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Be’d Wondered As Foretold
The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this. When all was water, the animals were above in Gălûñ′lătĭ, beyond the arch; but it was very much crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below the water, and at last Dâyuni′sĭ, “Beaver’s Grandchild,” the little Water-beetle, offered to go and see if it could learn. It darted in every direction over the surface of the water, but could find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the earth. It was afterward fastened to the sky with four cords, but no one remembers who did this. At first the earth was flat and very soft and wet. The animals were anxious to get down, and sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no place to alight and came back again to Gălûñ′lătĭ. At last it seemed to be time, and they sent out the Buzzard and told him to go and make ready for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the father of all the buzzards we see now. He flew all over the earth, low down near the ground, and it was still soft. When he reached the Cherokee country, he was very tired, and his wings began to flap and strike the ground, and wherever they struck the earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again there was a mountain. When the animals above saw this, they were afraid that the whole world would be mountains, so they called him back, but the Cherokee country remains full of mountains to this day. When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark, so they got the sun and set it in a track to go every day across the island from east to west, just overhead. It was too hot this way, and Tsiska′gĭlĭ′, the Red Crawfish, had his shell scorched a bright red, so that his meat was spoiled; and the Cherokee do not eat it. The [240]conjurers put the sun another hand-breadth higher in the air, but it was still too hot. They raised it another time, and another, until it was seven handbreadths high and just under the sky arch. Then it was right, and they left it so. This is why the conjurers call the highest place Gûlkwâ′gine Di′gălûñ′lătiyûñ′, “the seventh height,” because it is seven hand-breadths above the earth. Every day the sun goes along under this arch, and returns at night on the upper side to the starting place. There is another world under this, and it is like ours in everything—animals, plants, and people—save that the seasons are different. The streams that come down from the mountains are the trails by which we reach this underworld, and the springs at their heads are the doorways by which we enter it, but to do this one must fast and go to water and have one of the underground people for a guide. We know that the seasons in the underworld are different from ours, because the water in the springs is always warmer in winter and cooler in summer than the outer air. When the animals and plants were first made—we do not know by whom—they were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and keep awake when they pray to their medicine. They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake through the first night, but the next night several dropped off to sleep, and the third night others were asleep, and then others, until, on the seventh night, of all the animals only the owl, the panther, and one or two more were still awake. To these were given the power to see and to go about in the dark, and to make prey of the birds and animals which must sleep at night. Of the trees only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly, and the laurel were awake to the end, and to them it was given to be always green and to be greatest for medicine, but to the others it was said: “Because you have not endured to the end you shall lose your hair every winter.” Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fast until there was danger that the world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since.
First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today. There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.” Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease. Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing. By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker. Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential. United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati. When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.” For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor. Read less
First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today. There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.” Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease. Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing. By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker. Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential. United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati. When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.” For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor. Read less