TAUSSIG, Michael.

"Culture
of terror
-
Space of Death". In:
VICENT,
Joan.
(Ed,). The anthropologr of politics. A reader in
ethnography, theory and critique. Malden/Oxfotd, Blackwell,
2002, p. 1,72-1,86.
Culture of Terror - Sp ace of
De ath
Roger Casement's Putumayo Report and the
Explanation of Torture
Michael Taussig
This essay is abouL Lorture and the culture of terror, which for most of
us, including nrysell, are known only through the wcrds ol othes. Thus
lury concern is with the nrediation of the culture of terror through
narration and with the problems of writing ellectively against lerror.
Jacobo
Timerman ends his recen[ book, Prisoner wit]tout a Natne,
Cell without a Nuntbet-, with the inrprint of the gazt: of hope in the
space of death.
Have any of you looked into the eyes of anothel person, on the flool of
a cell, who l<nows that lre's about to clle tl-ior-rgh no one has told hirn so?
He knows that he's about to dic bLrt clings to lris biological desire to
live, rs a single hope, since no one has told l-rim lrer's to be executed.
I have marry sucl'r gazes irnprinted upon nre (...)
Those gazes which l encountered in the clalrdestine prisons of
Algcntina and wllich I've retained one by one, were the cr-rhrrinatin1
point, the purest momcnt ol nry tragecly.
They ale hele with rne today. And althotrgh I nrigl-rt wish to clo so, I
'Frorrr
Contparativt: Studies in SocieLy ancl Hisoty 26 (l9ila)
,
pp
7.
O Society for the Cornparative Stucly of Society and History,
Carlbr'ldge Universily Press.
could not and rvoulcl nol klrow liow to shale tlreln witlt you.
The space ol death is crucial to Lhe crerLion of nteaning and
consciousness, nowhcre more so than ilt societies where lorture is
endemic ancl where the culture ol terror llourishcs. We nray l"hink ol
the space of death as a thresholcl, yet it is a wide space whose blerdth
olfers positions ol'advance as well as of extinction. Sontetimes a person
goes through it and leturrns Lo us to tell the talc, like Tinrerman, who
entered it, he szrys, because he believed Lhe baLLle agerinst miliLary
dictaLolship hrd to be fought.'
Tirnennan lought with words, wiLh his newspapel La Opinion, in
and against the silence imposed by the arbiLers of discourse who beat
out a new leality in tl're prison cells where the torturer-s and the tortul'ed
came Logether'.
"We
vicLims and victinrizers, we're parl, ol^ the same
hunranity, colleagues in l"he same endeavor to prove the existence ol
ideologies, leelings, heroic deeds, religions, obsessions. And the rest of
hurnarrit. wltal are lhey engaged in?"'
The consLruction of colonial realit"y that occurred in the New World has
been and will remain a topic ol imnlelrse curiosity ancl sludy Lhe New
World where Lhe Indian and the Alrican becanrcr subject to zrn initially
lar slnrller nur-nber ol Christians. Whatever cclnclusions we draw as Lo
how thal hegernony was so speedily elfecled, we would be most
unwise to overlook or under eslimaLe the role of'terror. And by this I
nrean us to Lhink through lerror, which as well as being a physiological
stlte is also a social lact and a cultural construction whose baloque
dimensions allow il" Lo serve as lhe mediator par excellence ol colonial
hegemony. The space of death is one ol the crucial spaces where
Indian, Alrican, and white gave birLh to the New World.
(...) Witn European conquest and colonizaiictn, Lhese spaces ol
deaLh blend rs a comrlon pool ol key signiliers or caption poinLs
bincJing the culture of the conqueror with that of the conquered. The
space ol death is pr-eeminently a space ol translormalion: through the
experience ol cleath, life, fhrough lear, loss of self and conlorrnity to a
new learlity: or through evil, good. Lost in the dark woods, then
journeying thlough the underworld with his guide, Dante achieves
paladise only after he has lnounLed SaLan's back. Timelnran crn be a
guide lor us, analagous to the ways Puturrayo shantans I know ale
467 88, 492
published by
guides to those lost in Lhe space ol death (...)
Fron-r Timerman's chronicle and l"exts like Miguel Angel Asturias's
EI seor presidente it is abundantly clear that cull.ures of terror are
based on and nclurished by silence and mylh in wlrich the lrnatical
stress on the mysterious side of the mysterious fkurishcs by means of
rurnor and fantasy woven in a dense web o[ magical realism. It is also
clear that the victinrizer neecls the victinr for the purpose of nral<ing
tr"uLh, objectilying the victinrizer's fantasies in the discourse ol the oLher.
To be sure, the tolturer's desire is also prosaic: Lo acquire inlolnraLion,
to act in concert with large scale economic s[rategies elaborated by the
masters and exigencies of production. Yet equally if not r-nore irnportanl"
is the need to ccntrol massive populal.ions through the culLural
elaboration o[ [ear.
Tha[ is why silence is irnposed, why Tinrelrnan, the publisher,
was so important, why he knew when l"o be silent and close off realiLy
in the torture chamber'.
"Such
silence," he tells us,
begins in the chanl-rels of comnunication. Certain political leaders,
institutions, and priests attempt to clelrounce what is happening, but are
unable to establish contact witl-r the population. The silence begins with
a strong odor'. People sniff the suicides, but it eludes thern. Then silence
finds anotlrel ally: solitude. Peclple feal suicicles as they fear nlrdrrrerr.
And the per"son wlro wants to liglrt senses his solitucle ancl is
frightened.'l
Hence, there is the need lor us to light that solitude, [ear, and
silence, to examine l"hese conditions ol lruth-making and cull,ure-
making, to follow Michrel Foucault in
"seeing
historically how effects o[
trul"h are produced within discourses which are in themselves neither
true nor false."o At the salre time we not only hzrve to see, we rlsr have
to see anew through the creation o[ counteldiscourses.
ll effects ol truLh are power, then the question is raised not only
concerning the power to speak and write, buL as to what forni shall l"hat
counterdiscourse take. This issue of form has lal"ely been of mucl-l
conce'n to those involved in writing histories and etlrnographies. Bul
laced with l"he endemicity of l-or'[ure, lerror, and the growth o[ arnries,
we in thr: New World are today assailecl with a new uigency. Tl'rere is
the ellort Lo urrclersland terror, in order to nrrke others undelstand. Yet
Lhe realit"y at stake here makes a mockery ol understanding and clerides
rerlionulity, rs when the young boy
Jacobo
Tinrerrrlrn asks his rnol-her,
Why do Lhey hate us?" And she replies,
"Be:<:rr-rse
t"hey do not
understand." And afi.er his ordeal, the old Tinterman wriLes of lhe need
lor a hated object and Lhe simultaneous fear oI thaL object l"he almost
magical inevil"ability of hatred. "No,"
he concludes,
"Lhere
can be no
cloubt nry rnother was the one who was ntistaken. It is not the anLi-
SenriLes who n.rusl. be made l-o undersLand. It is we
Jews.""
