Anthropology: The Answer's Poison

Chapter 17 (1st part) of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

The Antipas

A short digression on the head-hunters and their mode of life will not be out of place, Up de Graff avers, and naturally in relation to the table I'm belly-up, "Tell me more, O great explorer..." That's no joke, he's a great explorer as far as I'm concerned. I'm here in the Big City with manageable challenges and plenty of police to help if there's something I need. Although I phoned in an abandoned car with a flat tire the other day and it took three notifications and something more than a week for them to get around to it. It was there only three weeks.

But today we're focused on the head-hunters, a living example of Stone Age Man, Up de Graff calls them. They lived apart at the time not because they were introverts or shy but because the terrain was more or less inaccessible. There was plenty of land, a good climate, lots of animals and vegetables, woods and rivers. It just happened to be missing the usual beaten paths. There were missionaries, sure, but at that time there had very little to show for their interference. 

The Antipas are semi-nomadic. The year is divided into three parts, not based on the seasons, but to the capacity of the crops they planted to stay alive. So they went back and forth in relation to sowing and harvest. Yuca takes six months to grow and ripen, Indian corn three months, and yams yearly. Sweet potatoes, peanuts, and tobacco are also cultivated in large quantities. Makes my weekly trip to Walmart sound pathetic, although it's also pathetic apart from comparisons.

Up de Graff sketches how their houses were made, how they were situated, etc., which is way too much to summarize. I'll just assume that's where the folks lived when they were at home, and that little Johnny and Susie had their own room, the walls with posters of the latest South American teen idols, and the Mrs. with a little semi-attached garden foyer like Morticia Addams complete with plants that ate meat, tapir, hedgehog, and anything not too bony. They might take your hand, which would be awful. You'd need a witch-doctor for a quick hand job to get you back to normal. 

Our author went with the Antipas one day to see how they fished. They went to a small stream a couple miles from their settlement. The women cut down barbasco wood along the way, a vine whose sap is deadly poison. Arrived at the water, they looked for a good pool. The barbasco was beaten between heavy stones and thrown into the pool. Within a minute or two the fish came floating to the surface and swam aimlessly. You can guess how easy it was to catch them. Up de Graff says that's the only method of catching fish they know except netting! Hmm, it's interesting, even I know more about fishing than an entire tribe of people!

It looks like the Antipas also kill monkeys with poison, so I don't know, they sound completely lazy. But how about this, Jivaro women also used the same barbasco poison when they committed suicide (p. 216)!

Fish & Crawdads

No. 11 of 31 -- Thermometer series

Something important to all of us these days is our opinion. We're overcome with opinions, clearly. I'm of the opinion people are wacko crazy, not knowing what's good for them. But just wait. Evolution, and its more immediate cousin, Mortality, will take care of it. Just you wait...

In the meantime, Fish and Crawdads is the answer, keeping the two separate, but knowing they go together. You want Fish, you need Crawdads, you need Crawdads to get Fish. We used to catch Crawdads and keep tubs of them in the shade of our bigger maple tree. They were happy, they couldn't get out, and they did their job, catching Fish. Which we ate.

Fish and Crawdads of course both have the meat of the goodie and the refuse of the baddie. (A term I just coined to have an opposite to goodie.) The meat of the Fish you prepare for meals, the baddie you discard, guts, heads, scales. On the Crawdad, the meat is a small white piece under the tail, big to the Crawdad but small compared to the baddie. And some of them go full King Kong with baddie, enormous claws and heads, then down to, at best, an above average goodie.

Now, these days, your opinion can be the most cantankerous part of yourself. We can stand your loud grating voice, as long as you're paying dues, but if you can't stifle the a-hole opinions, it might get you killed. I personally don’t know very many people who’ve gotten killed for their opinions. If I knew of one, that's someone I wouldn't have had much to do with in the first place. My opinion, Steer clear of certain death!

