Hello. I´m back from Pimental Barbosa where we were at for four days. I thought I´d be without internet for longer but that won´t be until July. On the road to the Xavante reserve we made a couple of stops. One for fishing supplies and the other to talk to our friends just outside the reserve at Agua Boa. I picked up a pair of flip-flops at Agua boa which prooved extremely useful in the reserve. Though some may call me crazy for wearing flip-flops in the Amazon river basin because of the spiders, insects and parasites that live in the soil, I find no problem because the spiders run away (which is good because they´re very poisonous) the insects (specifically mosquitoes) are mostly repelled by DEET though I have about 20 bites which isn´t too bad, and I know a parasite when I see one thanks to Dr. Jarvinen and Parisitiology. In case you haven´t heard the stories from the last time I was with the Xavante I will do my best to describe things. Once you leave the main highway it´s about an hour+ off road experience getting to the Wadera village. The first part is nice we can travel at about 60-80 Kph but after that it gets rather trecherous. Once you enter the reserve is where it gets the worst (but fun). The roads get narrow and rough and sometimes you have to do things like ford a river. The bridges in general are three poles placed together on either side of the vehicle and they´re not very forgiving if you miss the logs. All the roads are of course dirt or mud and occasionally swamp. Anyway, it took us about 10 hours total driving time to get from Diorama to the village and I was glad to get in and go to bed. As before when I got out of the truck the spiders scattered though there werent as many as the last time. I guess we didn´t go right to bed, it was dinner time so we had a barbeque. I was in charge of cooking and starting the fire so of course being the cub scout that I was (I never made it to boy scouts) I started with gathering kindling and leaves and wood for the fire. I started lighting it when Paulo brought out the charcoal (not briquettes). Dope. Anyway I learned how to cook meat brazilian style which is quite good.
Day 1 at the Xavantes. We didn´t do much this was an organize and clean up day. Anna Maria who lived there (at our village, about 1Km from the Wadera, last year had since moved away so things weren´t quite as nice as before. No welcome party and we had to find the lamps when we came in the night before. Anyway we took a long night sleep and woke up after light broke which is unusual with the Xavante because you generally try to get things done in the early morning before it gets hot and in the evening. But we woke up, had breakfast and I did some reading up on Gonzalos report of the project. Lunch came shortly there after and we spent most of the day trying to get the radio tracking ezquipment working properly. I still don´t think you can tell the direction very well. That evening we went and had a meeting with the tribe to say hi and tell them what our plans were. Of course everything is in Portugese but I am picking it up quickly (I think). I got the gist of things basically we need to capture and track two live wild peccaries and release the ones we have captive as a test. Thus a hunt was in order for the next day.
Day 2 We "wake up" at 4:30 to get breakfast and head to the village before daybreak. Today we hunt. This time we didn´t get painted likely because it wasn´t for show or a tradiditional hunt rather we were trying to get peccaries to collar. The system we had set up made it necessary for Paulo to shoot the animal with a dart attached to an arrow. Both he and I had our bows for this purpose but of course we both had broadheads as well. We found the watering hole after about 45 min of driving and followed the river upstream. The tracks we found were about a day old so we headed in the direction that they all lead. Then bingo we hit some mud (on foot) that had fresh Queixada and Jaguar prints. The jaguar was doing just as we were tracking the peccaries. We run to the forest putting two in the forest, two on the side and the rest waiting for the flush. I was on the side tracking the fresh prints with Ci da Nares. We move along for about .5Km and listen constantly for the snapping of the peccaries teeth and grunts of them walking away from us. I guess there´s about 20 in the pack but thats not an accurate estimate. As we move along Ci da Nares is in regular communication with the others in the forest to know where they´re at. It takes longer to move foreward in the woods than in the pasture so we get ahead. Shortly after that we hear grunting. They´re close but we push the wrong way. We push directly back instead of circling to flush them out of the forest. Then BANG!!! and the chase was on. We were no longer there for tagging but for food instead. Gonzalo, Erosita and I dash into the forest and move as fast as we can toward the Xavantes calling them with a loud low yell. They call back as they move to tell us where they´re at. We move along slow as white men in the bush. The indians are much faster and we finally get called out by Ci da Nares. We then head up the edge of the forest and look into the distance for the kill. Out of the forest comes an indian with a large male peccary on his back. We applaud the kill. It´s just what we want them to hunt. We don´t want them killing females. One of them got the kill the other one missed and hit the jaw of another peccary so we attempted to follow the blood trail but it must have clotted as the indians never came back with a second animal. I hope the peccary does ok so they can go back and get it later but alas if it doesn´t it will join the circle of life. I head along the side of the forest with Erosita we are a little behind when I look to my left and see a large land tortoise (tartaruga). It was a beautiful red and black color. It had tucked itself under some grass but my good eyes for gathering found it. This particular turtle is very prolific around here so we take it back as food. Once again I am applauded by the indians as a provider (not a hunter though I think you have to get used to going through the forest barefoot before you can be good at that here). Another BANG!! We look around and one of the indians hadn´t joined us yet. We wait for the reap and head towards the sound. About five minutes later he walks out with a giant armadillo. As we walk along back to where we left the peccary I stay behind with Ci da Nares (he´s about 70 years old we don´t know for sure). He sees a plant that looks like a large stick with big bagonia leaves. He strips the leaves and starts pulling the bark off. Then he shows me what it is. They use this in their traditional wrist and ankle wrappings. It´s the wrapping which looks like masking tape and sits flat on the body unlike the more common ropes that are tied in the same fashion. He finds a large patch and shows me how to strip the trees so the bark is usefull. Of course it takes a while for me to get it right. But eventually I get it. When we get back we see that Gonz has cut a pole off for carrying the peccary. This makes it alot easier than carrying it in front of you or over the shoulders. This is also good because the musk that peccaries produce is very strong and hard to get off. We decide to take the days hunt back to the village as it´s getting very hot. When we get there it´s about lunch time and Paulo and Erocita head back to our village for lunch while Gonz and I stay behind to whatch them prepare the animals. They burn the hair off then cut it up into pieces. They´re not regular cuts like we have rather they are leg, back, shoulder... We watched them do the peccary then a Koatimunde that another hunt had gotten that morning, and came back to see the armadillo done. Unfortunately we got to the armadillo too late and they had already messed up the reproductive tract. Female armadillos have two cervixes. Gonz and I attempted to dissect what was left anyway. After that we headed back to our village for lunch and a nap. Lunch was farofa and sausages. Not the best but it was still food. I took a long nap and had a bath in the river. It was very refreshing on a very hot day. That evening we "released" the peccaries that we had in captivity. They didn´t really leave but we waited for a couple of hours after dark attempting to see them leave. It was dark out so I used night vision. We never saw them leave. I´m actually guessing they just barely went outside the fence to get the manioka and went right back in.