Hated and learcd, objects Lo be despisecl, yet also ol rwe, the
reilied essence ol evil in l"he very being rf thcir bcldies, tlrese ligures ol
ttle
iew,
the [:lack, the Indian, and'wonlan hersell, are clearly objects of
cultulal constructir-rn, Lhe leaden keel of evil and o[ mystery stabilizing
the ship and course Lhat is Western hisLory. With the cold war we add
the corrrmunist. With the time bomb ticking inside the nuclear tamily,
we add the fcnrinisLs and the gays. The rrilitary and the New Right, like
the concluerols of old, discover Lhe evil they have irrlputed to these
aliens, rnd mimic the savagely Lhey have impul"ed.
Wha[ sort ol understanding
-
what sort of speech, writing, and
consl-ruction of meaning by any mode
-
can deal with and subvert that?
On one thing Tin'rerman is clear. To counterpose the eroticizatio
i
and ronranticization o[ violence by the same means or by forrns equally/
nrystical is r dead end. Yet to oller one or all ol the standard rational
explanaLions of the culLue o[ terror is similarly pointless. For behind
the search for proliLs, ther need l"o control lrbor, Lhe need to assuage
frustration, and so on, lie inLricately construed long-standing cultural
logics ol nreanirrg
-
structures of feeling
-
whose basis lies in a
symbolic world and not in one of rationalism. Ultinrately there are two
features; tlte crudesL of empirical lacl"s such as the electrodes and the
culLivated human body, and []re experience o[ going through torture, In
his text Tinrelnan does crerte a powellul countercliscourse, precisely
because, like torture itsell, it moves us thlough that space ol death
where reality is up for grerbs, to conft-ont the hallucination ol the
militaly (...)
Conrad's way ol dealing with the terror of thc rubber boom in the
Congo was Heart of Darkness. There were three realit"ies thele (...):
King Leopold's, made rut ol intricaLe disguises ernd deceptions; Roger'
Casement's studied rerlisr-n; and Conrad's, which, to quote Karl,
"[ell
tnidway bel-ween Lhe othel two, as he aLLen-rpted to penetrate Lhe veil
ancl yet wrs anxic-lus Lo retain il-s hallucinatory qual ity,"' (
)
Casenrent oflers a usel r-ri ancl starLling contrast to Conlacl, all the:
rnore vivid because of the ways their paths crt-issed irr Lhe Congo in
1890, becaLrse of the fertures comlron Lo their political backglounds as
exiles or quasi-exiles lrom inrnrorl-alized European societies, Polancl and
lreland, and because of an indel'inable il only superlicial similarriLy in
their temperanrents and lcve of literatule. Ye[ it was Casenrent who
resrr[ed to nrilitanl" acI.ion on be]rall o[ his native lerncl
, organizing gun
running lronr Gernrany to [he rebels at Dublin for Easter Sunday 1916,
and was hung for h'erson, while Conrad resolulely stuck to his tasl< as
an arList, bathed in nostalgia and guilL lor Polrnd, lending his nante buL
otherwise relusing to assisL Casemen[ in Lhe Congo Relornt Society,
claiming he was buL a
"wletched
novelisL." The key LexL fol'our
purposes is Conlad's lell.er to his beloved friend and socialist, the
rristocrat don Roberl"o, oLherwise known as R. B. Cunninghante
Graham (
)
I" this letter, dated 26 December 1903, Conrad salutes don
Roberto on the excellence ol his book on the greaL Spanish
conquis[ador, Hernando de Soto, and especially lor the syrnpatheLic
insight into the souls ol lhe conquistadores
-
the glamour, the pathos,
and ronrance of those timers
-
which functions as an anodyne inducing
one to lorgeL Lhe moclerr-t conquistaclol":s such as Leopold and the lrck
ol rontance and vision in nineteenl.h and edrly twentieth-century
bourgeois imperialism. Conrad then goes on [c inform don Roberto
about a nran called Casenrent" and his plans fol a Congo leforrt
society to stop the terror associated with Lhe rubber induslry there, Lhe
same terror which inspired Conracl's ncvella. Conl-acl likeni Crsement
1.o a conquistaclor, and indulges in a hopelessly romantjcized irtrarge o[
hinr - curtly corrected by Br-ian Ingles, one of Casement's biograpl'rers,
seventy years late.* (...) Writing to
John QLrinn,
Conracl le in-ratges his
first acquaintance wi[h Casemen[, now
rigeonholing
]rin'r not as in the
Congo Diary as a nran who
"Lhinks,
speaks well,
[is]
nrost inl"elligenl
and very sympatheLic," buL as a labor recruiter. Hc goes on to c1 isperrage
CasemenL as a ronrantic opportunist and adds:
He was a gooc'l conrpanior-r, br-rt ah'eady in Aflica I judged that lle wrs a
man, propelly speakir-rg, ol'r-ro nrilrd at all. I don't rnean stulticl. T nrean
he was all emotion. By enrotional folce (Congo report,-Putunrayo etc.)
he lnade Iris way, alrd slreer enrotiorralism has unclone hinr. A creature
of sheer ternperament a truly tragic personality: all but the gleatness o1'
wlrich he hacl not r tl'rce. Only vanity. Br-lt in tlte Congo it was not
visible yet."
Yet iL renrains a fact that Casernent's reports on the Congo ancl the
Putunrayo did nruch to stop Lhe pervasive brutality Lhere ancl
,
in
Edmr-rnr.l Morel's opinion,
"innitctulaled
Lhe dirlon'racy of this country
[Britainl
with a rnolal toxin" suc]r l.hat
"historians
will cherish these
occasions as the only two irr which British cliplonracy rose above the
corTrrnonplace.
"
"'
In addilion lo the coincic.lr:rrces ol inrperizrlist histor.y, what brings
Crsement and Conrad together is the ploblent they joinLly create
concerning the rheLorical power ancl poliLical ell'ect of social l-ealisn't
and mythic realisrn. Belweelt the errlotionr1 consul general who wrote
el'fectively on Lhe side ol lhe colonized as a realis[ and a rationalist, and
the
lreat
arList who did not, lie rnany of the crucial problents
concerning Lhe domination ol culLure and cultures of domination.
