His name was Samuel Emanuel Bishop, but all his friends called him Bish. He was short man, but with a big heart. He was, what we call, a Bush Bleeder. In the interior there’s a tree we call the Balata tree. My father would climb up the tree and make [She makes vertical slants with her hands] cuts this way and that way, so the milk from the tree would run right down. And at the bottom they’d put it in a bag, called a waruhi. That (the milk) is cured in the sun, and they call it balata. When you boil it, it gets soft and you could form anything you want. Toys, we make whips too that we lash wicked children with [makes whipping gesture towards children who shake their heads in defiance]. They even put it at the bottom of boats. He left home when he was fifteen and joined a band of bushmen going down the Potaro river and that’s how he learned his trade. He worked till he was fifty and then he got bit by a snake we call a Bushmaster. Big snake, six feet long and nasty. It almost killed him dead. He said after that it felt like God was telling him that it was time to stop. He would be gone three or four months at a time. He worked with a three man team and they would have to travel two hundred miles from town by boat before they could set up camp and start surveying for the ripe trees. Cause ya can’t bleed a tree one year and come back to it the next, ya gotta find fresh ones. [Question from crowd: When did he get bit?] Second day after they setup camp. They’re out searching for trees and he was out in front. He was lead man, cause he was sharp with his twenty two inch cutlass, chopping through them bush. He said he put his foot down and the man behind him, a man from St. Lucia yelled at him and said “Look out Bish!” But by the time he heard look out he felt a nip in his foot through his boot. And they(the snake) so smart they don’t stay and fight, once they bite you, they disappear back into the bush. But the St. Lucian man was fast. And they say in the bush you don’t chop a snake head off with a cutlass, because one day a bleeder chop a head off a Bushmaster, and the head stuck against a tree and the next day they passed back, the tree was dying from the venom in the snake head. So they always use a stick with a fork at the end, so when they see a snake they just lash and lash until it’s dead. He (Samuel Bishop) say by the time he feel the nip and say “Oh God it bite me,” he feel a tingling up his right foot. [She motions at the side of her foot close to the instep] After the St. Lucian man beat the snake to death, he take his knife and cut my father’s foot over the bite and he put his mouth to it and he suck and spit blood for ten minutes. Me father said it felt like his whole foot was dead. They had to lift him up and carry him back to camp, three miles away. [Question from crowd: How far from a hospital was he?] Oh god they were a few hundred miles away from anybody [Eunice’s voice dips to emphasize the desperation of the situation]. They were so far in the interior they were closer to Brazil than to Georgetown, because sometimes he would sneak across the border if he couldn’t find any good trees. They were at least three days journey up the Potaro river from anybody. [Q: So he didn’t see a doctor for three days?] Oh he didn’t get no medical attention. No! In Guyana at that time we didn’t have anything, medical attention for no snake bite. You got to make your own antidote. And the bush bleeder antidote is this: take the snake tail off, put it in the snake’s mouth, put the whole thing in a bottle of wine, and drink the wine the next day. [Murmurs of disgust from the crowd.] St. Lucian man carry him back to camp and next morning give him the antidote. But by the time they get to camp, his foot was swollen big. [Holding her hands apart to show amount of swelling.] They took out the fang cause if the fang is still in, ya won’t heal. But they took it out and the foot was still swollen and the next day it was black black black. And everyday they would leave him to go work. Cause they still had trees to bleed, money to make. Men die all the time out there and that’s that. If the snakes don’t get ya, then there’s the Caiman, and the wild hogs. As they come back to camp they would call “Bish! Bish!” They wanted to know if he was dead, and if he don’t answer, they know. They got a thing we call Wild Eddoes, and they boil it, and call it a Potice. They mash it up and put it on the wound to pull any bad blood out of it. But my father said he still couldn’t walk and after a few days the foot started to smell stink. So he says “I’m telling them something is still in this foot.” He boiled some hot water, and put some salt in it. He said as soon as he put some water on it, it felt like needles on this spot like there’s something still inside his foot. He grind his teeth and put his hand inside the cut and feel around and the whole thing started to bleed bad again. He felt this hard little thing on the tip of his fingers and he pulled. [She bends down to her foot and mimics the action] And when he pull, he wet he pants. [Gasps from the crowd, some shocked laughter and exclamations that Eunice is exaggerating.] Yes he did, he said he doo doo. Cause it was so painful he just passed out right there. He didn’t know how long he was laying there, but when he woke up flies were all around his foot. And when he looked in his hand there was a fang, a snake fang covered in blood. Then he washed the foot and it didn’t pain as much. Afternoon time they (his team) came back and called “Bish! Bish!” No answer. So they came running thinking he was dead. When they see him they ask what happened and he shows them the fang and his foot which was less swollen. And he kept that fang when he came back to us. When he got home most of the swelling was gone but there was still a X where the St. Lucian man cut him. He was limping around for six months after he came back to town. He never went back into the interior after that. He was fifty years old, and he said God is telling me I’ve done this long enough. He didn’t bring back as much money as he usually did but instead he brought back a lot of meat, dried meat that he had smoked, dried fish, cassavas, sweet potatoes, wild bird. No one could say he didn’t take care of his family, cause he did. My father always made sure we were taken care of. If he didn’t get a lot of money he’d go hunting. He would hunt wild hogs and manatee, go fishing or shoot down these big birds we call Powice. He’d said when ya hunting wild hogs, ya sit up in a tree as they go past. And ya never shoot the one in front, because if you do, the rest will attack and gore you or keep you up a tree for days. You wait for the last one to pass and that’s the one you get. [Some grandchildren and cousins who grew up in the United States question if she really ate Manatee.] Yes I have eaten Manatee. It’s a shame it’s endangered now. That’s good meat.