Evening Star Newspaper, February 18, 1923, Page 69

Tart 5—8 Pages MAGAZINE SECTION e Suniy WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 18, 1923. Race in Guiana Jungles Hunts and Fights With Deadly Poisons By A. HYATT VERRILL. f HE fears of my Indian guide anxfously expressed to me as whed the region of the were not without aborigines of the » famed throughout outh America as makers Not only do they concoet . wurali, but they ) adepts at preparing various subtic and deadly substances with which they destroy thelr enemies— Whether there cnemics be real or fan- cled There are incideuts on record Patamonas poisoning an entire crew | of “balata bleeders,” or gold diggers. the sa reason, for fana for that part of of paison and “are ot | in revenge for the black men's inter- | fering with the Indian women. Woe be it to any Indian of another tribe who earns the Patamonas’ enmity! Moreover, the Patamonas have.the tion and learn the truth, but the mo- 10tony was often broken by success- ful hunts in the later afternoons, by shooting alligators and by fishing. Otherwise our eyes gazed continuous- Iy upon two jungle walls of a thou- sand shades of green stretching away as far as eye can gee; two ramparts of stupendous, spreading trees, of giant ferns, feathery palms, thorny scrub, rank weeds and tangled brush; between the greenery a dark brown, shimmering mile-wide lane of water, smooth as burnished metal; ofl-like, and mirroring the cloud-flecked sky and verdure of the shores. Here and {there masses of dull-brown rocks mar name of sending forth most of the mysterious “kenaimus,’ or curses. and their pealmen or witch doctors frequently possess hypnotic powers. IFor all these reasons the tribe is held pecullar dread by other tribes, and no strange Indian will venture alone into a Patamona village, or, if he can possibly avoid it, food or drink partake of their | | | | | The wurali poison, to be sure, is em- | vioyed by other tribes as well, but only a limited number of men know the secrets of its composition and this is carefully guarded. of strychnine-like lianas are used, as well as certain gums, snake poison and polsonous ants. T results of wurali are aimost instantaneous. bird : with the poisonous dart rarely has time to flutter before it falls helpless and dying to the earth These poison ous darts of the blow- &un, Indeed, are appallingly effec- tive—slender fragile splinters of bam- | hoo, the though mortal they wurall. are tipped with For small birds 1lain, unpoisoned darts are the rule, | creatures or | the venom- tut for larger winged cuadrupeds, or enemies, tipped arrows are employed. In order to prevent the dart from opping from the siricken creature Lefore the poison has done its work, | as well as to guard against the fallen, missile menacing the lives of their tribesmen walking through the for- est. the dart to be used is inserted be- | the knife-edged teeth of the | cen paral Jaw and Is twirled about until the poison-covered tip Is nearly sev- ¢1ed from the arrow. When this en- ters the body immediatelv breaks off, rei covered splintcr in the wound. | vhile the harmless remalning portion | 0t the dart fa'ls to the ground. | uch was the hospitable reputation | of the people we were seeking. More- | ov their favorite article of diet—the savi root, is itself a poison—that |s, nally, though by a process taught £mong themselv they can transform it into ‘an edible, both nutritive and palatable. ¥k o % HIS was my third visit to British Gulana. 1 had come to study the wborigines, to dwell among them, to tecure photographs and data and to make collections. On such a quest, therefore—a search for the untamed Indian in his native haunts—my boat crawled slowly up the Mazaruni river. | My objective was an obscure creek about one hundred and fifty miles dis- ant. 1 had a suspicion, nevertheless, that my tedious trip might prove a wild-goose chase, for no one, official | “protectors of Indians” or any others. <ould give me any definite informa. tion as to the presence of Indlan set tlements on the upper Mazarunl. To set forth blindly in search of “wild” Indians secmed about as hopeless as the proverbial search for a needle in the hay. All T had to go upon as to direction was rumor, for by merest chance I | heard from a civilized Indlan that there had been a village in the moun- tains of that district, but whether it