Fish Bite Poultice With
Tobacco
The attitude of the group was casual. I suggested that Rivaldi bind a
handkerchief around the finger while I ran to the car for my first-aid kit. But
before I could do so, one of the fishermen took a large pinch of smoking tobacco
from a battered leather ouch, moistened it in the lagoon, molded it into a wad,
and pushed it into the open wound. Then the finger, wad and all, was wrapped
securely in a bit of dirty rag. A few minutes later the man was back at work
with his fellows. The wound would heal rapidly, I was assured, the tobacco
acting as both an astringent and a disinfectant. In Asunción I met missionaries
Marvin Cole and Roy Christopher, who ran a school in a village of Maka Indians
on the west bank of the Rio Paraguay. The name National Geographic was
especially meaningful to these missionaries; during long months of breaking
through linguistically to the Maka they had used back issues of the magazine to
associate words with familiar objects in the photographs. The pictures had
fascinated the Indians, and gradually they had been persuaded to reveal
essential aspects of their difficult language. My acquaintance with the
missionaries led to a series of visits to the riverside Maka village. Aware of
my interest in piranhas, the villagers invited me to join them on a fishing trip
to a lake about two miles inland from their settlement. The lake turned out to
be a soupy dry-season lagoon, scummed with algae and choked around the edges
with marsh weeds. Under the scum were said to swim catfish, eels, rays?and
piranhas. My Indian friends, wearing old trousers or shorts or the briefest of
loincloths, splashed into the thigh-deep water. Their mood was carefree, almost
jocular. Forming a loose line across the lagoon, some 25 men waded forward,
driving the aquatic population ahead for concentration at the far end. Each
Indian carried his own net –two poles about seven feet long connected by a
length of mesh. The trick was to plunge the net, spread open, into the water
wherever fish might be, then to slap the poles together, creating a trap (pages
728-9).
Stingray More Feared Than the Piranha
Potamytrygon sp. Photo courtesy of Jim Smith
That morning several Indians had shown me scars on their legs –mementos of
earlier fishing forays. The scars were of three sorts: a vaguely discernible arc
on the skin, an irregular blotch, or a network of localized marks and lines. The
arc-shaped scar derived from a piranha bite that had cut but nor removed the
skin, allowing the patch to be fitted back into place for healing. The irregular
blotch resulted from the clean removal of skin and flesh, as in the case of the
fisherman mentioned earlier. And the network of marks and lines was the work of
a stingray’s spine, with its attendant severe pain, infection, and slow
healing. In fact, native fishermen told me that they fear the stingray far more
than the piranha –more than snakes or caimans –for it wields its saw-toothed
spine with great force and leaves a jagged wound. To avoid stingrays, which
occur throughout South America’s piranha area, the wading fisherman shuffles
rather treads through the water, on the more or less tested premise that a ray
will not strike unless actually stepped upon. Matching the Indian’s slow
forward pace, I moved along the bank. Finally a signal from the leader touched
off a general outcry. With whacks and slaps, nets hit the water and in one swift
motion were dipped, closed and hoisted, flapping with fish. Most the haul were
catfish and large-headed Hoplias, but here and there I could spot
nattereri. I watched the Indian nearest me. Cautiously he grabbed one just
behind the gills –as Rivaldi had done –then quickly raised it to his mouth
and bit fiercely down into the back of the head, instantly killing it. From time
to time I could hear other such crunching from along the line. Within an hour
each man was trailing a string of 50 to 100 assorted fish. During the entire
operation no one was bitten by a piranha or stabbed by a stingray. Apparently
luck rode with the Indians that day. On shore now there was new activity as men
collected firewood and others trimmed wooden skewers with wicked-looking
machetes. Soon half a dozen fires were blazing; around them the skewers were
stuck in the ground and tilted toward the flames, each impaling fresh fish that
nobody had bothered to behead (pages 728-9).So far in my travels I had not
tasted piranha. I tapped the shoulder of an ancient cheek-tattooed Maka who
tended one of the fires. “Wanaj,” I said, using the Maka word for piranha,
and pointed to one browning and crackling on a skewer. The aroma was
tantalizing. Tough old hands pulled the fish from the stick and handed it to me.
All I could do was toss it from hand to hand, blowing on it until it was cool
enough for me to take a bite. Imitating my friends, I sank my teeth into the
dorsal flesh. To be sure, there were bones and scales to be wary of, but the
meat had the texture of broiled bass and tasted just as good. Two or three of
these eight-inch fish made an excellent meal. That afternoon in the village I
noticed a bead-laden matriarch dissecting the lower jaw from the remains of a
piranha. Next around her neck on a long loop of yarn was the toothed jawbone,
which she used in place of scissors, neatly and swiftly cutting thread ends as
she went along.
