Bill Lamar's Field Journals 3

PART THREE

PETER PAN

BLAP!! The caiman's body thudded corpulenty onto the dirt floor of the maloca (communal house). Viviano's shadow flickered through my threadbare hammock as he stepped past the embers to return my flashlight. So, I thought groggily, he's back and the hunt was successful. Bone weary from days of trapping turtles, I had opted out of my usual nightly excursion and retired at dusk with my Karapana hosts. I lay dreamily anticipating the morrow's meal as the soporific Amazon air reclaimed me....I scarcely heard the rain when it came.

Viviano's bronzed visage seemed disconnected...vaguely surreal as he spoke through the dawn mists and told me of the hunt. We stood as we had every morning, submerged to our necks in the warm waters of the Tí River. Prompted and nurtured by the Stygian currents, we relieved ourselves, bathed, and woke up....part of a ritual as ancient as daybreak. This same water, as respite from the heat of an equatorial noon, would catch my breath with its chill.

"The Puurl River has reached flood stage," drawled the voice crackling over the shortwave. I had tackled the radio, a corroded and inoperable roach nest, as a morning project. I grinned broadly at this irony and coincidence: The Pearl River coursed through Jackson, Mississippi, my wife Nancy's hometown; the cresting Tí River flowed past the Karapana maloca at Pamopetá, my home for the moment. The swollen Pearl's flooding that June of 1979 would continue to make headlines, although unbeknownst to me, for the dying radio never produced another sound.

The hunt had yielded three caimans (Paleosuchus trigonatus) plus a beautiful treeboa (Corallus hortulanus) that Viviano had secured alive. The largest of the caimans was to be cooked at our hearth, a prospect that conjured fond memories of delicious `gator tail in a faraway South Carolina swamp. As usual, I was out-of-touch with reality. The Karapana recipe for caiman (and practically all other foods) was quite simple: Into the only cooking vessel (a smudged and horrifically battered aluminum pot) place river water and a handful of round, green peppers (the Indians' only condiment, and hot as burning Hell). Add one caiman, unwashed and undressed, still sporting a fair amount of sand and patches of algae on its skin. Allow to smoulder for hours, until the entire animal is reduced to a slurry of scales, eyeballs, toenails, and goo. Bon appétit!

Did I mention the circling dogs? Their ribs casting mangy shadows, and lacking the odd ear, tail tip, or other appendage, the Indians' curs rounded the caiman crematory incessantly. Conjoined with the Karapana women in this culinary opera, each dog would weigh the odds, plunge his muzzle into the stew, then dance nimbly away from the irate chefs...all to a chorus of shrieks. Pavarotti, move over.

Sentiment is not part of the working equation that exists between Indians and dogs. In exchange for shelter, de facto protection from big cats, and whatever they can glean to eat, the dogs provide vigilance, unflagging companionship, comic relief, and valiant hunting services. Someone once told me the bulk of Indian dogs' injuries came, not as the result of adventures afield but rather from men venting their spleen after quarrels. This makes sense, although I never witnessed a machete being used on a dog. While animal rights activists might disapprove, such gratuitous outbursts are not necessarily lacking in benefit. The gene pool in most tribes is small, and directing wrath at canines as opposed to other men conveniently avoids unnecessary reductions. Watching dogs interact with Indians gave me a glimpse at the origins of domesticity.

I thought the "stew" still needed some eye-o'-newt and a dash of wing-o'-bat, but it was ready. We squatted like some huge, slurping éminence gris, elbows and knees akimbo, in a smokey circle around the fire. Sooty hands collided in the pot, grasped as much sludge as possible, and flung it steaming into waiting mouths. Like an idiot, I followed suit, instantly burning my fingers and lips. Vainly, my tongue struggled to segregate grit and bones from anything vaguely digestible. As I fell behind the competition, my efforts grew more frantic....that's when I bit into a pepper. Through it all, a phalanx of dogs made yelping, and frequently successful assaults on the pot. Martha Stewart and Miss Manners, those doyennes of propriety, both died a little that day.

