The sport, or, more properly speaking, the trade, of harpooning this river cetacean, is followed by most of the Amazonian Indians. There is not much of it done during the season of the floods. Then the animals, becoming dispersed over a large surface of inundated forest, are seen only on rare occasions; and a chase specially directed to discover them would not repay the trouble and loss of time. It is when the floods have fallen to their lowest, and the lagoas or permanent ponds of water have contracted to their ordinary limits, that the harpooning of the fish-cow becomes profitable. Then it is followed as a regular pursuit, and occupies the Indian for several weeks in the year.
Sometimes a lagoon is discovered in which many of these creatures have congregated, their retreat to the main river having been cut off by the falling of the floods. On such occasions the tribe making the discovery reaps a plentiful harvest, and butchering becomes the order of the day.
The malocca, or village, is for the time deserted; all hands men, women, children, and curs moving off to the lagoa, and making their encampment upon its edge. They bring with them boiling-pots, for trying out the oil, and jars to contain it, and carry it to the port of commerce; for, being of a superior quality, it tempts the Portuguese trader to make long voyages up many remote tributaries where it is obtained.
During these grand fisheries there is much feasting and rejoicing. The jerked flesh of the animal, its skin, and, above all, its valuable oil, are exchanged for knives, pigments, trinkets, and, worse still, for cashaca (rum). The last is too freely indulged in; and the fishing rarely comes to a close without weapons being used in a manner to bring wounds, and often death.
As the old Mundurucú had been present at many a hunt of the fish-cow, he was able to give a graphic account of the scenes he had witnessed, to which his companions on the log listened with the greatest attention. So interested were they, that it was not till near midnight that they thought of retiring to rest.
Chapter Seventy One A Sail of Skin
You may wonder how they were able to move it at all; supposing, as you must, that they were unprovided with either oars or sails. But they were not so badly off as that. The whole of the preceding day had not been spent in curing the fish-cow. Mundays knife had done other service during the afternoon hours, and a pair of paddles had been the result. Though of a rude kind, they were perfect enough for the purpose required of them; while at the same time they gave evidence of great ingenuity on the part of the contriver. They had handles of wood, with blades of bone , made from the fish-cows shoulder-blades, which Munday had carefully retained with the skin, while allowing the offal to sink. In his own tribe, and elsewhere on the Amazon, he had seen these bones employed and had himself employed them as a substitute for the spade. Many a cacao patch and field of mandioca had Munday cleared with the shoulder-blade of a fish-cow; and upon odd occasions he had used one for a paddle. It needed only to shaft them; and this had been done by splicing a pole to each with the tough sipos.
Provided
it on. The breeze had died away, and there was now a dead calm. The shoulder-blades of the peixe-boi were now resorted to, but neither these, nor the best pair of oars that ever pulled a man-o-wars boat, could have propelled that tree-trunk through the water faster than half a knot to the hour, and the improvised paddles were soon laid aside.
There was one comfort in the delay. The hour of dinner had now arrived, and the crew were not unprepared for the midday meal; for in their hurry at setting out, and the solicitude arising from their uncertainty about their craft, they had breakfasted scantily. Their dinner was to consist of but one dish, a cross between fish and flesh, a cross between fresh and dried, for the peixe-boi was still but half converted into charqui.
The Indian had carefully guarded the fire, the kindling of which had cost him so much trouble and ingenuity. A few sparks still smouldered where they had been nursed; and, with some decayed pieces of the ceiba itself, a big blaze was once more established. Over this the choicest tit-bits were suspended until their browned surface proclaimed them done to a turn. Their keen appetites furnished both sauce and seasoning; and when the meal was over, all were ready to declare that they had never dined more sumptuously in their lives. Hunger is the best appetiser; scarcity comes next.
They sat after dinner conversing upon different themes, and doing the best they could to while away the time, the only thing that at all discommoded them being the beams of the sun, which fell upon their crowns like sparks of fire showered from a burning sky. Toms idea was that the heat of the sun could be endured with greater ease in the water than upon the log; and, to satisfy himself, he once more girdled on the cincture of shells, and slipped over the side. His example was followed by the patron himself, his son and nephew.