The Putumayo Rcport
At this point it is instructive to analyze bliefly Casement's Putuntayo
reporL, which was submitted Lo Sir Edwarcl Crey, heerd i[ the Britislr
Foleign Service, and published by the House ol Comnrons on 13
July
l9l3 when Crsentent was forty nine years old.
At the oulset it shoulcl be nctecl that Casentent's attachntent to the
cause ol lrish holne rule and his anger rt British imperialism ntade his
rlmosL lile long work ls r British consul extremely fraught wi[h
contradiction; in adclition, he [e1t his experiences in Africa and South
America incrreased his undet'stancling ol the effecLs ol the colonialism in
lreland, which in [urn stilnulrLerd his stenograrphic tnd poliLical
sensibilities legarrding condilions south ol the equar[or. He claimed, lor
exanrple, ti'ral it was his knowledge o[ h'ish Iristoly which allowecl ]rirrr
to ulrderstand the Congo atrocilies, whel'eas the Foreign Ollice could
nol, becruse the enrpirical evidence lnacle no sense lo them (...).
Tlre essence of his 136-page Putumayo repolt, based on sever-l
weeds ol trrvel in 1910 thlough the rublter gather-ing aleas of the
junglc-:s ol Lhe Carerparan and lgalaparan afflueltLs o[ the middle
rear:hes ol the Putuntayo river, and on soltte six ntonl-lls in l.he Amazon
l(
basin, luy in its del,ail ol the [en'c)r and tortures together with
Casernenl"'s explanation of causes and his estinral-e o[ the toll in human
life. Puturnayo rubber'.would be unprolitable were it nol" lor the folced
labol of local Indians (
)
For the Lwelve years llom 1900, lhe
Putumayo outJrut of some 4,000 tons o[ rubber cost Lhousands of
Indians their lives. Deaths lronr tortut'e, disease, and possibly flight had
decreased the population ol Lhe atea by arouncl 30,000 duling thr[ tirne.
The British governrrenL felt obliged Lo send CasemenL as its
consular representative Lo the Putumayo because of the public ouLcry
aroused in 1909 by a series of rrl"icles in the London magazine, Truth;
the series depicted the brutalil,y o[ the t'ubber contpany, w]rich since
1907 had been a consorl-ium ol Peruvian and British interests in the
region. Entitled
"The Devil's Paradise: A British Owned Congo," these
articles were the work o[ a young
"engineer"
and adventurer from l"he
United States named Walter Hardenburg, who had with a companion
entered the remote corner o[ the Amazon basin from the Colonrbian
Andes in 1907 and had been taken prisoner by the Petuvian Rubber
Company founded by
Julio
Csar Arana in 1903 (...).
Casement's report Lo the House of Commons is staid and sober,
somewhat like a lawyer arguing a case and in marked conl"rast to his
diary covering the same expelience. He piles fact on brutal fact,
suggests an over-all analysis, and makes his recomtrendations. His
material comes lrom three sources: whal" he personally witnessed;
testimony of 30 Barbados blacks who, with 166 others, were conlracted
by the company during 1903-1904 to serve as overscers, and whose
statements occupy 85 published foolscap pages; and, interspersed with
Casement's direct observations, numerous stories fron-r local residents
and company employees.
Early on in the report, in a vivid tht'owaway line, he evokes the
banality of the cruelty.
"The
en-rployees at all the stations passed ttre
tine when not hunting Indians, either lying in their harnmocks or in
gambling. " The unreal atmosphere of ordinatjness, of the ordinariness
of the extraordinary, can be star-l"ling.
"At
solne ol the stations Lhe
principal flogger was the station crok - two such men were directly
named to me, and I ate the food they prepared, while nrany ol their
victims carried my baggage lrom sLaLion to station, and showed olLen
lerrible scars on their limbs inflicLed aI the hrnds of these men."''
From the evidence of scarring, Casement found that the
"great
rnajority" (perhzrps trp to 90 pelcent) of ttre nror-e than 1,600 Indians he
saw hacl been baclly lea(ern.''' Sornc-. rl'the wor-st aflected were snrall
boys, and clealhs due to flogging wclc: ft'equent, either undet'the lash,
or nrol'e fi'ec1uenl"Iy, a lew days laLer when Lhe wouncls becanre n'laggoL
infestecl.'o Floggings occurred wl-len al Indian brought in insullicient
rubber ard wcre nrost sadistic{or lhose who dared to flee. Flogging
was rnixed with other tortules such as neal drowning,
"designed,"
as
Casenrent poinLs ouL,
"to.iusL
sl"op short of taking life while inspiring Lhe
acute menLal fear and inflicting rr-ruch of the physical agony of death."''
Casement was inlormed by a man who had himself olten flogged
Indians that he had seerr nrothers flogged because their little sons had
not brought in enough lubber. While Lhe boy slood terrified and crying
at the sight, his nlol.hel wouid be beaten
"jusL
a few strokes" to make
him a better worker."'
Deliberate sl-arvation was reso'ted Lo repeatedly, sometmes to
frighten, nrore often to kill. Men and women were kept in Lhe stocks
until they died of hunger, One Balbrdian relaLed how he had seen
lndians in this situaLion
"scraping
up the diil with their fingers and
eaLing it." Another declared he had seen them eating l"he maggots in
their wounds.''
The sLocks were sonetimes placed on the upper verandah or
residential parL ol Lhe main dwelling house ol [he rubber statiorrs, ir-r
direct view o[ [lre manager and his enrployees. Children, n'len, and
won)en might be confined in Lhem lbr months, and some o[ the
Barbados nren said they hacJ seen women rarped while in the stocks.''
Much ol the surveillance and punishment was carried oul. by the
corps of Indian guards known as lhe nuchachos. Men-rbers ol this
armed corps had been trained by the conrpany from an early atge, and
were used to conl"'ol salvages other Lhan Lhose to whom they were kin.
Caseurent Lhoughl lhenr to be generally evely bit as evil rs their white
nrasl-ers.
"
when Barbadrs men were present, they were frequently
assigned the task of flogging, but, CasernenL emphasizes,
"no
monopoly
of flogging was enjoyed by zrny en-rployee as a right. The chiel of the
section ft'equently hinrsel[ [cok the lrsh, which, in turn, might bcr
wielded by evely nrember of the civilized or
'rational
staff."''"
