(2 of 3)
New Tribe. On horseback, Desmond Holdridge, 24, explorer for the Brooklyn Museum, rode for 30 days from the mouth of the Amazon River to Rio Brasco in the jungle country of Brazil, close to the Venezulean border. With him went a native horse thief, the only guide brave enough to accompany him. In the heart of the jungle he found the Pishauko tribe, known to white men by name only. Originally a plains people, the Pishauko fled into the jungle to escape becoming slaves to Spanish conquerors. The natives worship before a symbol which looks like a crucifix, chant services before hunting. Tribal medicine men prescribe self torture as a cure for disease, advise a poultice of live ants as a disease prevention. One chief gave Explorer Holdridge some vegetables from his garden. He explained that the vegetables were good because recently he had cast out all evil spells from his garden by killing his brother-in-law, a voodoo priest. Explorer Holdridge also saw a new mountain range, two uncharted rivers, a waterfall 260 ft. high.
Lost Tribe. With much-publicized Capt. Robert Abram ("Bob") Bartlett in command, the schooner Effle Morrisey picked her way carefully along the northeastern coast of Greenland between ice floes as large as Manhattan Island. She carried Harry Whitney, Philadelphia financier-naturalist,* and Junius Bird, archeologist. Mr. Bird had gone on the cold 15,000-mi. trip because he had a mystery he wanted to solve. In 1823, the British explorer, Capt. D. C. Clavering had visited a highly civilized Eskimo settlement along the eastern coast. Since Clavering, no explorer had been able to find the town again. Captain Bartlett landed his scientists near the reported location. Naturalist Whitney helped Archeologist Bird scout the country and they found half an answer to the 100-year-old mystery: a group of deserted stone houses built into pits in the ground. In the houses were tools, trinkets and children's toys. They also found many burial cairns. But nothing was discovered which revealed the reason for the colony's disappearance. The oldest Eskimo living nearby could not remember having seen or heard of the lost tribe. Besides excavating, Archeologist Bird helped Naturalist Whitney shoot walrus for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, capture two musk oxen for Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter, vice president of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
"Talkie-talkie." To find furnishings for the new African Hall soon to be opened at the American Museum of Natural History, Manhattan, Dr. Morton C. Kahn led an expedition into South America. Almost 200 years ago, African slaves in Dutch Guiana revolted, went into the bush to establish an Africo-South American civilization. Today the tribes live in thatched huts, cut designs into their flesh. Cowrie shells from the East Indies are used to adorn amulets as in Africa. The tribes speak "talkie-talkie," a mixture of Dutch, English, Portuguese, French and African. The Boni tribe in French Guiana has fallen under the influence of missionaries more than the Dutch tribes. Many of them wear trousers. Dr. Kahn brought back 300 specimens of woodcarving for the African Hall.