New Britain Herald Newspaper, March 13, 1925, Page 28

,l’)s :a'r Q“ \7 4 F 5 Qlothr among NE\'ER until now had white men penetrated the fastnesses of that part of the Brazilian isnt very po jungles where the flerce Pirahas and the even more terrible Parintintin tribes of savage Indians roam. Never until now— For there has just coms back to civilization & bardy group of men, who risked thelr lives to gather rare bird specles for the zoologlcal gardens of Philadelphia, Heading this expeditio of Philadelphla, was Joseph McGoldrick In the party were also Alec Besso, who served as guide and interpret Coudert of Newark, N, Baron Rodolph de Sch of Doubt” since Theodore Rooseveit stumbled on it d his laat trip to Sout can jungles. It has been called, from its source to t e point where it flows into the Amazon, River Roosevelt, and on its bank there has been erected a m 1e dead president’s m: ROOSEVELT'S DISCOVERY t and his party, ging e, came to a clearing at the General Ronc ana. So they calic he “R ver of Doubt.” Now it § s the main stream and the Aripuana merely the branch. Alec Bouth Corfu, G Besso, the guid e party, has lived in America for 18 years. He was eece, but Teft his native c for South A 3 typical a He i mr 80 gat when he is Adve s life, Wits ) to South going back America TELLS OF ADVENTURES was he who told of the m ts made b » form & roof or ma. They have no r : pular- even ladies of the tribe Markey Bawon Rodolphe Meye _ de Schauensee, Philadelphia, with a'Trumpeter” bird, caught in the Amazon Valley Ao ed to marry a member A Moutun women must wed versa. This i, the orde is done to “In of our e e Vi YERo-DOUBT 4cawv F placed on theRiver about without aim. in this way the the two tri times t of Doubt" now Tiver Roosevel RI ROOSEVELT They shout a good ¢ they Parin to frighten off tt intins, the more intelliger s worship the moon. will gather in a circle and give thanks ovide fish and game, strongh n their effort to af 20 n es in No Man's L: Na RELY ON GAME, FISH We had s we went animal killed one Tigers roam I ques the PIRAHAS HAIRY has are hairy t ins are airless, except o top of their uld wateh us e and would try th sand miles. It required 40 days for the ad- rers to get there, P up the River of Doubt , I8 described in a Goldrick now the Roose- nt by Joseph Me- ad of the expedition, to a friend in I'hiladelphia. “Our plan was enthusiastically recefved by the Manaos Geographical and Historical Society,” he wrote, “and they assisted us in every possible manner. We were invited to deposit the wreath (which to be placed at the Roosevelt marker n the River of Doubt) at their assembly hall until s day, and they held a solemn celebration BATTLED CURRENTS uight of May 17 we were accorded a ous send-off on board the steamship Hilario, nd for the River Madelra and the River Arj 1ana as far as Prainha. From there we battled A canoe against tremendous currents, hich were almost impossible tp break ngth combined. In man dles had c laid aside and we had to pull ours th the aid of Ives along 1z poles hooked ir two of the worst spots the Here apids were like agara Falls, ven our hooked pules were ineffective and we had to break our way th rough the dense foi t further arrying a stout ropy which we ir empty canoe after u g accommodations were a joke, When und an abandoned hut about dusk we 1p our hammoceks for a hard-earned rest, ght b This would have be One 1 not finding an ed fn the yable had it not the m: the possibility of a 'm some ferocious beast and a thundering orm about 2 . m., aga A our rain re no protection. SIGHT RIVER lay we sat for 1 sun, intermingled with tropical downpours hased away fever germs with liberal inine. We were a happy bunth indeed, vhen, according to our charts obtained at Manaos, the next turn to the right was the river we were looking for, and we had accomplished what no other Americans had attempted since Roosevelt's expedition. A litt we had who had a way up the river we found the house n told about, owned by Jose Caripe, mpanfed the Roosevelt party from e of the river up to the point on the a, where tle Brazilian cruiser was waiting take them to Manaos, veral days up the river on his Alec Besso estates, 5o we were graciously recelved by his wite, Dona Cardide Martens, who set a meal before us that even a king would envy. The most surpris- ing thing was to find such hospitality so.far from civilization. Dona Cardide did everything that was humanly possible to make us comfortable, and, as we unfolded our plan, her wrinkled mouth smiled happily and her eyes glowed like two black dla- monds. She at once set out to pick wild cotton blossoms, and soon had a wreath made of them to place next to ours. SOUND TAPS ! “The following day she and all her help ac- companied us to the mouth of the river; where the 6take hearing a tablet reading ‘Rio Roosevelt’ had been placed 10 years before by General Rondon, “Our little ceremony was very impressive to us, and ended with our boy blowing ‘taps’ on a very old and battered bugle, “We listened to Dona Cardide’s stories of the Roosevelt expedition, full of praise of Roosevelt for making such & trip at his age, and her com- ment on what & wonderful shot he was and his telling her he was getting old and probably would never be yp that way again.” Those Americans of the United States who think the sun rises and sets in Chicago, San Francisco or New York, who helleve that life® outside of our little world would be an unhappy, Tutile one, would do well