"In the vicinity of Nanta are a great many Indian tribes, amongst which are...the Connibos...and at least a dozen others; their languages all dialectic, and their physiological traits and colour altogether prove them to be only bands or sections of one great family...Of the South American tribes there are none nearer approaching to their primitive state than many of the tribes about the heads of the Amazon; and amongst these I spent some time.
"They have forests full of game, and rivers full of fish, and all the varieties of palms with their various kinds of fruit; and also the immense plains or pampas, stocked with wild horses and wild cattle for food, and for their skins and hair, which are articles of commerce with them. From these combined advantages they insure an easy and independent living, and have therefore the fewest inducements to adopt civilized modes of life.
"A ride across the Pampa del Sacramento, and a passage of the Yucayali in a canoe, afforded me some of the loveliest views of country I ever beheld, and some of the most interesting visits I have ever made to Indian tribes...The Connibos, of some two or three thousand...
"The Connibos live upon the borders of the pampa, but build their villages in the edge of the forest. A village generally consists of but one house, but a curious house it is; it is a shed, and sometimes thirty or forty rods in length, constructed of posts set in the ground, to the tops of which are fastened horizontal timbers supporting a roof most curiously and even beautifully thatched with palm leaves...
"The Connibo wigwam, or shed, contains some times several hundreds of persons, and the families are separated only by a hanging screen or partition, made of palm-leaves, suspended across the shed. Like all the tribes in the valley of the Amazon, they sleep in hammocks slung between the posts of their sheds, when at home; and when travelling, between trees, or stakes driven into the ground. How curious are houses without doors, where, instead of walking in, we walk under ! I have given an account of the Skin-builders, the Dirt-builders, the Bark-builders, the Grass-builders, the Timber bm’lders, the Nest-builders, and we now come to the Shed-builders...
"The Connibos...and all other tribes on the Yucayali and the Upper and Lower Amazon, have the same fondness for “ dress,” which is paint, according to his or her freak or fancy...The Connibos...are one of the most curious, and ingenious, and intelligent tribes I met with.
"They seemed proud of showing me their mode of manufacturing pottery, which was in itself a curiosity, and in some respects would do credit to any civilized race. They have a place somewhat like a brick-yard on the edge of the prairie near their village, where the women mix and beat the clay with a sort of mallet or paddle, and afterwards mould (or rather model) it into jars for their turtle butter,
George Catlin (1796 –1872) Connibos Return from Turtle Hunt
"and also into a hundred different and most ingenious forms-into pitchers, cups, pots, and plates; and what is actually astonishing to the beholder, these are all made in the most perfect roundness and proportion without the aid of a wheel, by the rotary motion of the hand and adjustment of the fingers and mussel-shells which they use in giving form. After these are dried in the sun sufiiciently, the painting operation begins, which is a curious scene, and performed by another set of artists, and some of them, evidently, with a talent worthy of a better place. With red and yellow, blue and black colours which they extract from vegetables, and brushes they make from a fibrous plant they get amongst the rushes at the river shore, these colours are laid on, and often blended and grouped in forms and figures that exhibit extraordinary taste. Painted, they are then passed into the hands of old women, whose days for moulding and painting have gone by, but who are still able to gather wood and build fires on the sands at the river side where they are carried and baked; whilst the old women are tending to them, with hands clenched, they dance in a circle around them, singing and evoking the Evil Spirit not to put his fatal hand upon and break them in the fire. Those that come out with out the touch of his fingers (uncracked) are then removed to the village and glazed with a vegetable varnish or resin which they gather from some tree in the forest. This pottery, though it answers their purpose, is fragile and short-lived, being proof for a short time only against cold liquids, and not proof against those that are hot. The sole weapons of these people, and in fact of most of the neighbouring tribes, are bow and arrows, and lances, and blow-guns, all of which are constructed with great ingenuity, and used with the most deadly effect."
George Catlin author Life Among the Indians 1861.