"Such
rlen," l"eports Casenrent,
"had
lost all sight or sense oI
rubber-gaLhering
-
they were sir-nply beasts of prey who lived upon l"he
Indirns and delighted in shedding Lheir blood." Moleover, the station
managers lrorr the aleas where CasemenL got his ntost plecise
inlornration were n debt (despite lheir hrndsorne rrtes rl conrnrission)
,
running their operations aI a loss to Lhe con]plny which in sonre
sections ran [o nrany thousancls ol pouncls slerling.'
II is necessary aL this poinL lo noLe that rllhough the Indians
received the brunt c[ the teror, whites and blacks wele also targeLs.
Whether as cornpetitors lor Indian rubber gal"herers, like the
independent Colombian rubber traders who lirsL conclueled Lhe
Putumayo and were then dislodged by Arana's company in 1908, or as
employees of the company, extrenrely few escaped the ever-present
threat of degradation and torlure. Asked by Casen'rent if he c.licl not
know iL to be wl'ong Lo torlure Indians, one o1' the Balbados nten
replied that he was unable to rel'use orders,
"that
a nran might bct a ntut
down in Iquitos, but
'you
couldn'L be a rnan up there."'" In addition,
most ol the company's white and black ernployees were thernselves
trapped in a debt peonage sysLem, bul one quite different fr'onr the one
the company used in conlrolling its Indians.
From the Lestimony of the Barbados u'ren it is clear ttral
dissension, hatred, and mistrust ran riot anrong all rnembers ol the
company
-
to the degree thaL one has Lo consider seriously the
hypothesis that only in their group ritualization ol Lorturing Indians
could such anomie and mistrust be held in check, thus guaranLeeing Lo
the company the solidarity lequired [o susl"ain iL as an effective social
unit (. ..).
Casementrs Analysis
Casement's main line of analysis lies wiLh his argunrent that iL was not
rubber but labor that was scarce in the Pulumayo, and that this scarcity
was lhe basic cause ol the use of lerror. Pulunrayo rubber was ol the
lowesl qualiLy, Lhe rernoteness ol its source made its transpoll"
expensive relative to rubber from oLher zones, and wages for lree labor
were very high. Hence, he reasons, the company resorted to Lhe use ol
lorced labor under a debL-peofTage sysLem, and usecl tollule to rnaintain
labor discipline.
The problern with this arrgunrent, which lssurres tl're pulported
rationality of [rrrsiness ancl the carJriLal logic ol" ccimmcldities (such as
labor), is thrl. it encounters cer'tain contladicLirins utcl, wltile not exzrr:tly
wfoltg, stl'ikes Ir)e as givittg insLtl['icient w,eigltt [i lwo lLlrrclanterrtrl
cctnsidel'a1ions.
'lhe
lirst cortsiclerrtiol-t concelns thc-r Irr'rns of' lrlor rlrc]
econonric orgirnizaLion LhaL locrl history and lndirn sor:iety ntacle
avrilalle, ol potentierlly availzrble, to worlcl capitarlisnt in lhe jungles ol
the Puturnayo. T'he second,
ituI
cruclely, is Llrrt ten'ol'anc] [orture do not
derive only h'ctr-n ntalkeL pressure (which we can legard here as a
Lrigger) buI also [r'cl'n the process ol culturrl consLruction o| evil as
werll.
'Marke[
plcrssule" assulles the
tarradignt
of scalcity essential lct
czrpitarlist econorrisI zrncl cerpitalist socioecoltcllir: l"heory. Leaving aside
Lhe quesLion ol hcw rccurate a clepiction of'capiLalist sociel"y results
lrom Lhis parardignr, it is highly clurLrior-ls that it reverls much ol the
rezrlity ol the Putun'raryo l'trbber boont where Lhe problem facing
capitalisL enterprise was precisely that thele were no capitalist social
inslituLions and no nrarl<eI for lbstlacl labol inlo which capital cor-rld be
led and nrultipliecl. Indee:d, one could go f'urther to develop an
algurnent which begins with the plernise that it wers.iusL this lack cl
conl'nocli,l ized social relationships, in inLeraction with contntodity lorces
erranartirrg ll'on-r the world rubbel' nrakel-, Lhat accounts for the
production ol LorLure and terror. We can sery Lhat the cultule ol terror
was lunctional to the needs ol the labor syslem, but t"haL tells us little
abouL the most signilicant contradic,tions tc ernerge lrom Casertrent's
report, namely, LhaL the slaughter ol this precious labor was olt a scale
vasL beyond beliel, and that, as Casement hintsell s[rtes, no1 only were
Lhe sLrtion managers costing ther conrpany large sums of money but thaL
"such
nren had losL all sight or sense ol ubber gathering
-
they were
sirnply beasLs ol prey who lived upon Lhe Indians and delighted in
sheclcling Lheir blood." To clairrr the rationality ol business lor this is lo
clrirn rnd sustailr an illusctly rationali(y, obsculing our understzrnding ol
the way business can translorrn the use ol Lerror ll'orn [he rneans inLc
rn end in itself.
The consideration ol local hislory and econclmic organization
lecluires far'fuller lreatment than crn be attenrltted here. Br-lL iL should
be noted in perssing lhat
"scarciLy"
of lzrbor clnnol reler to a scarcity ol
Incliarrs, of whonr Lhele seems to have been an rbundance, buL rather
Lo the fact LhaL the h-rdians would not work in tl're regr-rlal and
dependable nranr)er ltecessary to a large sczrle capitalist enter'1_llise.
Caselnent downplayecl this ptrenorrenon, now ol'Lerrl relerrec.l I.c as
"the
backward sloping supply culve o['labor," rrrcl ilid so even though irr
[he Congo he had hinrsell contplainecl Lltat the problent was that the
natives would not work,'" he lelt sure thrt if paid with more goods, the
Indirns would work to Llre level required by the colllpany withoul
lorce. Many people with lar lotrget'experience in lhe Pr:[untayo deniecl
this naive assertion and poinLecl out, witlr logic as irn:eccable as
Casenlenl"'s, thaL the scalcity ol labcr and the ease with which the
Indians could live olf the forest obliged employers elsewhere in Lhe
Putumayo to treat them with colrsideraticlr." ln either case, however,
wiLh or without use ol coelcion, the labor producLiviLy obtainecl lell lar
shorl" o[ what enrploye-'r's desired.
l'he conLradicLions nrounI lt"rrthel on close exanrinal-iorl ol the
debt-peonage system, which Casenrent egards
as slavery. I[ was t
pretexl", he says, thaL the Indian irt such a relation was in debt, lor the
lndian was bound by physical lorce to work lor the conrpany ancl
could not es.op"." One then nrusl. ask why the company persisted irr
Lhis prelense, especially given the lneans ol ccercion at its disposal.