After the meal, a deep discussion ensued, punctuated by farts and belches worthy of giants. As I looked on through impressed, watery eyes, Viviano turned to me and explained that a group would depart by canoe the following morning. The Karapanas had a camp deep in the forest where they had stored heavy sheets of rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) harvested during the dry season. If they hurried, he told me, they could use the temporary high water to carry the canoe up Monserero Creek, over the massive, fallen trees to the camp to fetch the rubber. But the water level would drop again in a few days, exposing anew the barricaded stream bed. It would, he said, be a good opportunity to scout possible sites for the Red Toad-headed Turtles (Phrynops rufipes) I was seeking. Would I like to go along? Would I like to go along!!I agreed so quickly it startled him.

Now I understood why several of the men had been busy patching the big canoe with "brea" (Caraipa densifolia), a tar-like sap they also used on their blow pipes and dart quivers. Sunrise sparked an exodus of people, equipment, and animals. Gear was stowed in cloth sacks rendered impermeable through successive coatings of latex from a rubber tree. Machetes, axes, a blow pipe, and a decrepit shotgun barrel wired to a crude stock rounded out the hardware, to which I added my hammock, pack, and a cast net.

Karapanas adopt lots of animals, and I often wondered whether "zoological park" might be a better term than "communal house" for a maloca. Ours was home to assorted acouchis (Myoprocta acouchy), agoutis (Dasyprocta fuliginosa), Pygmy Marmosets (Cebuella [Callithrix] pygmaea), Black Tamarins (Saguinus inustus), Blue-headed Parrots (Pionus menstruus), Hawk- headed Parrots (Deroptyus accipitrinus), Black-headed Caiques (Pionites melanocephala), and Red-rumped Caciques (Cacicus haemorrhous). Monkeys and birds perched in the rafters, while quadrupeds lived in hollow logs on the maloca floor. Raised from infancy by the Karapanas, none showed the slightest inclination to depart, and that in spite of the childrens' often brutal ministrations. Curiously, all the red-rumped caciques bore the same name, "Chiró," yet each bird would fly only to the woman who owned it, riding her arm or shoulder as she went to work in the garden. Viviano's ancient mother was never without the company of her Common Trumpeter (Psophia crepitans napensis), an affectionate, doe-eyed, ostrich-like bird that fairly cooed with contentment whenever touched. But looks can deceive, and her pet was a cunning warrior. Daily, it picked a fight with one of the dogs, goading it into bared-fang attacks. Undaunted, the bird would leap to avoid the snarling lunges while drilling the hapless dog's head with well-placed pecks until the vanquished canine would retreat, confused and growling. Everyone looked forward to these harmless battles with fondness, and the invincible trumpeter enjoyed gladiator status. The only time I saw that bird flummoxed was when it confronted a Slender Coralsnake (Micrurus filiformis), whose vigorous defensive display and bright colors intimidated the leggy predator.

Coralsnakes seem sort of inconsequential...most are small and slight-of-build. But people tend to really get worked up about them...and for all the wrong reasons. As a snakebite hazard they represent a very low risk, their potent venoms notwithstanding. However, they possess some pretty clever ways of warding off predators, including multi-purpose colors and patterns and intricate behavior. One afternoon as I worked in the maloca, cataloging specimens, a constant lowing eased into my consciousness. Peering through a crack I could see the trumpeter in the yard, weaving back and forth in confusion over something on the ground. It was a tiny and very upset coralsnake, busily waving its curled and raised tail, thrashing its head to and fro, and crab- crawling away from the bird. The trumpeter, bent on an easy meal, was baffled. It could not choose between head and tail, the latter appearing to be another head. Since birds perceive color, perhaps the brilliant red, yellow, and black rings on the snake gave it pause.

The scene reminded me of my golden retriever, who lived to play fetch. Whenever she grasped a ball in her mouth, one had only to show her another...she would gape in amazement, allowing the first ball to drop while she lunged for the second. Then, upon discovery of the original ball, she would repeat the performance, switching balls until she tired of the exercise. For years the conventional wisdom about snakes with tail displays held that this was a simple ruse designed to draw a potentially damaging attack away from the delicate head. Watching this worm-like creature defend itself made me appreciate the experiments of Frederick Gehlbach, who showed that coralsnakes curl and raise the tail in order to mimic...themselves! Any good predator is a coward, ambushing its prey in a calculated attack. Suddenly confronting what seem to be two (rather than one) prey animals could elicit the kind of confusion displayed by the trumpeter, thus providing the coralsnake an opportunity to retreat to safety.

