The Amazon Trader
1957 • 41 min • United States
Approximately two hundred miles upriver from Manaus, Brazil, the Amazon Trader has an outpost, where he trades for diamonds, the poisonous medicine curare and other native goods. "No two days are alike," he says, and then describes other odd jobs he has undertaken: arranging with native tribes for an expedition or missionary to enter their lands, acting as a communication liaison between those inside the jungle and those outside, searching for missing husbands, or rescuing unscrupulous husbands who try to rob the natives. In this exotic place, he is privy to many stories which he likes to tell. First, the Trader tells about Fairing, a young explorer who gets lost from his expedition: After drinking poisoned water, he becomes feverish and would have died, had he not been rescued by a tribe of Indians. They take him to their village, where he is barely aware of the ritual they perform on his behalf. He is given a mysterious substance from a clay plot to eat and for a while, he thinks he sees his body separate from the rest of him. Soon, however, he is well, and although he asks about the contents of the clay pot, no one will tell him its secret. The Trader expects that Fairing, who is now head of a well-known hospital, will someday return in search of the mysterious cure. Although there are two-hundred and forty tribes in the jungle, speaking thirty-seven languages, the various tribes respect their differing customs and taboos. Outsiders are not always so respectful, according