Our Most Popular Post Ever--The Death of Percy Fawcett

Jeff––Saturday

This past week, mystery fans from around the world came together in Nashville, Tennessee to celebrate the 55^th annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.  Bouchercon is a particularly meaningful get-together to us at Murder is Everywhere because BCON 2009 is where MIE came into being…at the instigation of the late, great Leighton Gage – a gentleman, scholar, motivator, dynamite author, and all-round nice guy. [That's Leighton's photo, second from the top on the photo masthead to the right.]

 

I think it’s only fitting that the #1 most popular post in our fifteen years history is one put up by Leighton.  So, in honor of his continuing star-power draw, here’s that #1 post, “The Death of Percy Fawcett” put up on February 14, 2010.

 

Do you notice any similarity between these gentlemen?

 

No, neither do I.

 

But Paramount has chosen Brad Pitt to play Percy Fawcett in an upcoming version of David Grann’s non-fiction book The Lost City of Z. It’s going to be, according to them, an Amazonian mystery/thriller.

 

And that virtually guarantees to muddy the waters still further about the death of the English explorer who was swallowed up by the Brazilian jungle back in 1925.

 

Grann, in his book, doesn’t really solve the mystery of what happened to Fawcett.

But he does reject the account of Orlando Villas-Bôas.

Orlando, who died in 2002, was a sertanista, a kind of wilderness explorer peculiar to Brazil, and the country’s Indian expert par excellence.  He spent many years living among the tribes, spoke their languages, established first contact with many of them, and was instrumental in determining a just government policy toward all the indigenous peoples.

I knew Orlando Villas-Bôas personally. He was neither a liar nor a boaster, and his life was packed with more adventure than that of anyone I ever knew. Why, then, should he make things up? Orlando claimed (and I believed him) to have heard the true story of what happened to Fawcett from one of the murderers, a member of the Kalapalos tribe.

Grann visited the Kalapalos in 2005 and got an “oral account” of the incident.

Orlando was there 54 years earlier, in 1951, and spoke to people who were there at the time.

Both accounts agree in some regards:  They agree that Fawcett and his men stayed in the village of the Kalapalos. They agree that Fawcett and his companions had a mishap on the river and lost most of the gifts they’d bought to placate the Indians. They agree that most of the members of Fawcett’s expedition were sick by the time they contacted the Kalapalos. (And, therefore, a danger to the tribe.)

Then the two accounts begin to differ.

According to Grann, the expedition set off to the eastward. The tribesmen, he said, warned Fawcett not to go that way, because the region was inhabited by “fierce Indians”. But Fawcett decided otherwise. And disappeared. End of story. (And this is going to make a mystery/thriller?)

Grann, however, does not relate, and perhaps never discovered, three additional precipitating incidents. And those incidents, for Orlando Villas-Bôas, were of more moment than sickness and/or the absence of gifts. According to Orlando:

           

1. Jack Fawcett, Percy’s son, urinated in the river upstream of the village, upstream of where the Kalapalos drew their drinking water. It was an affront to the entire tribe to do so.
   
2.  One of the members of Fawcett’s expedition shot a small animal. They brought it into the village and hung it up by a cord to preserve the meat from insects and small scavengers. One of the Indians came along and tried to remove a piece of the meat. An expedition member pushed him away. Another affront. The Kalapalos share food. Not to do is unacceptable behavior.
3. A small child approached the white men and started playing with their goods. They pushed the child away. The child came back and did it again. One of the white men, in the European custom of the time, struck the child. And that was the greatest affront of all. The Kalapalos never strike their children.

That final incident, according to Orlando, sealed the fate of Fawcett and his men. The Indians waited until the next morning, allowed the expedition to get some distance down the trail and then ambushed and killed them all.

Orlando told me one thing more: in those days, he said, the Kalapalos didn’t lie. They dissembled, but they never told an untruth. He’d asked a direct question, for which he didn’t receive a direct answer. Thus he knew from the get-go there was something afoot. It took him, he said, hours and hours of conversation to extract a frank account of what had really happened.

We sure as hell aren’t going to get one from Hollywood.

––Jeff, re-posting Leighton

 

Hey there Cowboy- a Flaneur round Nashville

Having escaped the Dome Of Doom, we are now trying to escape the USA. Our plane hasn't taken off yet to go to London to come back to Nashville to get us. I can see it being a very long day.