to hear Alec Besso compare life in the two Amerlcas—North and South. Down there one lives, he says. Up here one merely exists. Down there life is free and normal with no restrictions beyond those demanded of ordinary conventions. Up here there are laws against actually governing personal conduct, even when such conduct doesn't Interfere with the happiness of others. “In Rio, where I live,” he says, “I feel at home, Up here in New York I'm {ll at ease, Even with all this"—and he motioned as if to include the immense Hotel Pennsylvania, where he stopped— “I can't seem to get my bearings, You folk lead artificial lives. It 8 not natural.” IS NOT MARRIED Give Besso a rifie and let him roam the southern jungles with poisonous snakes, man-killing ant- eaters and ether viclous animals against which to pit his wits, and he is happy. Besso isn't married. He muses that probably no woman would want to share such a life. So he has asked none to. Besso brought back with him many bows and errows of the kind used by the natives of the wild tribes of South America. They are long af- fairs, many of the bows extending over seven feet in length. The arrows are also long with sharp points, grooved to enter the skin of their victims more easily. They have jagged tips, so that once they go in they do not come out without an effort. He brought back some metal-tipped arrows. But these are not the actually manufactured product of the natives. They do not go in for much work down there. e is one Jong hunting expedition. They have no rents to pay; no landlords; no first or second mortgages to_werry about. They build their houses ‘where they happen to be and if a heavy wind eomes along and carries the house into the Land of Nod, they do not sit around and mourn over their loss, Luild another. Of course, Besso doesn'’t live that sort of a life, They wimply He dwells in the modern city of Rio, as thoroughly modern as any city of which the United States can boast. People are more friendly down in Rio, e says. They don't glare at you as you pass on the street, scemingly afraid you ere going to do them violence. s0 has @ unique philosophy of life. Death holds no terrors for him. But he laughs at any attempt to place such a viewpoint on the basis of personul or phy I bravery. He has »se to death so many times that it merely doesn't exist in his mind. “What is death?” dventure? Leen so ¢ he asks. “Isn’t it just another And if it is, why worry about it? Too many people fear the unknown.” And for such people he recommends a trip Into e jungles. theyll If they ever come out—he concludes be cured. T Origin Mystery HERE did the Pirahas and the W Parintintins, the two most savege tribes in the South American jungles, originate? Where did they come from and how long have they been there? These questions are natural ones now that white men have for the first time penetrated @ thousand miles from the last outpost of civili- zation in Brazil into the dangerous hunting grounds of the savage In- dians. These Indians are not related by blood ties to American Indians, a. we know them in the United States. They are not red in color. They are a deep brown, In some ways many resemble Aslatics, particularly as to their eyes, which are slanting. There s a& story going about in South America of the discovery some years ago of a number of stone tab- lets bearing strange.carvings which come very close in appearance to Hebrew charecters. These are be- lieved to have been there for 2500 years before Christ. SEMETIC FEATURES It was noted by the members of the Philadelphia expedition that members of' the Pirahas have Sem- etlc features, Often at night, when they were sitting about their camp fire, the white men would wonder as to the origin of the Indians, end invariably someons would remark about this. strange feature. “Perhaps they are the long lost tribe of Israel,” one of the men re- marked. One thing is certain: for a band of wild, savage men and women, never before eeen by white men, completely isolated from the civilized world, these savages have a remark- able code of morals and customs. VICES UNKNOWN They hardly know the meaning of the word “vice” in the sense that civilized men know it. They never drink intoxicating liquor. Prostitu- While they have no marriage ceremony, they be- tion is almost unknown. leve and rigidly practice a monog- Polygamy holds no at- traction for them, Are these beliefs an inheritance of a bygone day? There are about 2000 members of the Parintintin The white men saw a few. hundred of them. There are some in the tribe even amous life, tribe. more savage than the others, places where it would not be safe to go. Paddling down a canoe 18 in {tself a hazaglous task. At any moment an arg@w might come one’s way. No poison is used by these savages Their arrows have sharp points and are barbed much like a fish hook. Oncs they go into an animal—or & man—they do not come out easily., The ends of the arrows are widened 50 that even if the shot should not prove fatal fmmediately, the animal or man shot—may soon bleed to death, NOT HEADHUNTERS These savages do not kill for the "sake of obtaining heads of humar The language of these savages is crude. It contgins about 250 words. The varlous tribes do not speals the same tongue. One tribe cannot very And for white men to know how to speak language of whils an accomplishment in well understand another one. the the Parintintins, itself, less when s val it comes to con versing with the Parihas + 1