I watched an old man paddle his dugout to the bank and climb out with arthritic care. There was a handmade cast net in the bow of the boat, so I asked, “How was the fishing today?”
He shrugged. “Upriver, I took a few cara-chama, and an acar. ” He lifted the lid off a woven basket to show me the fish: One was long with a bony armor plating, the other two were a peculiar gray with large heads. “Downriver, though, it is dead. Even the paranamirims have been poisoned. There is nothing alive in the water there. A few turtles, perhaps. I’ve been told that a man must paddle several days, all the way to the big water before the river shows life again.”
I asked, “Poisoned by what?”
He made a open-palmed gesture. “When I was a boy, we’d mash the roots of liana or a bush called timbo, and pour the milk in places of still water. All the fish would soon come to the surface, unable to breathe. Perhaps someone has found all the timbo bushes in the world and boiled them.” I helped him pull his canoe onto the bank as he asked, “Do you know something of fish?”
I said, “They are an interest of mine.”
“Then you will find this unusual. Because the lower section of river has died, we’re are now seeing for the first time many botos searching here for food. This far upriver, it is unusual. Our younger men have been hunting them with harpoons.”
I said, “Botos?”
Keesha was eating her bread, listening. “They are hunting botos?” she sputtured. “Are they crazy? That will bring the worst kind of luck to you and all your people!”
The man ignored her, and wagged his finger at me. “Come. If you are a student of fish, I will show you.”
27
The men of Remate de Males were hunting, harpooning, and butchering freshwater dolphins.
In a little circle created by bamboo huts, five Amazonian dolphins had been hung on a crossbeam wedged between two trees. Even after death, the animals were pink in color, bright as flamingos. They were hanging nose-down, tied by their tails. Gravity had engorged their heads with blood, so their small eyes bulged.
As children and women stood watching from the shade, three young men in ragged shorts took turns with a long, curved knife, gutting the animals and carrying the viscera off in buckets. They worked within a glittering ballroom of flies.
To the old man, I said, “This is a tragedy.”
Misunderstanding my meaning, the old man answered, “Yes. It is not a good thing. Only the man on the hill has ice. The flesh of these botos will soon rot, yet the women stand here, doing nothing! They should be constructing bamboo flats for salting. And a good fire for smoking the meat. But these young women, their brains have gone soft. They think only of owning a television set and living in the city.”
Keesha glared at him but said nothing.
I asked permission of the three hunters before walking to the animals to get a closer look.
Supposedly, of the five freshwater species of dolphins in the world, the pink Amazon River dolphin, Inia geoffrensis, is the most intelligent. I say “supposedly” because the bottle-nosed dolphin has been so consistently imbued with compassionate, human qualities-even by biologists who should know better-that, these days, I doubt much of what I read about them.
But research on these rare, freshwater dolphins predated an unfortunate transition, for some, from science to wistful mysticism. Even early researchers described them as sensitive, intuitive mammals with a measurable brain capacity 40 percent larger than that of humans. At that time, they were considered to be one of the least threatened species of dolphins, though even then their numbers were small.
If desperate men were now hunting them for food, I doubted if the future of the species was still as certain.
I remembered reading that, because Amazon River dolphins had no known natural predators, they didn’t need to live in large groups, or pods, for protection. As a result, they were solitary swimmers, though occasionally seen in small family groups of five or six.
These village hunters had managed to kill three females, a young male, and a very large, mature male that looked to be just over nine feet long and had to weigh at least two hundred pounds. There was no mistaking the sex. Death had freed the muscles that held their genitalia within their abdomens.
I touched my finger to the harpoon hole in back of the large male, then moved around the animal, noting the physiological differences between this freshwater animal and the dolphin I saw so often back on Sanibel Island.
He had a very long beak that was lined with tiny hairs, and small, almost piggish eyes-in water so murky, sight would not be so important. He had disproportionately large flippers, and a hump on his back instead of a fin. The pink color, I suspected, had something to do with the iron oxide color of the river.
To the hunters, I said, “Did you take them near here?”
“Yes! Very close. Only a few kilometers away.”
“I’ve heard they are very intelligent. I’m surprised they let you get close enough to harpoon them.”
One of the men stepped forward, very proud of himself. “Sir, you are correct in saying that they are the smartest of fish. But they are not so smart as man. I discovered a way!
“We found one of the botos in a narrow river, and used a net so that she could not escape. Are you familiar with the strange noise these animals make when they are hurt? We kept her wrapped in the net while she made these sounds. Soon, other botos appeared. Perhaps to rescue this female. It was easy, then, to use our harpoons.” Laughing, he added, “Though it was not so easy to stay in our boats as they pulled us all over the river!”
Everyone in the circle of huts thought that was hilarious.
I opened the belly of one of the females, using my hands to part the stomach panels as if opening a thin curtain. She had net burns on her delicate skin-this was the female who’d called for help.
They’d emptied everything out of her, but for one small oversight. There was a partially developed pup in her womb. I left the dead infant where it was, then knelt, and searched through the viscera. “Was there anything in their bellies?”
“One small catfish, nothing else. They were very hungry.” The young hunter laughed and added, “Like our families. But not now. Tonight, we will have a feast!”
Keesha told me, “Do you believe me now? This is an evil place.”
We were walking through the village, up a mud road. Among the huts, naked children played in banana thickets while scrawny dogs lay in pools of sunlight, cleaning themselves. We’d been told that a man who lived on the outskirts of the village was very rich and might have a cell phone we could use, so we were searching for him.
To Keesha, I said, “I don’t know about evil, but it certainly isn’t very attractive.”
“No!” she said. “Evil! The botos, the pink ladies-they are sacred animals. How can you have lived and not know about them? At night, they grow hair and walk away from the Tefe River. They have magical powers-they’re witches. They will punish this village. They’ll destroy it. We must leave very soon!”
She was very agitated. Killing human beings didn’t seem to bother her nearly so much. I told her, “I don’t see much worth destroying. But, yeah, I’m with you. The sooner we get away from here, the better.”
The wealthiest man in the village was a middle-aged Irishman with blood-bleary eyes who wore Birkenstock sandals, hiking shorts, a native shirt made of colorful patches, and a black beret over his long gray hair, which he wore tied in a ponytail.
Unlike the other shacks in the village, his house was made of unpainted concrete block and shingle, with a muddy yard protected by an out-of-place white picket fence. Parked out front, half in the road, was a new Toyota 4-Lux, a shortbed pickup truck papered with bumper stickers: Vegetarians Are Delicious!