“Events that perhaps lacked a historian” - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 331

Theyquietlypreparedthemselvesforthebusinessathandandserenelyenteredtheforest.Wedon't
know the details of their feats, which were certainly exceptionally dramatic. The Cashibo Indians
have incarnated intheir veryname thelegend oftheir ferocity: cashi ,bat; bo ,similar to.Figuratively:
the drinkers of blood. Even in their rare moments of joviality these natives are frightening, because
when they laugh one glimpses their teeth tinted black with the juice of the peach palm, or face down
on the ground with their mouths near the earth, they ululate the slow notes of a savage refrain. They
passedthroughthreehundredyearsofattempted catechism, indifferenttoeverybrutality,andarestill
thefiercest tribeontheUcayali. Buttheydidnotseemtoimpede thevigorofthenewpioneers.What
faced the bloodthirsty savage, crushing him, was an even more fearful adversary: the jagunço .
Those recent arrivals were Brazilians from the north; their patron, their master, Pedro C. de Oli-
veira, was yet another of those unknown fighters who emerge in the fecund initiatives rounding out
the events of extraordinary history. To appreciate his worth, it is enough to note in passing that in
1900, in spite of his ethnicity, he was named governor of the entire territory of which his trading post
was the center.
Figure 2.3. Cashibo Indian, “drinker of blood.”
Colonel Pedro Portillo, 42 who received there the warm hospitality so characteristic of our humbler
people, so lacking in the ostentatious pomp and false generosity of many others, carried this enchant-
ment throughout his report from his first day to his farewell to the “estimable familia del señor Oli-
veira.” He described the delight he took in the vibrant settlement surrounded by a bountiful agricul-
ture, its dwellings intelligently spread along the top of the riverbank, which one arrived at by a sturdy
stairwayfromtheriver.Hewasespeciallycaptivatedbythecalm sertanejos ,whowereunassumingin
the face of their complete triumph over wild land and savage. Finally, his clear vision could not help
but note that that these outsiders, with neither decree nor subsidy, had solved the problem that had
vexed his own government, founding in the most suitable place a station that guaranteed dominion of
theCentralRouteofAmazonia.Hewasfrankaboutit:PuertoVictoriawastheplacemostappropriate
foramilitarygarrisonandacustomspostthatwouldadministertheimportsandexportsofthecolony
ofChanchamayo,thenorthernPajonal,Tarma,andtheforestsofPalcazu,Matro,andPozuzu.Andhe
concluded:
the house of the Oliveiras should be taken by the supreme government as the obvious site for the
administrative offices of the captaincy, customs, and the military.