So, by my count we had thirteen Indians, several dogs, miscellaneous other mammals, and a handful of Red-rumped Caciques ("Chiró!") on board. Next came the food. Its opulent appearance aside, the Amazon rainforest is not generous with protein. Indigenous peoples depend on seasonally available fruits, nuts, and seeds; on fishing and game; and produce from their gardens. They supplement with a variety of insects, and just about anything else they can subdue. Like many tribes, the Karapanas practice swidden agriculture, wherein the men chop and burn all trees and vegetation in an area, thus dumping the mineral load into the poor soil. Everyone participates, after a fashion, in planting crops, which are then tended and harvested by the women. After a few years, the field (called a chagra, or chakra) is abandoned and reclaimed by the forest. For centuries, this was a sound way in which agriculturalists could co-exist peaceably with their surroundings.

The most important of their foodstuffs is manioc (tapioca, cassava, Manihot esculenta), a tuber known in Latin America as "yuca." One of the world's ancient edibles, there are about 100 varieties of manioc known. The two cultivars used in the Amazon are "sweet" and "bitter," distinguished, respectively, by absence or presence of high levels of prussic acid. Usually, manioc grown in the most nutrient-deprived soils will carry the greatest concentration, a witch's brew of cyanogenic glycosides that protects the tuber from insect predation. Somehow, through a milennial selective process that must have cost many lives, people figured out that bitter manioc could be grated and macerated, then poured into a woven sieve (tipití), compressed, and rendered safe for human consumption. Sweet manioc is simply peeled, soaked in water, and boiled. It is eaten in this form or made into beer in any of various ways. The flavor is much like a potato...to me, even better. Bitter manioc, once treated, is baked into a gravelly "flour" called fariña, or pressed into brittle cakes locally known as cassave. Both have lengthy shelf lives and are quite portable. Fariña is often consumed with water during travel; it's filling and can be prepared instantly. Eating fariña is a bit like munching ground up popcorn soaked in vinegar; eating cassave is more like chewing pickled styrofoam. Strangely, I am fond of both.

Stacks of cassave and bags of fariña were stowed beneath the thwarts. You may have guessed by now that the diet had its rigors, so it will be easy to understand that it produced peculiar and strong cravings as well. In fact, the lack of fat was so acute that...and this is the truth...I actually used to lie in my hammock and dream of eating bacon grease. During my years of residence in Colombia, I nursed a visceral need for peanut butter, and that in spite of its not having been a particular favorite prior to that time. A large jar of Peter Pan brand peanut butter, given to me by a friend at the U.S. embassy in Bogotá, was concealed lovingly within my gear. I had resisted the temptation to open it, and this expedition seemed the perfect occasion for its use. I hovered over my bag like a hen on her nest, sustaining myself with the knowledge of its presence. A lot of my heart was invested in that jar, and I planned to break neither.

We shoved off, crossing the inky Tí in a glorious sunrise. Between solicitous checks on my precious cargo, I marvelled at the sky....cerulean splotches in the green canopy. The broad, black-tipped paddles, each a glistening ace-of-spades, dipped rhythmically as we entered Monserero Creek. Quickly, the forest hemmed us in, alive with sounds. Pairs of Red-billed Toucans (Ramphastos tucanus cuvieri) crisscrossed in front of us. Dapper Pygmy Kingfishers (Chloroceryle aenea) sat poised in the shadows, waiting for minnows. Raucous Red-throated Caracaras (Daptrius americanus) screeched in alarm from the treetops. The women and children scanned the trees for fruits or nuts, their dark eyes missing nothing. A lifetime of poking around in the woods imparts a certain wisdom, a cognizance of how creatures look and where they hide....what we call a search image. But the best of us cannot hope to match one who is raised and schooled in deep forest. The complex panorama of wood and leaves is, for an Indian, nothing more than a backdrop against which animals largely invisible to westerners are highlighted.

