Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10909
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Portrait of Callistro
Date
21 August 1852-28 June 1853
Creator
Richard Spruce (1817 - 1893, British) , Explorer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 221mm
width (drawing): 134mm
width (drawing): 134mm
Subject
Geography
> Exploration
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
> Exploration
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
Description
Portrait of the left profile of the head and shoulders of a man annotated by Spruce 'Uiáca/Wiáca (alias Calistro). Tusháua in chief of the Tariana Indians. Above 60 years old. (Iauaraté-cachoiera, on the Rio Uaupes. pron. Wa-u-pés). R.S.'
Reproduced as Figure 19 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace, volume I (London, 1908).
Callistro is described by Spruce as 'a fine old man, with a head-piece (speaking both literally and figuratively) which would not have disgraced a European. The Brazilian traders did not much like him, but I could see no other reason for it except that he would not allow himself to be duped or outraged by them. He allowed me to take his portrait... and the Indians were so delighted with the likeness of their chief, that I verily believe every one of the tribe came to have a look at it'.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent fifteen years collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849-1864, and observing the indigenous people and their cultures, learning 21 different languages while away.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
The Tariana or Taliaseri are an indigenous people of the Uaupés River in the Amazon region of Brazil and Colombia.
Reproduced as Figure 19 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace, volume I (London, 1908).
Callistro is described by Spruce as 'a fine old man, with a head-piece (speaking both literally and figuratively) which would not have disgraced a European. The Brazilian traders did not much like him, but I could see no other reason for it except that he would not allow himself to be duped or outraged by them. He allowed me to take his portrait... and the Indians were so delighted with the likeness of their chief, that I verily believe every one of the tribe came to have a look at it'.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent fifteen years collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849-1864, and observing the indigenous people and their cultures, learning 21 different languages while away.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
The Tariana or Taliaseri are an indigenous people of the Uaupés River in the Amazon region of Brazil and Colombia.
Associated place