Yesterday we braved the heat and went into Nashville.

Here's a brief impression of the city.

Martin Edwards said it was architecturally underwhelming.

I'd put it a bit stronger than that. 

View from the Capitol building.

A famous lady who was a sex symbol in her day, would now be considered fat I fear.

Queuing for Chicken with only one C. 

Mr James Polk's memorial. 11th President - known as the Dark Horse.

Capitol Hill

The other sign said  something about Scottish Worship so we took this picture for Billy, who is 87 and is a ermmm...whatever they are called in  'The Masonic'. 

I really hope the people who created Batman also created this building.

Typical Nashville street.

What we need is SmellyBlog so you could witness the aroma of weed, old socks, rotten cabbage and exhaust fumes. 

Alan knew all about this.

I didn't.

We had a vegan burger here. Rather a strange vibe to the place.

Those dressed like extra's from Suits eating amongst those dressed like extras from Rawhide.

We went out a door and got trapped in a fire exit.

Then watched somebody else do exactly the same thing.

An old façade on a new building- rather pretty

Lots of noise.

I tried to write a country song.

"It's hard to be a cowgirl from Glasgow

The boots don't look right with my kilt."

Bravely trying to cross the road.

We waited for an older person and followed them on the basis that they were still alive so had mastered the art.

Old car with with all kinds of floral displays advertising.....something....

Batman !

It might have been smoothies.....? Don't think it was cars.

Doughnuts maybe?

Great ironwork on the bottom of the streetlamps.

Lovely statue..... the farrier had his hand in this position....

Another statue by the same artist- I think this one was called the family.

Just look at the dog!

Batman was following us around.

Here was  the hotel were those who try to escape the Dome are incarcerated.

They are fed terrible rations, one between two.

From a van that entices you in,  then closes the doors and takes you back to the dome.

We did go back, voluntarily. There was a SING workshop going on where  the Bouchercon had been. The rooms that were the bookroom, the author dating room, the book bazaar room were all  back as one huge room and  it was mobbed.

So we, yet again, escaped the Dome.

Caro (UPDATE- at an airport fog bound somewhere on the planet)

 

The Museum at the End of the World

Wendall -- every other Thursday

The past six weeks have been such a period of highs and lows. I've lost a beloved cousin and a friend of thirty-five years, but was also able to return to Australia for the first time since the pandemic.

As I take some time to grieve for these loved ones, I'll offer some photos from our days in Tasmania, land of the lost thylacine, and particularly, in this post, from MONA, the privately owned Museum of Old and New Art.

The Museum is one of the most extraordinary places James and I have ever visited.  You must book a 25 minute ferry-ride  to get there, and once you do, the bulk of the museum is entirely underground, tunneled out of a sandstone cliff.  Currently, it has three levels, connected by stairs and tunnels and a round, see-through elevator.  I wish I were a better photographer, but here are a few moments and objects from our visit.

The Ferry Ride:

Looking back at Hobart.

Looking back towards the "posh pit," where there's champagne for the 25 minute journey.

A detail from the stairway on the ferry.

ARRIVAL:

We climbed 96 stairs from the ferry to the outside of the Museum.

Another view from the top.

The Museum entrance.

INSIDE SPACES:

Looking into the lowest floor from above. Note the sandstone walls.

Another view from above, looking back towards one of the bars.

Another tunnel.

A view through one of the galleries.

A different view.

 

Three levels at once.

The Faro bar, complete with a James Turrell installation.

This huge architectural space has a deep pool of oil at the bottom, which becomes invisible and reflects everything around it.

The tunnel into the space.

The promontory into the liquid.

Looking at the reflection of the ceiling in the oil.

RANDOM ART:

James and the Giant Statue.

Passage to a crystal temple.

The Grotto.

Looking up towards the elevator.

The obligatory Warhols.

 

 

 

 

 And for the (mystery) writers, these two:

An entire room of empty books. Yikes.

Yep.

THE SOURCE RESTAURANT:

View from our table.

Their "grilled cheese" appetizer.

This was my risotto!

It truly is an extraordinary place, as is all of Tasmania (more on that in my next post), and it's a quick and inexpensive one hour flight from Melbourne, so if you're ever there, Cyd Redondo and I suggest a visit. Book ahead!

Hope everyone had a great time, hotel notwithstanding, at Bouchercon.

--Wendall