiating feathers in the ceremonial crown, represented rays of Father Sun, paths of enrichment and communication....Kumú.

If the little green lizard was good, why did others fear it? I never got to the bottom of this, but I came away with a hunch that the larger, darker Amazon Thornytail (Tropidurus [Uracentron] flaviceps) might be viewed in a different light. And just what kind of lizard had I found, anyway? Back in the lab I quickly determined the species to be the Western Green Thornytail (Tropidurus [Uracentron] azureum werneri), and I discovered some interesting news: the Cubeo Indians, who live very near the Desana and Karapana, call this little lizard "Quebebecu" and believe that it sucks on people. Maybe what was good for some was bad for others.

My experience with green Thornytails wasn't over. Returning from a turtle hunt one morning, as my canoe slid through the clear- coffee waters onto white sand, I again heard the distinctive rustling sound CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK, this time from a hole and ant nest near the base of a tree. I ran to the maloca and fetched an axe. Tribal elders hid smiles with wrinkled hands as I struggled and hacked at the section of trunk containing the hollow.

Now, I have a special talent for selecting trees, and this one responded as has just about every other one I've ever tried to cut: like petrified wood. Sweating and cursing, I prized the thing apart and found, not another pair of huddled lizards but four small eggs instead. Anxious for proof that the noise I heard was made by Green Thornytails, I would have to wait. Weeks later my patience was rewarded when four beautiful baby Green Thornytails sat alertly beside their eggshells. More boldly patterned than adults, their appearance confirmed the hypothesis that all Green Thornytails, from French Guiana to Peru, were different races of a single species .

The holes where I had found lizards and eggs were partially blocked by ant nests, so I offered ants to the hatchlings, who promptly ate them. Years later, from my perch high above the ground in a distant rainforest, I would watch a family of Amazon Thornytails hunting ants. Recent investigations have confirmed that this species also depends on them for its sustenance. Creatures of the canopy, Thornytails are either rare or at least hard-to-find. I usually see Amazon Thornytails in large, rough- barked trees, and Green Thornytails in smaller, dead trees and dry saplings, often around open areas. Others have made similar observations.

Sociable reptiles, they live in family units, darting alertly about and disappearing into their holes when alarmed like arboreal prairie dogs. Females are smaller and differently colored than males, and the Green Thornytails can change color, somewhat like anoles and chameleons. Male Amazon Thornytails and, I suspect, the Green ones as well, change colors when they are in breeding condition.

Antonio told me about Vaí-mahsë ye'e, another lizard that represented the supernatural Master of Game Animals. Anthropologists say this is the Collared Tree Lizard (Tropidurus [Plica] plica) that lives in rocky places, that makes a rustling sound, whose tail wriggles and curls. A recurring motif on ancient petroglyphs (rock carvings) in the area is an exact representation of this lizard's forked sexual organ. Its thrashing tail is a phallic symbol. It has a red pocket at its throat.

But Collared Tree Lizards live on trees, too. And Green Thornytails live around rocky outcrops. They make rustling sounds, and their sexual organ is identical in form to that of the Collared Tree Lizard. Thornytails thrash their tails when captured. So which is the real representative of Vaí-mahsë? Could it be a Thornytail? What is the red pocket? A dewlap (which would make this an anole and not a Collared Tree Lizard)? A cluster of mites? What do different tribes think of these two lizards? I wanted to see for myself.....but, that's another story.

Go to Part Two.

Copyright 1997 Canyonlands Publishing Group, L.C.

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