Everyone was chattering and pointing at once. Even as my eyes failed to pick it out, I knew it must be a snake, and what a snake it proved to be! Immense, with huge scales of pink and black, it lay resting on a leafy bough high above the canoe. What was it?! I had absolutely no idea! It looked like a Tiger Ratsnake (Spilotes pullatus) but the colors were all wrong. I stood, wobbly and obsessed, in the prow of the canoe, while my tittering companions crowded toward the stern. By leaping into the air, I managed to grasp a twig and, with a jerk, an avalanche of surprised reptile was on me.

Snakes as a group boast some fairly clever modes of defense, but in close quarters it usually comes down to musking and biting. The pink snake lost no time in employing this strategy, chomping my cheek firmly (acquainting me instantly with heretofore unknown nerve endings) and spewing foul-smelling musk with equal accuracy. My stunned Karapana companions gawked silently, mentally registering more of my characteristics for their catalogue of buffoonery. Meanwhile, I wrestled the seething snake into the cast net for want of a better container. My childhood obsession with identifying everything was thwarted, and I spent much of the morning futiley combing my brain for some hint as to what my 7-foot captive might be.

Over the ensuing weeks, I would see more of these fierce, impressive reptiles. Ranging in color from pink, to pink-and-black, to solid red, they were alert, astonishingly fast, and capable of fleeing with grace through the trees, on the ground, or by diving into the water. I ambushed one positively massive specimen as it dozed, opaque, on a high bank digesting a meal and waiting to shed its skin. Its coils jutted over the stream below like some sort of slumbering python. Another large one hurled itself from a tree, only to land unexpectedly against my chest....this one bit me on top of my head. I'll never forget the horrified expression of my Karapana companion as I struggled to extricate myself. Later, I learned that this was the Rusty Whipsnake (Chironius scurrulus), but for the present I dedicated myself, with raw zeal and little skill, to capturing these forest racers. Recently, as I watched a graceless Australian tackling all manner of hapless reptiles on television, I realized I bore the same expression as the Karapanas when they had watched me.

Twilight found us huddled much as we had been in the boat, only beneath a decrepit, thatched roof near the creek. A large paw print and strong felid odor marked the spot and provoked considerable discussion. It was to be a night of sounds and smells. We dined on fariña and cassave, climbing into our hammocks to a symphony of gaseous emissions (Homo sapiens) and frog calls (Hyla calcarata and H. hobbsi). My precious cargo of peanut butter was nestled among my gear, safe and still unopened. Much of our day had been spent chopping through huge tree trunks spanning the creek, so I felt myself drifting, fatigued, to sleep from the moment I lay down. The exquisite scent of an orchid (Epidendrum nocturnum) wafted past, no doubt attracting moths or bats to pollinate it. Giant Jungle Frogs (Leptodactylus pentadactylus) hooting by their burrows, echoed across the forest. Later, I awoke to the melancholy lowing of Nocturnal Curassows (Nothocrax urumutum), and later still to the distinctive cough of a Jaguar (Panthera onca), something my years in the Orinoco Basin had made familiar.

We departed in the fog at sunrise, bellies distended with fariña, to a rousing chorus of "chirós" as the women summoned their wayward birds. I stowed my precious cargo in the prow. The day passed much as the one before it, with each curve of the stream offering its surprise, usually in the form of another huge, fallen tree to be negotiated. Wherever possible, we flattened ourselves in the canoe and dragged it under the trunk, often provoking a shower of stinging ants or wasps, followed by peals of laughter as we escaped into the water. Sometimes after one of these passes a large treefrog would turn up in the boat, and gradually I learned to look for them (Osteocephalus taurinus and O. cabrerai) as they clung to their perches over the stream. I have since collected many frogs of this genus in similar situations throughout the Amazon Basin.

