My Friends the Savages Part 31

The man who prepares it may not eat fish or meat on the day fixed for the important operation and once he has begun it he must remain fasting until he has finished. He is scrupulously attentive not to expose himself to the steam escaping from the bubbling liquid and often (here superst.i.tion comes to the aid of cleanliness and hygiene) has to wash his face and hands. But even all this caution is not sufficient and he is considered as a sick person for some days.

The earthenware pot or bamboo used for the purpose must be new, nothing must have been cooked in it before, and nothing after. Directly the _legop_ has been poured out it is thrown away because contaminated.

The perfect newness of these vessels serves to increase the power of the poison.

A couple of days before the Sakai wishes to prepare the deadly mixture he goes in search of the creeper, which having found he uncovers its roots and to a.s.sure himself that he has not made a mistake, he tries if it has the bitter taste natural to it. Secure upon this point he digs up a nice lot and then fills up his dosser with two sorts of bulbous plants which secrete a glutinous substance but whose name and quality I have never found out. This done he rambles about the forest until he is able to find two kinds of wasps or bees (whichever they are); one is very big and black the sting of which causes a high fever, and which generally has its nest on the ground; the other is little and red, stings like a nettle and has its nest under the leaves of a tree.

If he has in store some teeth of the _sendok_ snake, or of any other equally venomous, he now returns to the village, otherwise he looks for one, kills it and possesses himself of its fangs.

Having thus all the necessary ingredients, the Sakai begins to pound the roots into a paste. This ma.s.s he then puts into a tube stopped up by leaves which lets pa.s.s a liquid but not a substance. Keeping this primitive filter suspended over the receptacle to be used for boiling, he slowly empties some water into it which soaking through the paste becomes of a brown colour before it reaches the vessel beneath.

Terminated the filtering process he takes the two bulbous plants and squeezing them in his hand he sprinkles as much of their juice as he thinks fit, into the same vessel. The serpent's teeth and the bees are then pounded, they too, and cast in with all the rest which is at once placed on a slow fire. When the mixture begins to boil the Sakai skims off the impurities floating on the surface and adds a little more _legop_ if it seems to him necessary, taking great care, meanwhile, not to breath or to be enveloped by the fumes rising from the pot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Root of the poisonous creeper "Legop".

_p._ 212.]

The poison is lifted off the fire as soon as it has got to the consistency of a syrup and is of a dark reddish colour, the darts are dipped into it and its virulence is put to the test without waste of time. If the proof is satisfactory the thick fluid is poured into bamboo receptacles, covered with leaves, and a piece of deer-skin fastened over them with a band of _scudiscio_ and finally the vases are collocated in the driest corner of the hut, from whence from time to time, they are carried near the fire to prevent that their contents should lose force through humidity.

Now the question is this: do the ingredients which the Bretak Sakai believes indispensable in this concoction augment the virulence of the _legop_?

I am inclined to doubt it a great deal as I do not think those two plants containing the glutinous juice are poisonous, or at least very little so, but that they are added merely to give denseness to the mixture or else from a false supposition of the indigenes.

And less still can serpents' teeth or crushed wasps have any influence in increasing the power of this poison, which is in itself intense.

Evidently the Sakais, well aware of the lethal effect of a bite from a serpent, think that by introducing into the wound, by means of their dart, a tiny portion of the organ which determines this effect, an equal result will follow.

He neither knows nor imagines that the tooth exercises a simple mechanical action in consequence of which the little reservoir of poison, being compressed, lets a drop fall into the wound produced by the bite.

But there is nothing to be surprised at in this because in history we learn that the superst.i.tions and sorceries practised by more advanced races than the Sakais offer the most curious doc.u.ments in proof of such odd reasoning.

It is enough to remember that in the time of Augustus the jaw bone of a female dog, which had been kept fasting, and a quill plucked from a screech-owl were required for the enchantments of Canidia, _ossa ab ore rapta jejunae canis, plumanque nocturna strigis_. And yet it was just at that period Rome had inherited from Greece the Philosophy of the Epicureans and that of the Sceptics and was maturing the poem of Lucretius Carus!

And quite recently has it not been narrated by Parson Evans, of Wales, how he had been badly treated by a spirit because he had forgotten a fumigation during one of his enchantments?

If there has been so much imposture or hallucination amongst advanced peoples (or supposed to be such) we cannot reproach the poor Sakai for his ignorance if in all good faith he thinks that a pinch of pounded bees and serpents' teeth increases the virulence of the _legop_ poison.

