The River of Doubt (57 page)

A
fter completing this book, I have more people to thank than there are miles on the River of Doubt. To no one, however, do I owe a greater debt of gratitude than to my husband, Mark Uhlig. Mark inspired me not only to work hard but to think hard, to expand my vision of this book until it far exceeded even my earliest dreams for it. Without his invaluable advice and unfailing support, this book would be much smaller in scope and spirit than it is—as would my life.

I am also deeply indebted to James Chace, who first introduced me to the River of Doubt and encouraged me to write about it. James was a constant source of help and inspiration during his lifetime, and continues to be one even now, after his untimely death. For decades, countless writers, editors, policymakers, and students gravitated to him, drawn to his keen intellect, rare originality, and remarkable generosity. Like all great teachers, his influence will be felt for generations to come.

As an editor at
National Geographic
magazine, I was always impressed by the dedication of scientists and other specialists who would spare no effort to ensure that the magazine got everything right, down
to the last detail. As a writer, struggling to understand the intricacies of the Amazon rain forest, I was thrilled and grateful to find that those same experts—men and women at the top of their professions—were as willing to help an individual as they were a venerable institution like the National Geographic Society. Time and again, scientists who did not know me, and who had no personal stake in my work, generously volunteered their time to answer my endless questions, recommend the best books and journals, and introduce me to other experts in their field. They never complained when I called back for the thousandth time with “just one more question,” and they never failed to amaze me with the breadth and depth of their knowledge.

Robert Carneiro, one of the world’s pre-eminent anthropologists and the American Museum of Natural History’s specialist on South America’s indigenous peoples, not only patiently explained man’s earliest migrations into and throughout South America but made inquiries on my behalf, introduced me to people connected to Cândido Rondon, and, later, carefully read my manuscript and offered valuable insights and suggestions. Marcelo de Carvalho, a Brazilian ichthyologist also on the staff of the American Museum of Natural History, helped me peer into the fascinating depths of the South American rivers he knows so well. Douglas Daly, the respected curator of Amazonian botany at the New York Botanical Garden, graciously answered my many questions about the Amazon’s most influential inhabitants—its trees and other plant life. Flávio Lima of the Museu de Zoologia da USP provided me with critical information that I could not have found anywhere else, and was my best source on a river whose remoteness has deterred many other scientists. Douglas Stotz, an ornithologist at Chicago’s Field Museum who has often worked along the banks of the Aripuanã, described to me the joys and challenges of collecting birds in the Amazon. He is, in many ways, a modern-day George Cherrie. Doctors Paul Uhlig and Stephen Calderwood, with Massachusetts General Hospital, generously gave their time and considerable expertise to help me better understand tropical illnesses and bacterial infections.

The children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the men
of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition were also, without exception, kind, generous, and immensely helpful. Of Roosevelt’s descendants, I owe the greatest thanks to Tweed Roosevelt, who in 1992, with a team of twenty men and women, successfully retraced his great-grandfather’s expedition from the River of Doubt’s deadly serpentine headwaters to its juncture with the Aripuanã. Sincere thanks also go to Willard Roosevelt, Kermit’s only surviving child; Kermit Roosevelt III, Kermit’s grandson and namesake; Edith Williams; Sarah Chapman; and Elizabeth Aldred. Many thanks too to Deb Cherrie, George Cherrie’s great-granddaughter-in-law, and Hubert Cherrie, the ornithologist’s grandson, who has inherited his grandfather’s wit and courage.

While in Rio de Janeiro, I also had the good fortune to meet several of Marshal Cândido Rondon’s grandchildren. Maria Beatriz Rondon Amarante generously invited me to her home, where she and her cousins, Maria Ignez Rondon Amarante, Angelo Christiano Rondon Amarante, and Pedro Henrique Bernardes Rondon, answered my questions and shared with me illuminating and little-known details about their grandfather and his beloved Chiquita.

For introducing me to Marshal Rondon’s grandchildren and explaining the design of Rondon’s telegraph stations, I thank Patricia and Mario Civelli. I am grateful to Lucrecia Franco for being my knowledgeable and cheerful guide through the libraries and museums of Rio de Janeiro, and to the intrepid Pedro Varela for traveling with me to remote and inhospitable stretches of the Amazon and helping me find and interview a group of Cinta Larga who remember well their tribal history. For helping me find translators and experts and track down last-minute letters and elusive facts, I am grateful to Kathryn Bard, Karen Courtnage, Mery Galanternick, Lisa Grossman, Pamela Muraski, Rani Shanker, Anna Uhlig, and Sandra Wellington. For his generous help, and for keeping me, as well as the rest of the world, informed about everything that is happening in South America—from politics to culture to conservation—I thank Larry Rohter, the
New York Times
bureau chief in Rio de Janeiro.

I am indebted to Marilia Rebello and Erin Schneider for French and Portuguese translations that are as lyrical as they are precise. Heartfelt thanks to David Uhlig for volunteering his talent as a photographer and graphic designer, to Myron Pitts for being unfailingly helpful, and to Richard Oller, Darren Sextro, Kevin Childress, and Lora Uhlig for offering advice as early readers.

For introducing me to the manuscripts and archival objects that breathed life into this book—from published books and articles to private journals and letters to equipment invoices, medical reports, splintered arrows, and rusted surgical knives—I am grateful to Elizabeth Bré, Denise Portugal Lamar, and the entire staff of the Museu do Índio; Jacqueline Dougherty and Reverend William B. Simmons, Indiana Province Archives Center of the Congregation of Holy Cross; Karla Estelita Godoy, Museu da República; Angela Kindig, Peter Lysy, and Sharon Sumpter, Notre Dame University Archives; Mary LeCroy, Ornithology Department of the American Museum of Natural History; Antonio Carlos de Souza Lima and Fátima Nascimento, Museu Nacional; Eileen Morales, Museum of the City of New York; and Liisa Morton, executive director of the Museum of Surveying. In the tradition of saving the best for last, I would like to offer a special thanks to Wallace Finley Dailey, the curator of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard, whose work has helped define modern scholarship in this area.

I thank Sydney Possuelo, the world’s greatest living
sertanista
, and João Dal Poz, the Cinta Larga’s devoted and accomplished anthropologist, for giving me invaluable insight into the lives of indigenous Amazonians in general and the Cinta Larga in particular, and I am grateful to Oitamina Cinta Larga and Tatataré Cinta Larga, two of the tribe’s former chiefs, for a firsthand introduction to the Cinta Larga, its way of life as well as its tribal history.

For giving me my first opportunities as a writer and editor, and for making this book possible by teaching me their craft through example and patient instruction, I would like to thank Donald Belt, Dean Bevan, Robert Booth, Judith Brown, Preston and Virginia Fambrough,
Steven Gerson, Jon Goodman, David Jeffrey, Jude Nixon, Bernard Ohanian, Robert Poole, Lucy Price, Mary Singh, Rhonda Wickham, and Scott Wyerman. For their encouragement and support on this project, I thank Molly Crosby, Jennifer Fox, David and Martha Ives, Davida Kales, Jodi Lewis, Keith Moore, and Don Wilson. Thanks also to Adam Bellow for his generous advice and guidance, and to the staff of the National Geographic Society, who inspired and encouraged my interest in exploration and natural history.