Accounts of advances paid in goods (such as rnachetes, cloth,
shotguns) were supposedly kept for each rubber gal.herer; lhe advances
were roughly equal to livepence per pound weight of rubbel', which
was fetching thr"ee shillings Lenpence on the London nrarket irr 1910
(
)
A station manager l"old Casenrent that the Indians nevel'asked the
price or value of rubber. Sometimes a single coin was given (...). Yet, it
would be naive to suppose that the lndians lacked interest or
understanding o[ lhe Lerms rf trade and of what the whites got for
rubbel in the outside world.
"You
buy these with the rubber we
produce," said an Indian chief as one enLrarlced, looking through
Casement's binoculars."'
Pretext as il. was, l"he debt which ensured peonage was
nonetheless real, and as a pretense its magical realisnt was as essential
to the labor organization of the Putumayo rubber boorn as is thet
"commodity
liction" Karl Polanyi describes for a nratttte capilalist
economy." To analyze Lhe consl-ruclirn of these lictional realities we
need now to turn [o sorrte o[ their more obviously mythic leatures,
enclosed as they are in the synergistic relation of savagery and
business, cannibalisnt and capiLalisnr (...).
Jungle
and Savagery
There is a problenl that I have clnly hinLed at in all of the accounts of
l"he atrocities ol t"he Putunrayo rubber
_boom.
Whle the imrnensil,y o[
the cruelty is beyond quesLion, llrost 3f' lhe evidence comes Lhrough
sLor-ies. The nreticulr:us lrisLrrian wourld seizc upon [his facL as r
challerrge tc wirrnow ouL tl'uLh fi'onr exarggel'rtion or undelstaLen)ent.
But the rncrre basic inrplical,ion, it sc-rens [o rne, is thal" the narralives are
in thetnselves evidet"tce of the process whereby culture of terror was
createcl a nd sustained.
Two interlacing nrotils sLrnd out: the hcn'or"s ol lhe jungle, and
the hollols of savager"y. All the lacts are benl. Lhrough the plisrn lblmecl
by these rnotifs, which (...) mediate effective trtth noL so much through
Lhe dissernination ol infonnaLion as through Lhe appeal of
tempel'anrerrts through sensoly impressions. Hele the European and
colonisL inrzrge ol Lhe prirneval jungle with its vines and rubber trees
and dominatirn of nran's drnrination s[ands lorth as the colonially apt
metaphor of the great space o[ terror and deep cruelties. (Europe lal"e
nineLeenth century,
rcneLrating
the ancient forests of the tropics.) (...).
But o[ course it is not tlre jungle but the sentiments men project
inlo il" l"hat is decisive in lilling their hearLs with savagery. And whal the
jungle can acconrplish, so rnuch nrore can its nalive inhabitanls, Lhe
wild Inclians, like those tortured inl.o gathering rubber. It lnusL not be
overlooked that [he colonially consl.ructed irnage o[ the wild Indian
llere at stake was er powerlully ambiguous image, a seesawing,
bilocalizerd, ancJ hazy ctrrnposite ol the animal and l"he hurnan. In lheir
hunran or hunran lil<e lonn, the wild Indirns could all the bctter lellecl"
back to the colonists the vast and baroque projections of human
wildness that the colonists needed to establish their realil,y rs civilized
(not l"o mentiorr business like) pcople. And it was only because Lhe
wild Indians werc hunran that tlrey were able ti serve as labor
-
and as
subjects ol'torlure. For iL is rrol Lhe victinr as aninral Lhat glaLilies the
tolturer, bul" Lhe ct Lhal lhe victinl is hunrart, Lhus enrbling Llre torturer
to becone the savage.
How Savage lere thc Huitotos?
The savagery ol the wild Indians occupied zr key role in the
propaganda of the rubber company (.. .).
IYetl ltlinre
and again Casenrenl, Lells us LhaL Lhe Huitotos and all
Upper Anrazon Indians were gentle and docile. He downplays lheir
cannibalisnr, says that they were thoughtless raLhel than cruel, and
regards their docility as a nalural and remalkable chalacteristic.
'l'his
helps hirn to explain l-he erse with which they were concluered ancl
lorced to gzrlher rubber (...). Yet, on the other hand, suc]r clociliLy
nrakes the violence of the whiLes even harder to undelsLarrd.
Many points can be conlested in Casenrent's l'endering hele, such
as his assertion of' the degree ol chiefly power and the deceptive
simplici he evokes with regard to the issue of toughness and
tenderness in a society so foreign to his own. It sl-roulcl rlso noL be
forgotten that the story he warrl,ed to Lell was one o[ innccent ancl
gentle child-like Indians bn-rtalized by the rubber conpury, rnd this
conl"rolling inrage gives his report considerable rhetorical power. In
addilion there was his tendency to equate the sulferings ol Lhe hish
wi[h those ol the Indians and see in bol"h ol l"]reir preirrrperialist
histories a cull-ure more humane Lhan thaL of Lheil civilizing overlolds.
(Conrad never indulged in that kind of translerence.) Still another lactor'
blended with the floregoing, and that was the innate tendelness ol
Casement's character and his ability Lo dlaw that quality out of others,
as testil'ied by nunreror-rs people. It is this aspecl" of his hontosexuality,
and nol sexual lust, which should be dwelt on hele, as shown, for
exanrple, in this nol-e in his Putumayo diary:
(...) floggings and putting in guns and lloggings with maclretes acloss
the back (.). I bathed in the river, delightfirl, and Andokes
llndians]
car-re down artcl cauglit br-rtterflies for Barnes ancl I. Thelr a caJltain
llndiar-i
chiefl enrblaced us laying his l'reacl clown against our breasts, T
never saw so touchilrg a thing, poor sorrl, he f'elt we wele tlreir'friencls."
Allred Silnson, an Er-rglishrnan who t'rvelled Lhe Putunrayo and
Narrr,i rivers in Lhe 1880s and spenL lar rnore Linre there than Casernent,
conveys ar pictur'e cltrite clillerenL h'on'r Casernent's." (...)
