“Such is the river, such is its history” - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 192

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“Such is the river, such is its history”
“The great river, notwithstanding its overriding monotony, evokes all manner of marvel,
and equally inspires the innocent chronicler, the romantic adventurer, or the informed
scholar.” 1 Certainly what da Cunha understood better than most of the scientists and sci-
entific tourists of the age was how the impact of centuries of mythmaking, speculative
maps, and preconceptions had formed a scrim through which people viewed “their”
Amazon. Thus alpine geomorphologist and creationist Louis Agassiz saw massive glaci-
ation and divine creation producing the physical structure and biotic diversity of Amazo-
nia.Butotherresearchers suchasFrederickHarttpromotedaccurate theoriesthatseemed
equally as fantastic at the time, such as the tectonic rise of the Andes changing an ocean
trench into the vast “Rio-Mar,” the River-Sea of the Amazon. The Amazon was not yet
the venue of intense debates over its social and biotic history that it would later become:
it was still mostly a place of simple compendium and naive observation, but people had
begun to theorize about it.
Once scheduled steam travel began, the Amazon channel from Belém to Tefé was de-
scribed by countless travelers, but the Purús, one of its lengthiest tributaries, remained a
cipher,dueinparttotheaggrievednativegroupsatitsmouth,and,asdaCunhawouldput
it, there were “events that perhaps lacked a historian.” The Juruá and Purús Rivers me-
anderedthroughavastplainlargelyunknowntoformalsurveyandscienceeventhoughit
was generating immense riches, so it was in a vulgar sense “without history.” There was
quiteabitafragmentaryinformationaboutit,anditwouldultimatelybecomedaCunha's
task to organize “news from nowhere” into a coherent story. Most travelers to Amazonia
focused on “prodigious nature,” the grandeur and exotic differences of Amazonia com-
pared to their northern ecologies. Euclides was not so taken by the imaginaries and trop-
ical wonders of Amazonia described by the throngs of European and American writers
who so shaped how the place was viewed. After all, he was himself a man of the tropics;
tropical landscapes weren't so alien to him. Da Cunha's artistic, scientific, and political
purpose was to focus on the place for “creole” nation building.
Intheshortessay“GeneralObservations”in Àmargemdahistória ,daCunhadescribes
the dynamic geomorphology of the Purús and the Amazon more generally. This section
wasprobablymeanttofunctionforhis“LostParadise”intheway“TheLand”framedthe
deepstructure of Os Sertões ,whichbeginswithadetailed account ofthegeologic history
of the Northeast. This supplied the metaphors and images for the people and society that
emerged there. This Amazon essay was probably meant to be the geological “substrate”