What we’re concerned with these days is the blog, keeping it healthy, keeping track of it with these great thermometers -- boxes and boxes of beautiful thermometers -- and seeking its survival and prosperity in a world of readers who frankly don’t know their digestion outlet from a hole in the ground. Let alone what to do with it, although I suppose everyone has the basics of that down by simple nature. One important clue, it's not for cucumbers. So we've got that much, but what we haven’t all got is an understanding of the process scientifically. A baby has the diaper strapped on but has no clue what for.

As this great effort goes forth -- filling thermometers, not diapers -- we shall do it in a similar spirit. Doing our best along the way, not worrying too much, and not even trying to understand the steps. Just doing it and worrying about the results when we clean up. But one thing of huge importance is not getting down in the dirt with these bastards and their crazy opinions! Because it'd only spring back on us. So we need a signal. Some bastard shows up, we whistle. That's the signal. Then when we're mostly out of view, twirl your finger by your ear. Meaning he's loopy.

Politics, yes, politics is always in the air at our meetings. But we’ve come this far — I don’t want to ruin it by lambasting too many folks and prematurely driving a wedge between us in spirit. I have to keep telling myself, "Fish and Crawdads," the mission, the goal first. Then someday, after all this is a huge success, only then can our meat of the goodie be openly telling them off and where to get off -- maybe even ceremonially stripping them and attaching Crawdads to the fleshier bits --  then showing them the door.

We used to get rid of fish baddie by dropping it to the turtles, enormous turtles, like a yardstick across. That's a good way to get rid of things. I saw it happen. And no one ever got caught.

Tough Fishing at Silage City

FISH AT BARGAIN PRICES -- I've got an inside line on a great value on fish, if you can manage to get it home. (I have an idea how it could be done, more on that later.)

This is at Dick's Thrifty Econo-Valu Food Smartmart up in Silage City, so not too far from anyone. Not to be confused with Maude's Discount Groceries & Pastries of Walter Falls. Entirely different place. Of course Dick's has the full cash register and moving grocery conveyor and Maude has the cash drawer and table for your things.

Anyway, Dick's has this really sweet special on fish, but only for a limited time -- it's been going on six months now -- at 79 cents a pound. What's it called? I don't know, it's sort of flat bony fish with a spine that doesn't quit. Very flexible, you're not wasting sacks getting it home, it folds up real good.

The big problem -- if that's what you want to call it -- is the game warden in Silage City is on the look out for anyone with fish who doesn't have a valid fishing license. And not just the plain old state license, it needs the Silage City stamp. You haven't got the stamp, it's a $100 fine.

The guy who told me about this special, and 79 cents is a killer price, got stopped right outside of town. Just like the guy knew he was coming. He's leaving Dick's, headed east, when the light comes on and he's stopped. "Are there fish in this car?" the game warden asks, and of course it leads to the sack and the wrapped up fish. The short version of his complaint is this, "How do I know you didn't catch those fish and wrap them up yourself?" Which indeed would be a good way of rigging the system in your favor!

"But it has the price sticker right there and it says "Dick's." "But how do I know you didn't take that off other groceries and paste it there?" Great question, and for that matter how does he know you didn't just print it on your printer? I can see the game warden's point, even if I suspect foul play on his part. "But I don't have a fishing rod with me?" "How do I know you didn't hide it down by the lake?" It's tough to come up with answers, isn't it!

So the guy gets a $100 fine, which takes away, obviously, some of the savings he counted on when he took advantage of the 79 cent special. That's a sad thought.

But I've got a happier thought, which is this, how we could get away with it. One, I show up at Dick's with a very smokin' vehicle and simply outrun the game warden. I think he's still driving the old standard issue green truck he's always had. That's dicey, though, because he might send word ahead and you'd be paying other fines. Probably a better plan would be this, for a bunch of us to show up, buy fish, and all of us just take different roads home. He couldn't catch us all!

Whoever gets caught's a rotten egg.

Here's another issue. Who do I think is alerting the game warden? It's a huge mystery. But my first suspicion has to be someone at Dick's store. Maybe Dick himself, since they're cousins.