Sinrson was c-:rnrloyecJ on the first steanr launch lo ascencl the
Putunrayo ( .) Hernce he wiLnessecl the opening of thc rep;ion 1o
nroder'n conunelr'ce, and was in a speciarl position to obselve the
insLituonalization of ideologies concerning race and class. Not only
does he presenl, a contrary and more complex eslimate of Indian
toughness than does Casement: he also provides the clue and
ethnographic motif necessary to understand why such contrary images
coexist and flourish, how Indian images of wildness come half-was as it
were, to meet and merge with white colonial images of savagery, and,
finally, how such imagery functions in the creation of terror
(...).
Sirnson notes that wha[ he calls the
"pure
lndians o[ the forest"
are divided, by whites and Spanish-speaking Indians, into two classes;
Indians (lndiol
and heathens
(nfeles).
The Indios are
Quichua-
speahing, salt-eating, semi-Christians, whlle the heathens, also known
as-aucas\speak distinct languages, eat salt rarcly, and know nothing of
baltism/or of the Catholic Church.'" In passing it should be observed
that today, if not in times long past, the term auca also connotes
cannibals who roam the forest naked, re without marriage rules, and
practice incesl (...).
I should add that the highland Indian shaman with whom I work
,.in
the Colombian Andes which overlook the Putumayo jungle regards
' the jurrgle shamans below as aucas, as animailspirit hybrids possessing
great magic. He singles out the Huitotos as a spiritual force with whom
he makes a mystical pact in incantations and songs, with or without

hallucinogens, to assure the success of his own magical battles with
'evil.
It is crucirl Lo grasp the dialectic ol senLit'nents involved here by
the appelation auca, a dialectic enshrouded in magic and composed ol
boLh lear zurd conLenrpt identical to the ntysticisnt, hatred, and awe
projecterd onto the Zionlst socialisL Tinrernrrn in the torture charnlers of
the ntilitarry. In [he case o[ lhe aucas, this projecl"ion is inseparable lron'r
lhe imputaLion ol theil lesistance [o sacrec] imperial authority and Lhe
further inrxlter(ion of rlagiczrl power possessed by lowland lorest
dwellers as a class ancl by their oracles, seers, and healel s
-
their
shanans in palticular. Moreover, [his indigenous, ancl what ntary well
be a ple Colombirn, construction blends with the nledievrl European
rnythology ol the Wild Man bloLrght to the Andes rnd the Anrazon by
[he Spzrnierrds and Porluguese. Today, in the upper reaches ol Lhe
PLrttrrrayo with which I rnt acquainled, the ntyt.hology ol auca and
Wilcl Man undellies the resc-l't to Indian sllut'ru'ts by white and black
colonists who seek cure front sol'cery rnd hard Lirnes, while these very
surre colorrists deslise Ilrclirns rs savages."' In [he rubber boolr, wiLh
ils desperal-e nered fbl Indiarr labor, the satne nrytholoy nourished
ircalcr-rlable cruelty and palanoir on the palt of the whites (...).
Narr ative Mediation : Epistcmic Murk
lL seenrs lc ure that stories like these were lhc groundwolk
indispensable Lo the lormation and flowering ol the colonial
in'ragination during the Putumayo rubber boom. Their irnagination wars
cliseased," wrote the Peruvian judge Rn'rulo Paredes in 1911, relerring
to the rubber-station Inanagers,
"and
they saw everywhete aLl"acks by
Indians, conspirercies, uprisings, l-reachery eLc.; and in ordel to save
themselves lrom these fancied perils (...) they killed, and killecl witlrout
compassion.""' Far lrom being Lrivial daydreams indulged irt alter wot'k
was over, these stories and the intagination they sustained were a
potent political force without which the wrrk cil conquest and ol
supervising rubber gathering could nol have bcen acconlplished. What
is essenLial to undersLand is the way in which Lhese sLories functioned
to create, through nragical realism, a culLure of terror dorllinating both
whiles and Indians.
The inrporLance of this labulous work extends beyond the epic
and grotesque qualil"y ol its content. The lruly ctucial leaLule lies in
creaLing an uncertain r-earliLy out ol liction, a nighLmarish rezrliLy in
which the unstable inlerplay of trulh and illusicttr beconles a social
force of horrendous and phantasmic dintensions. To an important
extenl all socieLies live by licl"ions taken as reality. What distinguishes
culLures o[ lerror is thaL the episLentological, ontological, and olherwise
purely philosophical ploblen-r ol reality-and-illusion, cerLain[yand-
doubt, becomes inlinitely ntore than zr
"mcrely"
philosophiczrl problerlr.
It becomes a high-powered tool lor dontination and a principal
nredium of political practicc. And in the Pulunrayo r:ubber boonr tltis
nredium of epistemic altd ontc-ilogical nturk was nlost keenly ligured
and objecLivism as the space ol death.
ln his report, Paredes Lells us that Lhe rubbel'-sLaLion malllgers
lived obsessed wiLh cleaLh.
'Ihey
saw danger everywhere ancJ thought
solely ol the lacL tl'rat they were surrounded by vipers, tigers, and
cannibals. It is these ideas ol death, he wriLes, whiclr constanLly struck
Lheil inraginrLic-rns, n'raking
(hcln
Len'ifled and capable ol any ac[. Lke
childlen who leacl tlrc'. Arabian Nigltt,s, he goes on to say, Lhcy had
nightnrares ol witches, evil spiril"s, cleaLh, treason, rnd blood. Thc only
wzry they courlcl livc in such ar ter.rilying world, he observes, was by
therrselves inspiring terror.""
Sociological and Mythic Mediation: The Muchachos
ll'it was Lhe telling ol tales which rnerdiated inspiraLion ol Lhe tcrror,
,^
tlren it bchooves us [o incluire a little into [he sociological agency
i
"
j
wlrich nrcdiaLed this rnediaLion, nanrely, tl-re corps of Indian guards
\,y'
I
tr-airrecl lry thc corrpany ancl known as the filuchachos. For in Rrnuki
-?aredes's
wolcls, they wele
"consLanLly
devising execlll-ions and
conLinually levealing meetings ol Indians licking tobacco'
-
which
meanl an oath tc kill white lnen imaginary uprisings which never
exisLecl, ancl other sinrilar crirres.""'