still existed, or whether the “buck. had migrated elsewhere, was uncer- tain. Only by personally investigat- ing could I ascertain for sure and I had set forth, going as light as I dared, to gain time, Several species | Al of a bird or beast it| leaving the | | Indian paddlers, the glassy water, or wooded islands— bits of detached 'jungle—hide the shores from sight, while over all reigns the silence of the vast wilder- ness, broken only by the strident screams of great red macaws, the screech of parrots, the clattering of toucans or the querulous cries of black caracara hawks. Such was the scene hour after hour, day after day, as In the spoon-bottomed river boat. propelled by brawny, copper-skinned I pushed my way into the heart of the Guiana wilder- ness. A score of times a day, a dozen times, perhaps, within an hour, the heavy boat must be hauled by brute strength up tumbling cataracts, the men leaping into the torrents, swim- ming, wading, struggling and tug- ging at the ropes until, inch by inch, Slowly the hours passed, for 1 was all impatience to reach our destina-, the way was won. The boat, breast- ing the racing waves, rests at last |_Much Lumber for Sawdust HE United States alone, ex- | clusive of lumbering In Alaska and the islands owned by this country, shows a vast waste of wood. The forestry service esti- mates that the total waste &pproxi- mates 38,000,000,000 feet of all the timber that is milled. Much of this waste is due to cutting. The branches cut from the logs cfter they have reached the mills are consigned to the scrap heap. Chips cut from the yumber are not included in the total | \wagte, ana not the least of all this js the sawdust. Eleven billion cf the $8,000,000,000 feet classed as waste material is sawdust. It has been declared that if the/ 11,000,000,000 feet of sawdust could | be utilized for building purposes it would make between 1,000 and 2,000 structures. It is further declared that : these bulldings would not be weak, wobbly shacks, but substantial frame, l t The great percentage of this waste is waste from the standpoint of lum~ ver. It has been demonstrated that u goodly portion of the so-called waste can be successfully utilized. Small articles are constructed from the pleces of wood that would other- wise be useless. Again, much of the waste can be changed in character by chemicals and so made market- able. In the first instance wooden laths are made from small pieces of wood, also clothes pins, insulator pins, handles for all kinds of tools, picture frames, trimmings for furniture, wooden buttons; pyrographical boards and countless other articles. By subjecting the wood to a chem- jeal process, charcoal, alcohal, wood pulp, turpentine, etc, result. The Tnited tSates 1s at present so well supplied” with hard woods and soft | sizes, woods, and the price is, relatively speaking, so low, that utilizing, this raw, material is.not always feasible. As a fuel, It is, of course, usually desirable. The manufacture of certain small wooden articles requires a special kind of machinery, and the annual waste In a given locality may not be sufficient to warrant the installation of the machinery. A great deal of the waste Is in different shapes and and fn such cases sorting is necessary. pensive, for gné reason or another, that it does not pay to touch the waste wood. These are illustrative of the many other reasons that ren- der this ‘utilization of wood waste expensive or impo#sible for small concerns. However, _experimental work is being constantly- done along these lines, and a practical solution of the question is promised. The fleld Is more promising when utilization involves a change in the character of a wood. A variety of wdods, such as yellow ‘pine, spruce, aspen, balsam, hemlock, basswood, tulip, popular and others, can be made Into wood pulp. The sawdust problem is one that the forest service has ever in thought. The use of sawdust resolves itself into a purely local - proposition. . It is used largely for fuel. In sections of the country where the price of coal {s prohibitive, sawdust is made into briquettes and sold. It is also used for bedding cattle. Because it is a poor conductor of heat, great quantities of fce are packed in it A linoleum substitute has been found, made from wood-flour and chemicals. Wood-flour Is ground sawdust, and is used in the making of other