Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/176

 hours at great speed, leaving the poor fellow to paddle after us against the strong current. Vicente, who might have waited a few minutes at starting, and the others, only laughed when the hardship of their companion was alluded to. He overtook us at night, having worked his way with frightful labour the whole day without a morsel of food. He grinned when he came on board, and not a dozen words were said on either side.

Their want of curiosity is extreme. One day we had an unusually sharp thunder-shower. The crew were lying about the deck, and after each explosion all set up a loud laugh; the wag of the party exclaiming "There's my old uncle hunting again!" an expression showing the utter emptiness of mind of the spokesman. I asked Vicente what he thought was the cause of lightning and thunder? He said, "Timaá ichoquá,"—I don't know. He had never given the subject a moment's thought! It was the same with other things. I asked him who made the sun, the stars, the trees? He didn't know, and had never heard the subject mentioned amongst his tribe. The Tupí language, at least as taught by the old Jesuits, has a word—Tupána—signifying God. Vicente sometimes used this word, but he showed by his expressions that he did not attach the idea of a Creator to it. He seemed to think it meant some deity or visible image which the whites worshipped in the churches he had seen in the villages. None of the Indian tribes on the Upper Amazons have an idea of a Supreme Being, and consequently have no word to express it in their own languages. Vicente thought the river on which we