Does he not also believe that the mysterious words muttered by the _Ala_ give greater force to his murderous preparations?

As to the effects of the _legop_ strange and contradictory versions are given.

Some affirm that the smallest possible quant.i.ty brought into contact with the blood, causes instantaneous death; others declare that it is not sufficiently powerful to kill a man or a beast if the quant.i.ty inoculated is not in proportion to the size or if they are strong enough to resist it.

It is my opinion that both these a.s.sertions are exaggerated.

One day I asked a Sakai if he thought it possible to kill a man with _legop_.

He replied that nearly every day animals of double the bulk and strength of a man were killed in the forest, and that the poison supplied by this creeper speedily fulfils its mission. As a proof of this he related that once he was standing near a Javanese who had been guilty of violating a woman. This man was. .h.i.t by a poisoned dart and died almost immediately.

Without appearing in the least to doubt the fact I begged him to show me the exact spot where the dart entered the poor fellow, and where it came out, and from his indications I could convince myself that the dart having penetrated under the shoulder blade had pa.s.sed through the heart from part to part and had been arrested in its course by the muscles of the thorax.

It was therefore clear to me that death was due to the pa.s.sage of the dart through the victim's body and had nothing to do with the poison in which the missile had been previously steeped. To my knowledge no recognized studies have ever been made to ascertain the true force of _legop_, so one is free to calculate it at its maximum or minimum, especially when its susceptibility to atmospheric changes is considered.

When the weather is dry it carries death on the wing of the arrow, but if it should be wet, or damp, the poison becomes moist and remains on the surface of the wound (where it can be easily rubbed off) instead of penetrating with the dart into the object aimed at.

And this was the disillusion of one who wanted to try its effects on a dog. The poor beast howled with the pain but did not present any symptom of poisoning.

Science alone can p.r.o.nounce accurately upon the toxical qualities of the _legop_ and I am always ready to a.s.sist it with my modest experience.

Wis.h.i.+ng to solve every doubt and also to find out an antidote to this poison I sacrificed many innocent creatures, but I will relate the pitiful end of only two.

I selected a fine fowl full of healthy vigour and taking one of these poisoned darts I made a wound of not more than a half an inch long upon the upper part of its leg.

For a minute after it moved about slowly without even noticing the wound, then it stopped as if overcome by a strange sense of stupor, but soon began to peck the ground.

Two minutes and a half later it opened and shut its beak and let its tail and wings fall limply on the ground. Another half a minute and with its legs bent under, as though sitting, it sought to raise and shake its drooping head. For an-instant it succeeded but the poor member wagged without energy (as happens to us when in travelling we get sleepy but have no place to repose ourselves) whilst its eyes now shut, and now wide open wore an expression of unconsciousness.

About the fourth minute the animal was seized with violent convulsions and at the fifth it was quite dead.

I made the same trial upon a middle-sized dog, wounding this also upon a leg in order not to touch a vital part.

At first it seemed quite insensible to what I had done but after three or four minutes had pa.s.sed it got very inquiet and sniffed the ground and everything that was around as if to find out what was the matter, turning round its head from time to time towards its thigh which it evidently felt was the seat of its uneasiness. It gave a jump, a prolonged shudder and then lay down.

Once it feebly barked but when it made a second attempt it entirely failed. The cry was not one of pain but seemed to be a sound emitted under the impulse of profound bewilderment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Branch and fruit of the poisonous creeper "Legop".

_p._ 212.]

Its head rested for a moment upon its fore-legs but was soon lifted up as the animal rolled over on one side of its body which had the appearance of being paralyzed. Its eyes became fixed, expressionless.

The body s.h.i.+vered and gave little starts but the head remained motionless, lying heavily on the ground, and the eyes in their gla.s.sy stare revealed the absence of all perception of the senses rather than pain or mortal anguish.

At this point I turned my attention to its heart which was beating quickly and violently. It stopped an instant, then continued but very, very weakly whilst the whole body began to take a rigid form.

A quarter of an hour after the inoculation of _legop_, the dog was dead.

If I do not mistake, the first and almost immediate effect of this poison is upon the nerve centres. For certain the blood remains unaltered, or at least no change is visible and the flesh of animals killed with _legop_ does not lose any of its flavour nor is there any danger in eating it.

But I dare not speak with any precision about the nature of certain venomous products because where the vast field for scientific research begins, the unpretending labour of the colonist, who collects, refers and describes, finishes, leaving to the chemical student and the physiologist the task of drawing from the information given, those results which may be for the good of humanity in general.