Amazon to Belem

[Music] ladies and gentlemen tonight we welcome back to our true adventure series mr eric pavel and journey with him down the entire length of the world's mightiest river the amazon starting at its source high in the andes we travel by truck primitive dugout canoe even horseback into wild regions inhabited by swimming jaguar man-eating piranha fish and the primitive tribes of hebrew indians we navigate the amazon to belain in the next 30 minutes with mr eric pavel bold journey your television passport to the exciting colorful world of advent begin tonight's true story adventure is jack douglas the amazon river is often times called the highway of brazil it leaps and roars out of the giant andes through a jungle world peopled by primitive forest indians to whom even such a simple mechanism as the wheel is a novelty along its banks and extreme variety of jungle creatures chatter incessantly well tonight we're going to study the character of this fascinating river its people and its jungle life traveling from the andes to the atlantic with the soft-spoken sonjar from brazil making his second appearance with us mr eric pavel hello mr pavel it's nice to see you again now we made mention that you're from brazil where in brazil were you born in sao paulo and how do we get the title to this true story film of yours the amazon to blame is that right blaine well belang is the largest city on the amazon about 25 30 miles away from its mouth and that was the ultimate goal of our trip did you travel alone or did you uh need guides well of course we need guides but my wife came along too what made her decide to join the journey she always comes along wherever i go and i love to have her with me whether it's the jungles or the north pole poor she's a good trooper well now where is the source of the amazon river mr pavel it lies in the andes of peru how much of the amazon flows through brazil about two-thirds of it taking an argentine air force plane my wife and myself fly towards the headwaters of the amazon high up in the peruvian andes on our way we'll have to fly over the jungles the amazon jungles which extend for thousands of mouths between the atlantic coast and the foothills of the andes and looking down all you will see is a green carpet of treetops and plants occasionally a river winds its way through the jungles the beautiful horseshoe and then we're going to land high up in the andes in the background the snows which will melt and feed the tributaries of the amazon river you will find a few bridges here in the high sierra but later on the amazon for an extension of several thousand miles will have not a single bridge in order to reach the more navigable parts of the river we had to take a four-wheel drive car and take all our supplies along always hoping the next bridge will hold up as well as the one just before and then finally reaching the river and changing to dugout canoes the dugout canoe which was used by the indians in systole today the best way to travel along these rivers along its banks we saw the colorful macaws there's a legend connected with these birds which tells us that after god created the world in seven days he still had a white bird sitting on his throne he took all of his brushes wiped them off in the feathers of the bird and created them a car on the ground however you find more unpleasant animals like different types of snakes the rattler and then the flat head which by the way is not a poisonous snake however i can assure you there are far less snakes in the jungles and many travel adventure books will make you believe on the ground you also find different types of ants including the leaf cutting ants whenever leaf cutting ants invade a tree they may cut down its entire foliage within a few days and each and will carry four or five times their own size and weight and you have sometimes the impression the leaves are walking by themselves [Music] here and there you may see a centipede quickly sliding away this one is certainly familiar well that is an old friend and a funny one the two thoughts lost was his nervous system so slow that he always moves in slow motion we wanted to see the hebrew indians and in order to find them we had to leave the main river and travel up one of the smaller tributaries it is quite difficult because of the many rapids and if the going is too hard then our guides will push the canoe there is a jungle telegraph which always seems to announce visitors from the outside and sure enough when we came close to one of the hebrew indian tribes they had heard about it they all came running out to meet us the hebrews used to be known as head hunters they also used to shrink human heads to the size of a baseball however today it is believed that they have abandoned this practice although there are still killings between the tribes however except for not killing anymore and shrinking heads they live just the same way as their ancestors man and woman piercing their lower lip and ear lobe through which they stick small pieces of bamboo and colorful decorations made from bird feathers for special occasions [Music] whenever there are any decisions to be made you also find the council of the older man coming together and with others scratching it discussing they'll finally decide on what to do next morning before leaving my wife was inspecting the blow guns and the ornaments which were hanging on his ears and then we followed again the amazon river downstream you can admire the vegetation the plants trees and flowers along its banks many of these flowers are found in no other part of the world except the jungles here one here is called the parapeak flowers because it opens up like the beak of one of the south american parrots continuing downriver we approach more civilized communities [Music] when the rainy seasons start the river may rise 70 or even 80 feet where the bus station was a few weeks before the ferryboat comes into the center of town although these people are flooded out almost every year they still seem to build their houses right here on the edge of the water nearby you'll find during the morning hours the woman washing their clothes and they not only wash the clothes they bring with them they also wash the clothes they have on and while they wash they chat gossip and also may have a good smoke along these rivers we also find man washing however they do not wash clothes they wash gold gold was found in most of the rivers in the andes and that was actually what attracted the spanish to south america however looking at this fella today we have the impression that there isn't much gold left anymore in these rivers actually he washes a whole day maybe seven or eight hours and then finally he'll have a small speck of gold dust on the bottom of his large wooden pan many people living in the amazon jungle are tapping the rubber tree to obtain the raw rubber light x rubber was first discovered in the amazon jungle and then later on smuggled out and from this the malayan plantations were started when the latex