Government Snooping -- Infilitrate, Big or Small

I carefully studied my instructions under a streetlight.
The lighting made it look very weird, kind of a greenish yellow.
I was struck. The color's so weird.

But there it was, in the bad light. A mysterious ticker tape printer in a culvert, right where the voice on the phone told me it'd be. Low, husky, likely a man, maybe a big woman. I'd been recruited into an elite cadre of government spies. Which is very cool for me in particular, having been as a child not just a member of the Spy Club, but its baton twirler.

I wasn't a bit afraid. Even though usually when I get weird calls, anonymous, unannounced calls, I'm paranoid as hell. It looks like I'm getting hardened to it. I've gotten worse calls. It used to always be some unknown guy saying, "I know where you go ... and I know what you do there ..." I always hated that. Because, honestly, I never went there, and, besides, I don't remember doing anything that was so bad.

This new voice, even though it was a big woman trying to sound like a man, wasn't threatening at all. I heard something of benevolence in it. Saying between the lines that I was trusted with a task, which, if I'm not mistaken, is something the government is putting forth to every citizen they trust. And, yes, the government can trust me. I hereby raise my right hand and solemnly swear that I will protect this nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Looks like domestic, since it's local here.

You see my instructions. There's no particular task. Just "INFILTRATE," with the unspecific, but assuring, "EVERY LITTLE THING HELPS." And I like the pleasant nod to modern linguistic conventions, showing that we're not taking ourselves too seriously here, no doubt meant to put me and my fellow trusted citizens completely at our ease, "GO 4 IT."

This is the kind of task I like. I can set my own goals. And I obviously have plausible deniability if I'm nabbed by a saboteur, "I know nothing. I'm digging in your garbage for recycling."

All right, I got this message a week ago tonight, and I got right on the job. Since "EVERY LITTLE THING HELPS," that's what I started with. It gave me a great excuse to go to the river. But not just anyplace. I wanted to go to the backwoods. There's a place back there where a gang of guys called the Backwoods Men live. I've always been suspicious of those guys. We have a law here that in fishing you can only use one hook for one line, no more.

I was successful at infiltrating their place by the river. When, Holy Cow, what did I find? Not only did they have poles lined up on the bank, I pulled in a couple and they had a dozen hooks apiece! So I pulled in the rest and left them lay on the bank. It would be a big surprise to them in the morning!

Also, I did some reconnaissance around their property -- the dog was sleeping -- and noticed what turned out to be some '60s vintage Do-it-Yourself Heathkit nuclear missiles, lined up in homemade silos, and aimed toward town. I moved them off kilter, so when they're fired they'll rocket straight up and -- I hope -- destroy the Backwoods Men themselves.

The next day I was up with the roosters, 9:00, and went to troll Goodwill for what I might find. The problem with Goodwill is it's completely unregulated. You can buy stuff anonymously. It's not necessarily scanned, it's cash transactions. Theoretically, it's the world's best place to make a terror connection, because you can leave notes in a particular jacket, say, then someone comes along and gets it. Well, the bottom line is, I did my best, so sue me.

Methodically, I took each jacket, one at a time, to the dressing room, and went through the pockets. Noon came and went, then 2 p.m., before I was finished. But nothing. Then as I'm leaving, some madman goes running out of the store, and runs straight into a city bus, blowing up himself and 40 passengers, an inferno. The note had been in a pair of pants ... damn it! But 'every little bit helps,' I'm telling myself.

This actually taught me a lesson, that to catch terrorists, you need to think like a terrorist. We think they sleep in the day when we're all awake. That's what they want you to think. But, thinking like a terrorist, why would they do that? No, naturally they'd sleep during the night just like anyone else. But they're tricky, see? That's actually what they want us to think. Taking it one step further, they do sleep during the day when we're awake. Then use the "cover of night," when we least expect it, to do their flight training.

