Description
After travelling in
Amazonia for almost a year, the Oxford and
Cambridge Expedition to South America
reached the jungle outpost ofOrlando Villas
Boas, the “Livings tone of Brazil”. There
Adrian Cowell was invited to join an expedi-
tion into the unexplored region of Xingu,
where Indian tribes are still fighting to pre-
serve their independence and where Colonel
Fawcett disappeared when looking for the
lost civilization of Atlantis. Over the last
fifteen years Villas Boas has been slowly
penetrating into the area and now half the
tribes are pacified (though even today they
fight gold-seeking pioneers): the other half
still kill all strangers-whether civilized or
Indian-at sight.
The book describes the author’s long
journey with Boas and a dozen Indians, and
how they eventually reached the “Everest of
Amazonia”, the previously inaccessible
Geographical Centre of Brazil. The diffi-
culties may be imagined. Epidemics were
sweeping through the friendly tribes; two
adventurers had found a way in and had
been killed before the expedition could
reach them; and the primitive Txukahamae
were not only attacking pioneers on the
fringe of the jungle, but were divided by civil
war themselves.
The author’s main theme, however, is
Villas Boas’s struggle to preserve the tribes
from extinction. Four hundred years ago
Indians had started fleeing from the con-
quistadors into this region of Xingu, until
“the Heart of the Forest” became their last
stronghold against the onslaught of civiliza-
tion. ow the jungle is about to be con-
quered, and their very existence is in
question. As long as the tribes areunpacified
they suffer from warfare and ambush: and
once they accept peace they die just as
quickly of disease and the other evils of
civilization. Villas Boas, in an attempt to
help them, has endeavoured to penetrate,
through custom and folklore, into the depth
of these Indian minds; and the author’s own
investigations, in this regard, range from the
great celebration of Quarup-the tribal
Feast of the Dead-to the use of oral contra-
ceptives by the earth-eating Txukahamae.
The variety of interest is remarkable.
There is fascinating material about the
Indian lore of hunting and fishing, with
glowing pictures of the teeming life of
jungles and rivers: there are brilliant
descriptions-of the sacred Lake lpavu, for
instance: and, as for characters, we meet not
only the fabulous Villas Boas brothers them-
selves, but also such Indians as Kaluana,
Cowell’s Aweti hunting mentor, with his
own particular vision of the jungle; Taku-
man, the Kamayura chief who taught him to
fish Indian-fashion; Tarnuan, the little
Trumai boy who was at one time so civili-
zado that he played parachutes and looked
at books-until his initiation changed him;
and many more.
Adventures abound-from the tracking
down of savage tribes to Cowell’s hair-
raising encounter with the panther; from
the sudden and dangerous ill-temper of his
Txukahamae friend, Rauni, when they were
alone in the jungle to the perilous shooting
of the Von Martius rapids; etcetera.
But what the reader will perhaps remem-
ber longest is the devotion of Claudio
Villas Boas to the Kayabi tribesmen struck
down by an epidemic of influenza.
*
The book is illustrated with a frontis-
piece in colour and forty-seven photo-
graphs.
London; Gollancz; 1960. Hardcover. Dust Jacket Included. 1st Edition.; 256pp; Colour frontis and numerous other illustrations from photos in BW. In very good to very good++ condition with some wear to DW. Through to innermost Brazil with Adrian Cowell after his year with the Oxford and Cambridge Expedition. A very special book deserving of a read!