On this particular morning a rare privilege awaited us, and it happened so swiftly that it seemed like a dream. Fallen logs had dammed the stream and we could hear the rushing water long before it came into view. The noise masked our arrival and we surprised a Jaguar sitting with its back to us in the pool above the log jam. Turning and leaping in one motion, the cat exploded in a spray of water ten feet straight up the embankment and vanished. Transfixed, I stared at the spot while everyone jabbered excitedly. It has been my great fortune to see jaguars on several occasions over the years, but for sheer drama the time on Monserero Creek in Vaupés, Colombia, shall remain etched forever in my memory. It seems odd that something in a place already so untamed and remote could, through a fleeting glimpse, impart such an essence of wildness. Nearly 20 years after the fact, I still tingle when I think of that cat, a blur of tawny spots hurdling effortlessly upward as though shot from a cannon.

Alberto, who wandered through the forest intercepting us when he wanted to, spent the day fishing and running the dogs for agoutis. Their baying sometimes turned to piteous wails, and I asked Viviano the reason. "Mahí'ña," he answered, gesturing toward his eyes. The name denotes a variety of small, brown ant that lives beneath the streamside leaf litter. They would crawl to the dogs' eyes, their only vulnerable spot, and sting them, leaving white, cloudy spots on the orbit. Finally, I understood why so many of the young dogs seemed to suffer from advanced cataracts...the ant stings had simply coalesced, and their combined effect must have been nearly blinding. Unwittingly, I once strayed into a buried column of mahí'ña. A single ant wedged itself inside the hi-top sneaker which was tightly laced on my bare foot. For a millisecond I literally saw white as jolting pain receptors seemed to lift the roof off my skull. I leapt into the air, removed the shoe, and snatched the culprit from my foot before hitting the ground, where I lay contorted and panting with pain and adrenalin. The ant, whose species I never determined, was tiny and innocuous looking, and the wound itself all but invisible. Within a couple of minutes I was back to normal, but forever imbued with respect for that most powerful of insects....mahí'ña.

Towards dusk we followed a tributary to an abandoned house the forest had reduced to little more than roof and floorboards. It belonged to Antonio, one of my companions, and it would be our home for the night. I managed to control my urge to eat the peanut butter once again, and felt reassured when I patted the jar. During supper, fariña and cassave, talk turned to jaguars. Each man had a story to tell, but most of them involved hunters calling agoutis and winding up attracting a big cat instead. The whistling sound made by a Jaguar was also discussed, and I saw one doing this many years later with the Huaorani in eastern Ecuador. No one said anything about attacks on man, but they worried about children alone in the forest.

At first light the women began pulling up the floor to make a fire. Shaking me from my hammock, they pointed to a loose board. I lifted it, expecting a snake, and pounced on two big frogs concealed in a burrow. One I recognized instantly as a giant jungle frog, a robust predator whose hooting calls had lulled us to sleep the previous evening. But the other, smaller frog was something different. A few years previously, and not far from where I stood, William F. Pyburn, a fine amphibian biologist with whom I would have the pleasure of doing graduate work, joined his Kubeo Indian guide at dusk to hunt frogs. Hearing what he thought to be a giant jungle frog calling, he commented on it, but the guide disagreed. This frog, he said, was another kind, with a slightly different call, and it lived in leafcutter ant (Atta sp.) burrows.

Intrigued, Pyburn investigated, and eventually he and Ronald Heyer of the Smithsonian resurrected the Gold-eyed Jungle Frog (Leptodactylus stenodema) from its improper synonymy with the more familiar L. pentadactylus. Preserved museum specimens are priceless reservoirs of information, but now and again they conceal differences obvious in life, preventing scientists from detecting distinctive species sharing the same jar. Languishing unrecognized for over 120 years since its description by the naturalist Jiménez de la Espada, the Gold-eyed Jungle Frog to this day remains poorly known. I was looking at my first specimen, wondering how it lived, while the women were looking at a white-skinned idiot with a frog in each hand.