MedizrLing rs civilized or r'rtional Indians between the savages ol
Lhe lorest and Lhe whiLes ol the rubber camps, the muchachos
personilied all the critical disLinctions in lhe class and casle systenr of
rubber ploduction. Cut otf fronr their own kind, whom they persecuted
and betr-ayed and in whonr they inspired envy and ha[red, and now
classified as cjvilizecl yet dependenI on whites lor food, arms, and
goods, lhe ntuchacos wroughl lo perlection all lhrt was hon'ilying in
the colonial nryLhology ol savagely bccause they occupied thc perlect
sociological and nrythic sprce l"o do so. Not only did they create lictions
stoking the fires ol'wl-rite parernoia, thcy en-rbodied the brutality which
the whites feared, created, and tr-ied l-o halness to their own ends. ln a
very liLeral sense, lhe,. ntuchacios trrded their identity as savages lor
theil new social sLaLus as civilizecl lnclians and guards. As Paredes
notes, Lhey placed rL Lhe disposal rl the whiLes
"their
special insLincLs,
such as sense ol direcLion, scenl-, Lheir sobliety, and theil- knowledge of
lhe lorest."t'
Just
as they bor.rghL rubber from the wild lndians of Lhe
lorest, sr Lhe whites arlso boughl Lhe auca like savage insLincl,s ol the
Indian ntuchar:hos.
Yet, unlike rubber, Lhese savage inslincts were manulacLurr:d
largely in Lhe imaginarLions ol Lhe Whtes. All the ntur:hachos had Lo do
in rrdel l-o receive theil rewards was to objectily and through words
8
rellect back to the whites the phantoms thal. populated colonist culture.
Given Lhe centuries oI colclnierl rnythology concernirrg the rurr ancl the
Wild Mrn, and given the in-rplosion ol Llris rlythology in thc
ccrr[radicl-rr'y soc:ial being of the tnur:ltac:hrs, Lhe Lrsk wts an easy otte.
'l'|rc
ntuchac./os' sLories wcre, in lacL, stc.ries within a tlttch older sl.ory
encompassing the ntucltaclx,s as o[)ects of' r cclonirlisL discotrse
ral,lter Lhan as its authors.
The trading sysLem of debt-peonae establisl'recl by ttre Ptttt-unayo
rubber boon was thus rlole than a trade in wltite goods fot' rubber
galhered by the lndians. It was also a Lrade in terrilying mytltologies
and fictional realities, pivoted on Lhe rnediation o[ the tnuchachos,
whose storytelling bartered betrayal o[ lndian realities fol the
conlilrnation of colonial lantasies.
The Colonial Mirror
I began this essay sLatling that my concern was with tlle lrrediation o[
the culture of terrcr through nalration, and with Lhe plobleltrs ol wliting
against tert'or. In parl my concern stemmed fronr my problertts in
evaluating and intelpreting the
"facts"
constituLed in the various
accoun[s oI the Putumayo atrocities. This probletn oI irrterpretatirn
grew ever largcr, eventually bursling inlo the r-ealizrtirn that that
problern is precisely what is cenLral Lo the culture of terrot
-
not only
making eflectivc talking and writing againsI terror extLernely diflicult,
but, even more to the poir-rt, n'raking the telrible reality o[ the death
squads, disappealances, and [ortur-e all the nlore efl'cctively crirplirrg ol
people's capacity to rcsist.
Whilc much attention is gven [o
"ideology"
in lhe social sciences,
virtually none as lar as I know is given Lo Lhe lacl l"hat people delineate
Lheir world, lncluding its large as well as its rnicrc,-scale poli(ics, in
stories and story-like creations antl very rarely, il ever, in ideologies (as
custonrarily delined). Surely it is in the coils oIrumor, gossip, story, artd
chit-chaL
lthatl
ideology and ideas beconle enrotionerlly powerlul and
enLel into tclive social circulation and nteaninglul existerlce. So iI wts
with the Putunrayo ter-ror. from the accol-nts o[ whit:h it seerns clt:ar
that Lhe colonists ancl rubber contpany er-nployees not only ferred br-rt
also themselves created through narration fearftl ancl conlusing intages
ol savzrgcry
-
inrages which bound colonial sor:iety together Lhlough
[lre epistenric lnurk ol Lhe sl]ace ol deat]r. The sysl.elt-rs ol tclt'tut'e the-y
clevised to scctl'e rubbel r.l-lirrolecl tlre holror of the savagery they so
[earc.d, conclerlned
-
alrd f icticlnrlized. Morcoverr, when we consic]er
the task oi cleating collntctrel)r'esentttions and countetdiscourses, we
rnust take stock of the way that InosL if not all the narratives
reprocluced by Harrdenburg zrnd Caso'tnent, relerring to and critical o[
the atr'<-rci[ies, wcre sirttilzrrly lictiortalizecl , drawing upon l.]re sante
1:isl-orically nlorlclecl soLrrce that men succunrbcd [o when tot'Lut'ing
Indians.
Torture nd terrol in the Putunrayo werer rnotivatecl by the need
for chearp labor. Btrt lab<r per se
-
labor as a cornnroclity
-
dicl not exist
in Lhe jungles ol l.lre Calerpalan arrd lgararparan alfluents rf the
Putunrayo. Whrt exisLecl was not a nrat'ke[ fbr labor buL a sociely and
culture o[ human beings whom the colonists callec] lrdiat-s, irrationals,
ancl savages, with their vety specilic historical trajectory, form o[ lile,
and nrodes ol exchange. lrr lhe blundering colonial attempt to dovetril
forcibly the capiLalist comlnodiLy-strucLure [o one or the other ol the
possibiliLies lor rubber gaLllering oilercd by lJrcse nrodes of exchange,
torl.ure, as Casenrent a1ludcs, Look on a lil'c ol iLs t-lwt-r:
"JusL
as the
a>retite conles ir the eating sc each crime led on to fresh crit'nes.""" To
this we should adcl that, sLel by step, ter'or and torLure becarre /e
lornr of lile lor sonre filteen years, an organized culLure with its
systerrratized lulc.s, inragery, plocedures, and meanings involved in
speclzrcles and rituals Lhat sustained the precarious solidaril,y ol' the
rubber company errrplclyees as well as beating ou( tltlough the bocly o[
the tortured sonte sort ol canonical truth rbt-lu( Civilization and
Business.
l[ was not conrnodity [etishisrn but debt letishisnt dtenched in the
licl,ive realiLy cl' lhe clebL-peonagc ir-tstiLuLion, with its enlorced
"advrnces"
and lheatle-like farce o[ business exchanges, that exercisecl
the dccisivc hrrr:e ir the creation r,l 1c:rror, translorrnilrg lortur-e lrom tht'r
status o[ a. rnearrs Lo lhat ol the nrode if not, linally, the very aim ol
productiorr.