has been collected it will be taken back to his home and here his wife or daughter will coagulate it she does it by pouring some of this rubber milk over this ball then lifting it and on the fumes of a special bark this rubber will coagulate when he has several balls ready to take to the trading post he will tie them in the back of his canoe because they are much too heavy to be carried inside the dugout canoe luckily rubber floats during the rainy season many lakes are formed and this is a breeding ground for fish for animals and also the crocodiles here we're going to see an indian catching crocodiles by hand he will spot it in the shallow waters and then spear it and the next thing he has to do is pull it into his canoe the trick he uses is to take his wooden paddle stick it into the mouth of the crocodile and as a crocodile bites into the wood he holds his mouth closed and swings it into the canoe always watching that the tail does not hit him on his leg because it's so strong it might break it we find boats that are left along the banks of the river they are painted and repaired during the dry season we also see the weeds on the top of the trees and see where the level of the river was a few weeks before the fish which is found here is the largest sweet water fish in the western hemisphere the so-called piraroku the indian spots appear cool by the bubbles of air that come up and then he spears it and i have heard that pierre cook can weigh up to 80 pounds this one i suppose would have been a 30 or 35 pounder meat is very scarce along the amazon and the diet consists mostly of vegetables rice potatoes and fish every 20 or 30 miles you find trading posts on the river however these trading posts are not built on the banks of the river but they float being built on rafts this way they just go up and down with the level of the river here one of the settlers comes to a trading post he has his canoe filled with crocodile skins he also has piraruku fish filet of that same fish we had seen him catch before which has been dried and salted and in exchange for this you will buy some sugar salt clothing shoes alcohol mainly alcohol it seems traveling further down we are now going to reach the region where we are finding the dreaded piranha fish thank you very much mr pavel part two of our true story adventure continues in just a few moments the river becomes wider as we come closer to the atlantic and here we meet more indian tribes again they use their dugout canoes the indians make small canoes for their children not only to play with but to learn how to handle them the dugout canoe is made of a single tree trunk the tree is usually cut far away from the river then brought to its bank and here the indian in many weeks of work will burn it out he makes a fire inside check the fire was the river's water and then scrapes off the ashes repeating the same thing from the outside after four or five weeks of work he may end up with a canoe which may be 40 or 50 feet long but only two to two and a half feet wide and light enough so that two people can carry it over impassable sections of the river along the banks of the amazon we find many different types of birds south america sometimes has been called a bird paradise you can easily bag more than one bird with a single shot the difficulty however is bringing them out of that thick underbrush along the banks of the river during the dry season the river is low enough so that cattle can cross the danger however of crossing campbell is not the river itself but brand new fish it is dangerous because of its sharp and interlocking peace and piranhas can eat up an animal within a very short time now what do these people do to cross safely was their herd they take an animal kill it and throw it into the water as soon as the piranha smells meat it will come from two or three miles away piranhas will come and eat up this animal and while they do it the herd can cross in safety but we were curious to find out how long would it take the piranhas to eat up this animal and we timed it and it took exactly two and three quarter minutes good grease but this short time was just long enough for the cat to cross afterwards we pulled out what was left of this animal and now you may understand the saying which goes that the amazon carries no corpses and white is so dangerous to overturning a canoe when you not only might lose your equipment but you would probably not be able to swim to the shore it definitely is true then isn't it that the piranha will attack human beings who may be swimming or who fall overboard they might an american missionary from chicago who lived here along the banks of the river working was an indian tribe we visited him that afternoon the indians went out to fish here they do it with point arrow spotting the fish under the surface of the water and then sanding the arrow and almost never missing that evening they barbecued the fish the indian way spiking it on a small piece of wood in this little hut the missionary had lived for almost 15 years with his wife and three children born right here in this place the missionary is telling my zoologist friend the taller man about his animal neighbors here we see the e moo the female is white and lays the eggs while the male sits on them and you also find many funny animals the funniest of them of course are always the monkeys if you want to make friends with a monkey all you have to do is feed them bananas this one developed such an appetite that my wife said oh i wished our little boy had the same here we also find the giant lizard the so-called iguana [Music] and in the jungles of the amazon you find the largest animal of south america the spotted leopard the leopard is of the cat family however it is the only cat to my knowledge which not only knows how to swim but actually enjoys it the indian know the places where the jaguars come to swim and they take hunters there the jaguar can jump out of the water the distance of eight feet and if you come too close in your canoe you may have no time to shoot on the ground we also found different types of spiders including the huge tarantula we had a zoologist from sao paulo on our trip along and he was interested in tarantulas he collected them and then one day he said he's going to show us how the tarantulas mate this is the mating dance of the tarantulas the female which is on the left will kill the male after a short fight she'll do it with his poisonous clouds the fight is very short and as soon as the poison acts she'll drag the male into a hole and eat him up what a solution for the divorce problem the missionary supplied us with horses he wanted to send us out to an indian tribe living about 60 miles inland which had had practically no contact with the outside civilization after passing through the highlands we entered into the jungles passing swamps and smaller rivers one morning we arrived at the indian tribe [Music] that morning the men were all out hunting and fishing and only women and children were left home the indians used