things, wood-stucco, floor-polishing materlals and an absorbent In ammunition- fac- torles, B RO T O VIO 1 € Traveler, in Seeking Haunts of Aborigines, Makes Long Journey Into Wilds and Faces Perils of Cataracts and Whirlpools—Success Won in Quest for Pata- monas, Who Have Moved Each Year Farther Into the Depths of the Bush and Are Still as Primitive as When Europeans First Set Foot on American Soil. R e At other times, by herculean efforts. | the craft must be lifted bodily over| jutting fangs:of rocks, or, by prodig- ious feats of paddiing, forced across | sinister, vawning, black whirlpools where, often for minutes at a time, the boat stands motionless, trem- bling like a frightened horse to the | swirl and drag of waters and the This is frequently so ex-' “I HAD FO! frantic beat of paddles—and life hangs In the balance while one listens with bated breath for the crack of a breaking paddle, which would spell Aeath. Thrills there are a-plenty; hair- breadth escapes ogcur at every turn and yet one soon becomes accustomed to the ewer-recurring dangers safaly | passed, to the marvelous wealth of vegetation, to the strange birds and doalng_ alligators, to the fairy-like world of reflection. . In such passes as these, my Indiars retained implicit faith in the power of their -“beenas,” or charms, to insure L success, good fortune or skill in vari- ous occupations or undertakings So absolute is the belief in. these. of [P -3 Prodigious Feats of Paddlin bucks” retain a conviction of their potency. HL‘.\'TL\'G beenas 4s a rule consist of rubbing certain plants or other materlals into incisions in the skin. upon calmer waters above the falls. |Gulana Indians, that even clivilized |noses of the dogs, is supposed to In- sure their success in paca or labba, Another powerful beena is the “ant beena.” This consists of a frame of parallel strips of palm or bamboo through the interstices of which liv- ing ants art thrust with their heads exposed on one side, and this array of tracking the Most of the plants used are cala- | biting jaws s then pressed here and UND MY diums, but certain grasses and nuts are also used and one of the most po- tent beends is the mucous of a live frog, or the ashes of a burned frog rubbed into a cut. In every case, however, a different plant or material is used for a certain beena. Thus, a deer beena is a’'white and green ca- ladium; a tapir beena is a black- spotted caladium; the aguoti beena is a red-leaf caladium and the jaguar beena & caladium variegated with red and white spots. As a beena for the curassow or “powi” a ground nut is used and this loses all Its virtues if the plant is touched or looked upon by a woman. treated with beenas and a ceftain grass, powdcred‘and rubbed upon the | mg . : £y | | Even hunting dogs_are |paulin {s spread between the mighty i ) /) ) there upon the skin. Of course, this causes excruciating pain, but, in the mind of the Indian, it results in a hunting charm of exceptional po- tency, for the worse the pain of a beena the more powerful it Is. The Indian will endure any pain for the purpose of a beena, although he can- not withstand the pain of an fnjury or the sufferings caused by disesse with the stoicism of the North Amerl- can Indian. . Eventually the sublimity of the scenery is forgotten, monotonous and tedious becomes the trip, as day after day and night after night the tar- forest trees and, watching the gleam- glant fireflles; one falls asleep in I . g Performed by Native Guides on Journey. “AT BLACK. YAWNING WHIRL- POOLS WHERE, FOR MINUT) AT A TIME, THE BOAT STANDS MOTIONLESS AND LIFE HANGS IN THE BALANCE." his hammock, oblivious to the hoarse | croak of trogs, the cail of night birdk, the strident shrilling of insects or the distant scream of jaguar. Yet it is only by such trips, by weeks of slow, creeping progress up the mighty rivers, by tramps tarough many miles of jungle, tha: we can reach the haunts of Guiana's redman —the strange aborigines who dwell In the depths of the “bush” and who, each year, move farther and farthcr into the unknown, who are still as primitive as before Europcans first set foot upon American so 1 At last, after endless paldling, of hauling through falls and of portaging cataracts, the prow of our hoat was run against the bank nd the end of our upriver journey was reached. Now was to come the most important por- tion of the trip, for 1 