So I went to the airport, the local airport, late at night. I flashed my ticker tape at the door and got right in. I yelled, "Stop that plane!" They radioed out and brought back a disgruntled man in a business suit. The president of our biggest industry, headed for a convention. So we let him go. Next, I told them to stop a second plane. The boss of the airport headed for a convention. So we also let him go.

That left a third plane. But by now I was gun shy and didn't stop him. I made a mistake! He simply took to the air and immediately shot down the other two planes, killing both distinguished men and their pilots and fleeing. Next time, I resolved, slamming my fist on the desk, that guy gets stopped first!

Three Cheers For Brains

The Wizard of Oz famously said, "Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain!"

To which I say, "Hallelujah! Someone finally gets it!" Because I've been saying a version of that for years. And not only about brains but lots of other body parts, too. This realization came to me early on, which, frankly, might not be something a kid would think of today. They're not as close to nature as we were back then, since we were always going fishing and hunting, then cleaning/dressing the fish and other animals.

I'd look at the animals and point it out to my proud dad that a rabbit has two eyes, a nose, ears, etc., just like we do. And I'd do the same for squirrels, deer, dogs, and even fish. Fish are a little different but the same basic body parts and functions are there. When we'd clean fish, it was one of my least favorite things to cut out their digestive track. But I held my nose and did it anyway. And now I'm glad I did, because it made me aware very early in life that fish also excreted waste.

Of course we had pets, mostly dogs. I really learned a lot about life by observing dogs. One, they appeared to have a brain, just like the man said. Then there were all the other things I'd come to expect, including eyes, a nose, and so forth. Now that I'm thinking back, I actually remembering pointing out to someone that dogs had heads and the basic design of their heads were just like ours.

If you want to think of differences in dogs, between them and us, look where their nipples are. If we were built like that, our nipples would have to be near our waistline! Thankfully it's not that way! Imagine what it'd do for cleavage! The thing about dogs in this regard, though, speaking in practical terms, with evolution in mind, is that they generally have multiple young. So they adapted, the ones with nipples where the young could get to them tending to pass on their genes. Thankfully, they found a happy medium, i.e., where they're located now, since clearly they were running out of room, stopping just shy of the genitals.

I'm sure glad I have a brain. I use it all the time, really for everything. There's not a day goes by that I'm not using it. But I still don't know how to spell pusillanimous without looking it up. Although, since I'm a man, I can come a lot closer than every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth or slinks through slimy seas, which also, regardless of their inability to spell, still have brains.

Residential Industrialists Gaining Dominance

It looks like they don't think it's so funny now!

The major industrial powers, at first taunting and ridiculing the Residential Industrial Movement (RIM) -- "rank amateurs," "pathetic in every way," and "newbies" -- are now reeling from its impact. The combination of unlimited goods and extremely low prices has been too much for the big guys.

Like always, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than what anyone sees. But because what we see is a lot of panic and resistance, it has to be insane behind the scenes. I can well imagine what's going on, and some of this leaks out to those who are paying attention. Of course the phone lines to the government are burning up, as they seek a renewed advantage. And we're burning them up too, flexing our new muscles for our own interests.

I myself am just at the periphery -- the bigger boys have taken over. But I'm getting the word. It's filtering up to me from a network of cousins in the know, and of course some of the bigger residential manufacturers of my town. What I can say about it exactly is limited because all eyes are on this blog, and, as they say, "Loose lips sink nascent grassroot movements."

I was watching the show on TV, "River Monsters," and it made me think of some of the parallels between that and industrialism. In case you don't know, there's a host who's always off to fish in some exotic location, looking for "river monsters" in the area that are blamed for missing children, missing boats, and missing TV hosts. He does his investigations by spending the entire hour trying to catch one of these gigantic fish. Then he examines it, pronounces it innocent and gently releases it back. Two days later, we hear of an entire village missing but no one sees the connection.

Anyway, one of the themes is that some of these monstrous fish are introduced to a particular area, meaning they upset the natural ecology there and tend to have the upper hand against native species. They eat up the entire habitat and other fish. By the time the TV cameras get there, there's little left except a puddle of water and this one species, looking very innocent and content.