birds as watchdogs and as soon as this macaw saw us he started squawking and running away sounding the alarm the children of the indians love to have pets and there there are no dogs or cats in the jungles they always have birds this all didn't know what he was doing during the daytime and always got tangled up in some of the children's hair [Music] the women were about getting ready for their daily work first they comb their hair and wash themselves and then they call the children for a morning wash which mainly consisted in washing small portions of the face [Music] an amazon spinning wheel the indians in south america plant cotton and use it they use it for their scanned clothing and also for decorations which they prepare for their festivals and special occasions the next day the little daughter of the chief of this tribe showed us earrings bracelets and these colored fringes which hang down under her knees the special celebration which was about to take place was due to the fact that the number of young indians were to be accepted in the circle of the older man everybody got painted up [Music] everything is paid except these circles jack under the eyes which are tribal marks when a man gets to be 17 he'll have his hair tied in a ponytail in the back they also pierce their lower lips or which they stick small pieces of balsa wood the celebration started in the early afternoon the young friends of the indians started walking around first up and down and then in circles pounding long sticks into the ground and chanting each one was chanting a different song and then i asked our guide and he told us that each of these young men was telling the life story of one of his friends and by the time he took them it must have been quite a life and then the second part of the celebration started which was wrestling two young indians would come out dance for a while probably promising a clean fight and it would be a clean fight because they would never fight on the ground and there's also no judge the white things you see on arms and legs of this fellow are duck feathers they are stuck to the body with honey remembering the tar and feather practice in other parts of the world only here it is an honor when one opponent has fallen to the ground the fight is over the first victim there or the first opponent seemed pretty shaken up when he got thrown to the ground the winner will challenge another young indian to come out and fight with him and this will go on as long as there is somebody accepting the challenge in the meantime the women are preparing the food although the women are not allowed to come anywhere close where the men are having their fun so the man will bring in this food it consists mainly of maniac which is a potato-like root you know it in this country in the name of tapioca a soup also made from mango and for these special occasions there might be some wild honey and whatever is left over of this feast will then be distributed to the women and children these primitive people are also artists these are little figures representing the indian man and the indian woman almost looking like work of picasso the garza bird is seeing us up [Music] leaving the karashi indians we followed the amazon river again it becomes wider and wider and finally we reach the city of manaus manaus which used to be the capital of the rubber boom half a century ago it is still an important trading center half of the city is built right here on the river they even grow gardens on the water then every morning you'll find traders coming in their canoes from house to house selling bread milk meat vegetables we also saw a man who had a floating coffee shop if you want a cup of coffee just pull up and get it here in manaus the famous opera house which was built during the rubber boom and saw many famous artists here we also find the zoological gardens and they dared me to pick up a few non-poisonous snakes and play with them i took the dare traveling between manaus and the mouth of the river you'll find that it becomes so wide that you may not even see the other bank [Music] and finally you reach the city of belem at the mouth of the amazon river where large ships come from all over the world transferring their goods to these small sailboats which will take it in that huge amazon river basin where almost 2 million people live [Music] thank you very much mr pavel what a marvelous journey you must have had how much time did it take you to explore the entire amazon it took us a little over three months all told i see now mr pavel you made mention during the course of the film that these heveros no longer hunt heads and that certainly is in contradiction to uh what the recent guests of ours on our series have told us it's a controversy in other words would you care to amplify your opinion on the subject well i would say that it is difficult to make a statement about a thing which you have not seen you mean the actual headhunting is not consumed and as you just mentioned they say that it is not done in front of visitors which means that nobody has seen it however i would say that people kill them kill each other all over the world whether they are civilized or uncivilized and probably the hebrews kill each other too for many reasons however i would doubt that they still go after their old headhunting practices at least where they live close to missionaries and close to civilization well i think the matter is probably still open to more discussion and perhaps future controversy mr pavel also during your film mr pavel you made mention that there are no bridges over the amazon that struck me as being very curious is there a reason for it there are no roads in the amazon region which makes it unnecessary to have bridges whereas in the higher amazon you find suspension bridges but just for people and animals to pass so there are some types of uh structures over the years i would say just a few first few hundred miles of the river mr pavel i want to thank you again for these very lovely films of the amazon country it's the first complete film we've ever had of the amazon system we appreciate it and i hope you'll pass on our compliments to mrs pavel as well thank you so very very much mr eric pavel thank you jack it was our pleasure and now ladies and gentlemen scenes from next week's true story adventure in just a few moments we are following mr louis huber of seattle by eskimo umiyak to the edge of siberia our destination is little diomede island facing russian-held big diomedes several miles distant and in a frozen winter one can literally walk from american to russian soil but the eskimos of american diomede not daring to bridge the gulf live with determination on their tiny island the walrus is their staff of life and here the international date line separates the diomedes it's tuesday on the right and wednesday on the left until next week then my thanks once again to mr eric pavel our guest tonight and as always to you ladies and gentlemen boys and girls thank you so much and good night [Music] you