Paddling warmed me in the damp morning drizzle. We were the only creatures silly enough to brave the rain, so I contented myself with studying the changing scenery. The stream had narrowed, and the forest floor was more undulant, starkly different from the inundated terrain through which we had passed on the first day. Dense stands of aroid plants blanketed the banks with their spear-shaped silhouettes, and touseled lianas curled from the canopy into the amber water. White, sandy soil marked Brazilian Tapir (Tapirus terrestris) trails, and lined paca (Cuniculus paca) tunnels wherever the stream cut through root systems. At sizes approaching 600 pounds, tapirs are the largest land mammals on the continent. Pacas are big, nocturnal and amphibious rodents highly esteemed as a source of protein, and conversations erupted each time we passed one of their strongholds. Away from the water, the leaf litter was deep, and the trees were shorter than their riverside counterparts. Seen from the air, the vast pluvial forests of the Amazon seem remarkably homogeneous, but nothing could be further from the truth. We have little knowledge of the unique ecosystems, each characterized by subtle soil and vegetation differences, that are seamlessly interwoven into the giant patchwork quilt that makes up the world's largest rainforest.

Sunlight is the volume control when it comes to forest activity, and as soon as the morning cloud cover dissipated, things began to happen. Ivory-billed Araçaris (Pteroglossus f. flavirostris) croaked in the treetops; the plaintive crescendo of a Little Tinamou (Crypturellus soui caquetae) sounded somewhere off to our right. But the most ubiquitous sound was the unmistakable call of the Screaming Piha (Lipaugus vociferans), whose voice is all out of proportion to the drab, unicolored bird that produces it. I have colleagues who genuinely despise this bird, associating its mocking call with tough times on the trail. Its beautiful song is as evocative of pristine, tropical wilderness as the cry of the Common Loon (Gavia immer) is of the North Woods.

"Do you know what that is?" Antonio asked me, as we listened to a muffled croaking. "It's a frog being swallowed by a snake," I replied, having tracked them down in that manner previously. "That's right," he said, "and there it is." By the time I finally managed to see the reptile, Antonio held my head and, aided by twelve waving hands, aimed it at the canopy. Adults and children alike were convulsed with laughter at my ineptitude, but I was too fascinated by what I saw to care. Seventy-five feet up, a large, bright green snake dangled in the canopy, leisurely consuming a brown, struggling frog. I stared through my binoculars and still could not determine its identity. It was much too thick and the wrong color to be a parrot snake (Leptophis ahaetulla copei), and it didn't look too much like a Green Palmsnake (Philodryas viridissimus), although that remains the best candidate. The fact is, I don't know what it was and I'm not sure I would have been able to identify it if I had held it in my hand.

As it happens, I was puzzled on this trip by another green snake as well. At least once a day, I had managed to miss one: small, bright green, slender in build, and swimming in the creek. I could tell they were not watersnakes. Sometime after I returned to Pamopetá I surprised one of these little reptiles as I walked near flooded forest along the Tí River. Frantic to see it up close, I gave chase, only to have it disappear. Treading water, I suddenly saw it swimming across the river. When I caught up with it in flooded forest on the opposite side, it lowered its chin, flattened its head malevolently, displayed its striking blue tongue and jowls, and tried to bite. This was the classic defense pose of a juvenile Green Palmsnake, although it seemed odd for an arboreal species to have such a close association with water. Looks often deceive in the tropics, and I was amazed when I learned that these were baby Rusty Whipsnakes. Not only do they begin life green, then become pink-to-red as adults, but also the babies are adept at mimicking the Green Palmsnake, which has a toxic bite.

Late in the afternoon we surprised an aquatic lizard about a foot long. I barely glimpsed it as it dove, and again I was baffled. In the gathering dusk, as we approached the maloca where the rubber was stored, I spotted several more of these lizards. Warily, they had ascended the aroid plants and were assuming resting positions on the broad green leaves. I recognized them as stream lizards (Neusticurus) but they were far bigger than any I had ever seen. They were too alert to approach, but I knew I could get them at night. My mind racing with excitement, I rushed ashore to unload, sling my hammock, and prepare for the evening hunt.

The maloca was larger than I had expected, and had doorways on two sides. I slung my hammock in my customary place, checked my precious peanut butter, and thought about those strange lizards. Gradually, it occured to me that I was the only one who had entered the building. Men blocked each of the exits, shoving their unhappy dogs into the maloca. As the mongrels raced about, I looked on with a dumbness uniquely my own, until one of the men idly commented that I must not mind the niguas. NIGUAS! Like a bolt it dawned on me. Niguas (Tunga penetrans) are unsavory cousins of the flea. In parts of tropical America and Africa, they occupy the dirt floors of houses, multiplying spectacularly in the absence of their mammalian hosts. Like animated splinters, the females flip onto a foot or leg, run about briefly, then drill themselves painlessly into the flesh, usually beneath the edge of a toenail. Depositing eggs in a clear, spherical sac, the wound begins to expand within hours, lifting the nail and becoming a potentially dangerous ulcer.