was dependent upon the limited knowledge of my In- dlan informant, and very vague, in- deed, it was, as he had never been in the vicinity and admitted that all he knew of the village was information imparted to him by other Indians. Scarcely had we stepped ashore, however, before we found evidences of Indlans; a rotting woodskin, or canoe, rested, half-buried, in the mud of the creek; charred sticks told of camp fires, a discarded “surlana” or pack basket lay in the underbrush and presently, one of my bucks called out-that he had located a trail. We shouldered our loads, and, in Indian file, plung=d into the forest. Only the trained eye of an Indian could have foilowed that trail. Even 50, time and time again my Indians were obliged to halt and search about un- til the all but invisible signs of a pathway were again discovered. And vet it was a trail beyond a doubt and traveled recently, for the dead leaves and moss were pressed to- gether In a winding narrow path and where it crossed the muddy beds of forest streams the imprints of bare feet could be distingulshed. * o ox ok OON the ground began to rise and we were laboriously climbing the foothills. Before long we were toil- ing with panting breaths up the pre- cipitious mountain side, a mass of rugged loose boulders and sharp stones seemingly without end. But at Iast the summit was gained, and, hav- ing ‘stopped for a moment to regain our breath and cool our sweltering bodies, we again resumed our journey through the semi-twilight of the for- est, At length we passed the remains of a rude thatched shelter. Nearby my Arekuna guide pointed at a flimsy platform in a tree a dozen feet above the ground. He explained that this was a stand where Indians sat with ready bow and arrow, or poisoned blowgun to shoot agoutis. FPresently, through the dense canopy of leaves and the mase of trinks and lianas we saw sunlight. We knew then a clearing was close at hand. The leading buck halted. “You makeum walk first, chiet,” he remarked in low tones; “mabbe Pata- monas no sabby me fren' an’ make for shoot.” I knew that the Aregunas, the tribe of my Indians, and the Patamonas had once been deadly enemies, but 1 a1 not think that such hostility still existed. “You makeum inquired. “Patamon: worthless people, chief,” replied the Arekuna. “Plenty bad men, me likeum Arekuna, no likegm other buckmen. Mabbe see ‘fraid Abraham " I buck come, thinkum Kenaima, make for killum. No killum white man, him all same God. They no Christian chief, all same me." I could not help but lau n. Con- /| sidering that Abraham belicved im- plicitly In good and evil spirits, in the “water mama,” in the weirl ha!f- mystical, half supernaturcal pcwer of the Pcaiman and that he never started on a voyage, hunt or other undertak- ing without first resorting to a “beena” or charm to insure success. his reference to his own “Christian- ity” and his evident contemp: for Pa- tamora paganism was grotesque. That 1 myself was safe 1 fully be- lHeved, and I greatly doubted that tnere would be danger to the India who were with me. I was convir that the Arekuna had merely dis- Ring O the editor: Well thought I would write up a article this wk. in regards to some of my golf matches in Florida but so far the lease said about same the better o will use up this space with a brief acct. of the Pinel- las county fair which I and some of | my friends tended in a town called | Largo, Florida. Largo is on the R. R. between Belleair and St. Petersburg but the engineer is libel to run past it most any day if he dont keep his eyes pealed. Well the day we went to the fair was the last day of the fair and it was a Saturday P. M. and everybody said of course that would be the big day of the fair but tre size of the crowd looked to me like most of the people in Florida must be great home lovers and the most of those that did turn out for this great occasion was not spending nothing only Saturday P. M. and I will assure my readers at this junction thdt they need not have no fear of me deserting the litery field to finance county fairs in the sunny south. No doubt a great many more people would not of stayed home had they {of realized what the fair had to offer n the way of attractions like for inst. they was a tent where they had a 4 legged rooster and a 5 legged cow to say nothing about a couple sheep that was born and brought up with