You can see something of what's going on with the RIM. We introduced the concept of "Every Man With An Industry." The 'other species,' the major industrial powers didn't see it coming till it was too late, and now we're on the verge of complete domination in all the fields of manufacturing and industry. Of course they're going to fight back ... with all they've got ... with all they've got left ...

The God Of The Fishes

Time to feed the fish. You ever notice how tough it is when you go out to fish? You throw the line out and the bait hits the water and immediately sinks out of sight. Then it's down there, taking it easy. Not a fish in sight.

I've done that lots of times. Waiting, waiting, waiting, and nothing shows up. At times that's the way it is. So you're sitting there, praying to the God of the fishes that a fish will come along stupid enough to take the bait. But maybe that's why they call him the God of the fishes, because he's on the fishes' side. So nothing.

I used to go out with Grandpa, who was a masterful fisherman. I don't know where he got it. It had to be his nature, that's all. He grew up in the wild, in a tiny speck of a town in Missouri, with a big river in his back yard. So he was probably down there like Huck Finn, communing with the fish, and well acquainted with the God of the fishes. Somehow he got fishing and the success at it in his blood.

By the time I was born, then grew up enough to know what fishing was, he was in his late '50s and early '60s. He had all those years of being a master, and he tried to pass it on to me. Which happened a little bit -- especially when he was with me. He had the idea that farting on your bait was a good thing. I think I mentioned that before.

That of course would make an objective difference to the bait. Unlike other things that would be more in the realm of the superstitious. Like sitting in a particular way, pretending you're ignoring your pole, or praying to the God of the fishes. And it is a well known truth that some fish like "stink bait," so I don't know -- it'd be nice if a present day Grandpa would weigh in on this subject. Mine's dead, but I know that was one of his opinions.

I was checking out the fish in the aquarium. Just passing by. And they're so used to getting fed that they're clustering over by the glass all the time when someone gets near. Especially at feeding time. So they're creatures of habit. And know enough to know when it's feeding time. They're not like they are in the wild, going somewhere else to eat.

Of course they haven't got much choice about what to eat. It's some kind of flaky stuff that lasts forever. Sprinkled out of a can. I think it's dried and flaked worms or some other ex-living creature, plankton maybe. No telling if farting on it would make them like it better. They don't seem to need any additional incentive to take the bait.

That reminds me. And this is a cruel, terrible story. I knew a guy who raised catfish in his pond. He went down there with a bucket of whatever ... to feed them in the morning and maybe in the evening. They came swooping up to the surface and got just like the domestic fish in the tank. It was a sight to see, the swarming. And these were big fish, as big as a newspaper lengthwise.

The cruel part is that whenever he wanted a fish or two to eat, whatever he threw in had a hook in it, and up they came. Never knowing what happened. The God of the fishes in that case must've been on the guy's side. Or the fish themselves had failed their God, not depending on him for their sense, but going off on their own path.

Whatever it is, fish have to eat. Just make sure there isn't a hook in there somewhere. Like fish in the wild do.

The Deadliest Hiatus

Maybe you've seen the popular show "The Deadliest Catch." You probably have since it's the only thing on TV. We have 100 channels and nothing but this one show.

As is well known, the various "Deadliest Catch" crews take their boats and weapons out every year, for eight months of the year, and compete to see who can bring in the Great White Whale. It's out there lurking somewhere, and you never know when his spout may appear and his huge, hulking form may capsize one of the boats and devour the crew. He's evil, rotten to his rotten core, a very very bad whale, really a monster.

One day we had the exciting footage of him finally taking the bait. A gigantic hook the size of a couch was tied to an enormous rope as thick as a maple tree, then strung on a huge pulley with a hydraulics system, baited with the shark from Jaws. It was quite tense on the boat, to say the least, as the sea became very calm, as still as death, no breathing, no motion at all. There wasn't a ripple on the water for 4,000 miles. The boat was literally dead in the water. The only movement was by one of the very nervous crew, a single guy sitting over by the door who scratched his nose.