Fronr Lhe reports of both Timernran and Casenrent it is cbvious
[hrt torture and institutionalized terror is likc a ritual arL forrn. and thrt
far fi'on being spontaneous, sui generis, and an abandolrnent o[ whrt
are olten called
"the
vrlues of civilizrLior," suc]r rites ]rave a cleelr
9
history deriving power and meaning fronr those values. What demands
lurther analysis here is lhe mimesis beLween the sava1er"y a(tributecl to
the Indians by the colonists ancl the savagery perpeLlal"ecl by the
colonists in l"he name of what
Julio
Csar Arrnr called civilizaLion.
This reciplocerting yet distorted ntimesis has been ancl continues
to be o[ great importance in the constluction ol'colonirl culture
-
l/re
colonial mirror which reflects back onto the colonisLs the barbalil,y of
their own social relal-ions, but as imputed to the savage or cvil ligures
they wish to colonize. It is highlighted in the Puturmayo in tJ-re colonisL
lore as related, lor insLance, through
Joaquin
Rocha's lur"id tale ol
Hr-riLoto cannibalisnr. And whaL is put into discourse [hrclugh the artlul
story telling of the colonisl.s is the sanre as whal" they practiccd on the
bodies of Indians.
Tenaciously embedded in this arl"ful ptactice is a vast and
mystifying Western hisl"ory and iconography ol evil in the inragery r-rf
the inferno and the savage
-
wedded Lo and inseparable lronr paradise,
utopia, and the good. It is to the subversion of that apocalypl"ic dialecl"ic
that all of us would be advised tr bend our counterdiscursive efforts, i-l
a quite different poetics o[ good-and-evil whose cathartic force lies noL
with caLaclysmic resolution o[ contradictions but with their clisruption.
Post-Enlightenment European culture llakes it dilficull" if not
impossible Lo penetrate the hallucinatory veil ol t1're heall. ol darkness
wilhouL eithel succunrbing to its hallucinatory quality or' losing Lhal"
quality. Fascist poetics succeed where liberal rationalisrtr sell-destructs.
But what nright point a way out of this impasse is precisely whal, is so
painlully absent from all the Puturnayo accounts, nanrely, the nartaLive
and narrative mode o[ the Indians whic]r does do sensationalize terror
so that Lhe histrionic str-ess on the nrysLerious side of the mysLelious (to
adopt Benjarnin's formula) is indeed denied by an optic which
perceives ttre everyday as impenetrable, ttre inrpenetrable as everyday.
At least this is tlre poetics of the sorcery and shamanism I know about
in the upper reaches ol the Putumayo, buL that is another tristory lor
anoLher time, not only ol [error buL of healing as well.
NOTES
I lar:obo
'l'irrr-:rrnur,
Prisoner witltout a Natnc, Cell wilhout a Number
(New York: Vinrage Books, l982), p. 164.
2 Tirrrerrman, Prisonet", p.28.
3 l'irrelm an, Prisone4 p. 1 1 1.
4 Tinrerntar, Prisoner, p.52.
5 Michel Foucault,
"Truth
lncl Power" in Power/Kttowledge, ed. Colin
Gordon (New York: Pantheon, 1980), p. 118.
6 Tinrennan, Prisoncr, pp. 62, 66.
7 Frederick R. Karl,
Joseph
Conrad: The Three llves (New
Frrru', Straus ancl Giroux, 1979), p. 286.
8 Brian Inglis, Roger Cascnent (London: Hodder Paperbacks,
York:
ts7 4)
,
p.32. . . .
9 Karl,
Josepb
Conrad, p. 289 n.
10 Inglis, Roger Casentenl, p. 46.
l1 House of. Contntons Sessional Paters, 1913, vol. 68 (hereafter cited
as CasenrenL, Puturnayo Report), p. 17.
12 lbid., p. 34.
l3 Ibid., p. 33, 34.
14 Ibid., p. 37.
15 Ibid., p. 39.
16 Ibid., p. 37.
17 lbid., p, 39.
18 lbid, p. 42.
19 Ibid., p.31. From various csti-nates it appears that the ral"io of
arnred supervisors to wilci lndians gatlrer-ing rubbel was somewhere
between 1:16 and 1:50. Of these armed super- visors, lhe
ntuchachos outnumbered the whites by around 2:1. See Howard
WolJ' and Ralph Woll, Ruer: A Story of Glory and Greed
(New
York: Covici, F-riede, 1936), p BB
CasemenL, Puturnayo Report, p 33.
lbid., p. 44 45.
Ibid., p. 55.
lnglis, Roger Casentenl, 29.
Rocha, Metnoranclunt de un viaje (Bogot: Editorial El Merculio,
1905), pp 123 4, asserts Lhat because the Indians are
"naturally
lorlers" they postpone paying off their' Ldvances frorn the rubber
Lraders, thus ccnpelling the Lraders to use physical violence.
Casement, British Parliamenl,ary Select Committee on Putumayo,
House of Contntons Sessional Papers, 1913, vol. 14, p. I 13, #2809.
20
2T
22
23
24
25
10
Z6
27
28
29
Peter SingleLon-Gates and Maurice Girodias. The Black Diaries
(New York: Grove Press, 1959), p. 261.
Karl Polanyi, The Great Tt"ansformal.orr
(Boston: Beacon Press,
1957), p. 72. Cf. Michael Taussig, The Devil and Contntorlity
Fetisltisnt in Soutlt Americ'a (Chapel Hill. University ol Ncrl"h
Carolina Prcss, 1980).
Petes Singleton-Gates and Mautice Girodias, The Black Diaries
(New York: Grave Press, 1959), p.251.
Allrecl Sirnson, Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador and the Exploratiort
ofthe Putuntayo Rre.r'(London: Samsotr Low, 1886), p. 170.
Alfred Sinrson, Travels p 58.
Michael Taussig,
"Folk
Healing and the Structure of Concluest,"
Journal
ofLatin Anet'ican Lore,6(2) (1980) .217-78.
Rrnulo Paredes,
"Conlidential Report to the Ministry ol Foreign
Relations, Peru," September 1911, translated in U.S. Consul Cl"rarles
C. Eberhardt. Slavety in Peru 7 February 1913, report prepared for
U.S. House ol Representatives, 62d Cong., 3d Sess., 1912, H. Doc.
1366, p. 146.
Paredes,
"Confidential
Report," in Eberhardt, Slavety in Peru, p. 158.
lbid., p. 147.
lbid., p. 147.
Casement, Puluntayo Report, p. 44
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