I glanced down at my bare feet and was instantly horrified. So many niguas had clambered onto me that it looked like I was wearing a pair of dark socks. Within seconds I had scampered out of the maloca and was lying ignominiously on my back in the mud, each leg being groomed by a chuckling Karapana woman. Field biology at its finest. While I lay there, wincing each time I was pinched, the dogs were deemed sufficiently loaded with niguas (a regular canine cleanup service) and they poured out of the maloca, thrusting curious muzzles into my face. The only good thing was that no one else had a camera. The mongrels would spend the evening efficiently grooming the niguas from their feet, and I became scrupulously hygienic about same. That night I got my lizards, which proved to be the largest members of their genus and an undescribed species, the Giant Stream Lizard (Neusticurus medemi). I learned that they live on vines overhanging streams, feeding on terrestrial insects and diving into the water when threatened. I'll always remember seeing them for the first time, at dusk when the forest becomes luminous, clinging to broad leaves along that silent stream, and silently watching me through chocolate eyes.

Three of the men rose before dawn and went hunting. They were successful and we breakfasted on Nocturnal Curassow. I knew the bird to be a poorly known species, but succumbed to the desire for meat and ate my share from the communal pot. I spent the day ranging widely through the forest and setting lines for the turtles I sought. The place was unimaginably beautiful, and I returned to the maloca that evening in a festive mood. Nothing would do but to uncork the peanut butter and celebrate. I took my ration of cassave to my hammock, and removed the sacred jar from its wraps. The odor was exquisite and I spread the Peter Pan thickly on my cassave.

As I prepared to take my first bite, I realized everyone had fallen silent and was watching me intently. "Mantequilla de maní (peanut butter)," I stated proudly. Taking that to be some sort of invitation, they gathered around me for a closer look. After a short chat in Karapana and some affirmative nods, Antonio said, "We think it looks like shit." Studying my gorgeous creation while I struggled to contain my hurt feelings, I countered, "Yes, I suppose it does, but it tastes great....would you like some?" Thirteen grubby hands, each holding a portion of cassave, were thrust towards me at once.

As a youth during the 1950's in Charleston, South Carolina, I used to clamber onto the slippery rocks below the Battery during low tide to fish. I was after American Eels (Anguilla rostrata) and Oyster Toadfish (Opsanus tau) because they were exciting and different, but the prize catch to the locals was Atlantic Croaker (Micropogonias undulatus), considered an excellent dish. Periodically "boils" (schools) of White Mullet (Mugil curema) would swim past, but these vegetarians could only be caught by casting a weighted hook into their midst and giving it a healthy jerk. Mullet were considered unfit for caucasian tables, so we always gave them to waiting black children to take home. Imagine my surprise when, a few years later, I had occasion to visit family on the Florida Gulf Coast, a scant 350 miles from Charleston. There, the croakers were considered to be undesireable, while mullet were a widely appreciated delicacy served in many restaurants. Of course, both fish are perfectly delicious, but I learned my lesson about deeply ingrained food habits.

Tan faces, some wrinkled and some smooth, were masks of concentration while I ceremoniously spread the magic peanut butter on each piece of cassave. The fire behind me flickered in their limpid, dark eyes as each Karapana contemplated the strange substance I had just smeared on his or her supper. Slowly I resealed the jar and picked up my piece. No one budged while I lifted the delicacy to my mouth. Ever the optimist, I took an exaggerated bite, smacking my lips with enjoyment. The nutty flavor was sheer heaven, and I was excited that my companions were about to experience it. But the Indians had seen all they needed. In unison, they flicked the Peter Pan-- my incalculably wonderful peanut butter--onto the dirt and ate their cassave plain, in the traditional way.

Copyright 1997 Canyonlands Publishing Group, L.C.

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