Then suddenly, as if from the depths of hell itself! ... They heard a light tapping at the hull. Just a light tapping. Tap, tap, tap. Charlie the Tuna was just stopping by to say hello. He has good taste, so he loves the show. Then as soon as he'd come, he left. That broke some of the tension and the guys laughed. There was a great sense of relief.

When ... suddenly, again as if from the depths of hell itself! ... They heard what sounded like a sloshing of the water ... What could it be? One of the crew looked overboard and it was the Old Man from "Old Man and the Sea," with a big fish strapped to the side of his boat. Check that, it was by now half fish, half skeleton, and he had a fork and was presently eating. He called up to the captain who sent down a greeting ... and a warning: If you want to live to be an Older Man, you better get a'movin'! So he made quickly for the horizon, with a putt putt motor and a zigzagging path. Again, the tension was relieved, but it would not be for long...

Because suddenly, and for the final time, as if from the depths of hell itself! ... the Great White Whale had taken the bait! They saw him leap into the air in all of his righteous fury. His crashing back to the sea raised a wave so high the guy in the crow's nest was able to grab a handful of sand from the ocean's floor. Up and down, the mighty beast soared and crashed back again. He was the size of the Empire State Building if he was an inch! The boat was a bobber in comparison, the crew like matchstick men.

At this point the show went to a commercial and I lost interest. Billy Mays came on selling some kind of orange scented chamois so I went outside to cut weeds.

But looking back on the show, sometimes that's exactly how I feel about my hiatus. All is calm for a while. A few friends, like Charlie the Tuna and the Old Man and the Sea might show up and say hi. The tension is broken. I'm feeling pretty good about my time off. Then suddenly, as if from the depths of hell itself, I'm carried right into the gaping maw of the Great White Whale, or, worse, the gaping maw of Billy Mays -- such tension -- and I don't know what to do. It threatens my very existence.

So I need to do something, anything, like go outside and cut weeds. It makes me feel useful. One of these days I'm going to find him, the Great White Weed! And when I do, oh! that'll be something!

Primitive Fish

I happened to see about five minutes of a fish show on Animal Planet. I wish I would have seen the whole thing, since I like fishing, fish, the whole scene.

The first one I saw, some guys hauled in a 200 and some pound gar -- an alligator gar, meaning it's head looks sort of like an alligator's. These are primitive fish, in that they -- I don't know why. They just are. I guess they have features, appendages that other fish have lost over the years. I think they said it had a weird kind of lung system.

The other one, I didn't catch the name of. But it also breathes partially with a lung or two. And the guy fishing for it noticed it was stuck. The fight was suddenly gone. So it was tangled up in some way. But since it needs to come up to breathe once in a while, it was going to suffocate if it were left at the bottom. So another guy wades out and dives down and untangles the whole works. This leaves the fishing guy a new opportunity to pull the fish in.

They have a big net basket they put it in. It's humongous. They look at it for a while, pose with it, then they let it swim off.

Those primitive fish remind me of rough fish. Rough fish can be good to eat, if you prepare them right, like carp. But for the most part, buffalo fish, gar, chubs, all that -- they're not good. Something wrong with them for eating is what Grandpa always told us.

We used to do a lot of fishing. Grandpa knew almost everything about fishing. I learned a lot of it when I was a kid but forgot most of it. A lot of it was just seat-of-the-pants kinds of information. If you went on TV and tried to do some of it, they'd laugh you off. I know Grandpa thought it was helpful to fart on your bait. And I haven't seen a show where they do that!

One interesting bit of fish trivia. My family (Grandpa, etc.) used to make some kind of doughball bait to catch carp with. It was cinnamon, with bread dough, and sugar worked in there. It was actually good to pull a piece out of with your finger and eat. Until you've had fish on your hands and are going back for more bait.