there heads faceing backwards. I don't know what the rooster and cow done with there extra legs but it must be a great convenience to a sheep to al- ways be able to tell without looking around whether or not they’s a mo- torcycle“cop chaseing them. Then they was a woman who had educated a mule and the man outside the tent sald that a mule was the hardest of all domestical animiles to educate as it was so stubborn and NOTHING, ONLY SATURDAY contemptible. But this mule was so educated that when the woman asked him a question he would nod his head yves or shake his head no which is a long step forwards toward a lu- tion of the mule problem though it will probly be a good many yrs. be- fore enough mules is educated so as we can get a clear idear as to what they are after. * % ¥ X OF the big shows started at once and we only had time for 1 of them and the most of us picked out the minstrels which the man said was the biggest organization of its kind under canvas and sure enough when the curtain went up they was no less than 6 people on the stage. The show started with a opening chorus and then the interlocutor spoke to 1 of the end men. “Mr. Williams, you feeling today “Well, sir,” says Mr. Williams, “1 feels just like a watermelon that has fell off the back of a wagon. “How is that, Mr. Williams the interlocutor. “All busted up,” says Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams then went Into a song and then the interlocutor turned to the other end man. “Mr. Owens,” he says, “how are you feeling today? “Well, sir,” says Mr. Owens, “I feels just like a electric light.” “How is that?” says the interlocutor. he says, “how are says friends 1| played the Instinctive caution of the |aborigine when approaching a strang place or the home her tribe. We stepped from the forest into the brilliant sunshine of an extensive clearing. Instantly T knew that my journey had not been in vain. Be- fore me were half a dozen large be- nabs or huts and, standing about, resting in their hammocks and ing curiously toward us, were In- dians by the score—men, women and | children—naked save for the laps or loin cloths of the men and the tiny bead aprons of queyus of the women. Their limbs were wrapped with bands of beads, strings of teeth hung about | their necks their bronzc | were wonderfully ainted T | found my “wia* f anof and skins haa Iudians at last! Lardner Visits Pinellas County Fair “Red hot and Mr. Owens, 111 burnin * % % % T this point I got 1 of my cough- ing spells and left the theater so as to not spoil the show for other folks, and the next tent 1 visited was Madame Turluly, a fortune tell “MR. WILLIAMS THEN INTO A SONG.” which it said on a sign outside that she could even tell you your name. Madame was washing her hair but she quit when I come in and took my hand in hers which was still dripping with shampoo soap and she says I would do & lot of traveling this yr. mostly on water. This was certainly hitting the nail on the hammer as It was only a month ago that I signed a agreement to stay on water for 1 yr. from date. Then she says I would live to be 78 yrs. old but from 65 yrs. WENT LOVERS, AS THOSE THAT DID TURN OUT WAS SPENDI PM.” h I would be kind of could mnot tell if it would be matism or stomach | trouble. she s that when I was not with my equals I generally always felt uncomfortable, and I sup- pose that is why my ft. bothers me when I play golf. They was a gal in our party that also got her fortune told and Madame t0ld her she was going to have a spell of sickness and not 10 minutes after- wards this gal took a ride on the ferris wheel and the prophecy come true. “inely we all gathered around the keno game where the prizes was all aluminum wear and 1 of our party | was Geo. Ade of Brook. I B | cards was 10 cents a piece and Geo, spent pretty close to $5.00 before he got keno but somebody else got it at the same time and in a case like that the management reserves the right to pick out the prizes they will give you and they give Geo. a soup strainer. “Just what I needed,” says Geo. as he stood to 1 side to recelve congratu- atio: We bhad now been in the fair ground upwards of a hr. and a 1-2 which it seemed fully that long and all agreed that it was time to go home and write down in our dairy all that we had seen and done at the Pinellas county fair, | sick which she rhe 1 r RING W. LARDNER. Florida, Feb. 16,