Odd People: Being a Popular Description of Singular Races of Man. Reid Mayne

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СКАЧАТЬ of beautiful baskets. Many species of palms and calamus supply them with materials for this purpose, one of the best being the “Iu” palm (Astrocaryum acaule). They also make many implements and utensils, some for cultivating the plantains, melons, and manioc root, and others for manufacturing the last-named vegetable into their favourite “farinha” (cassava). The Indians understood how to separate the poisonous juice of this valuable root from its wholesome farina before the arrival of white men among them; and the process by which they accomplish this purpose has remained without change up to the present hour, in fact, it is almost the same as that practised by the Spaniards and Portuguese, who simply adopted the Indian method. The work is performed by the women, and thus: the roots are brought home from the manioc “patch” in baskets, and then washed and peeled. The peeling is usually performed by the teeth; after that the roots are grated, the grater being a large wooden slab about three feet long, a foot wide, a little hollowed out, and the hollow part covered all over with sharp pieces of quartz set in regular diamond-shaped patterns. Sometime a cheaper grater is obtained by using the aerial root of the pashiuba palm (Iriartea exhorhiza), which, being thickly covered over with hard spinous protuberances, serves admirably for the purpose.

      The grated pulp is next placed to dry upon a sieve, made of the rind of a water-plant, and is afterwards put into a long elastic cylinder-shaped basket or net, of the bark of the “jacitara” palm (Desmoncus macroacanthus). This is the tipiti; and at its lower end there is a strong loop, through which a stout pole is passed; while the tipiti itself, when filled with pulp, is hung up to the branch of a tree, or to a firm peg in the wall. One end of the pole is then rested against some projecting point, that serves as a fulcrum, while the Indian woman, having seated herself upon the other end, with her infant in her arms, or perhaps some work in her hands, acts as the lever power. Her weight draws the sides of the tipiti together, until it assumes the form of an inverted cone; and thus the juice is gradually pressed out of the pulp, and drops into a vessel placed underneath to receive it. The mother must be careful that the little imp does not escape from under her eye, and perchance quench its thirst out of the vessel below. If such an accident were to take place, in a very few minutes she would have to grieve for a lost child; since the sap of the manioc root, the variety most cultivated by the Indians, is a deadly poison. This is the “yucca amarga,” or bitter manioc; the “yucca dulce,” or sweet kind, being quite innoxious, even if eaten in its raw state.

      The remainder of the process consists in placing the grated pulp – now sufficiently dry – on a large pan or oven, and submitting it to the action of the fire. It is then thought sufficiently good for Indian use; but much of it is afterwards prepared for commerce, under different names, and sold as semonilla (erroneously called semolina), sago, and even as arrowroot.

      At the bottom of that, poisonous tub, a sediment has all the while been forming. That is the starch of the manioc root – the tapioca of commerce: of course that is not thrown away.

      The men of the tropic forest spend their lives in doing very little. They are idle and not much disposed to work – only when war or the chase calls them forth do they throw aside for awhile their indolent habit, and exhibit a little activity.

      They hunt with the bow and arrow, and fish with a harpoon spear, nets, and sometimes by poisoning water with the juice of a vine called barbasco. The “peixe boy,” “vaca marina,” or “manatee,” – all three names being synonymes – is one of the chief animals of their pursuit. All the waters of the Amazon valley abound with manatees, probably of several species, and these large creatures are captured by the harpoon, just as seals or walrus are taken. Porpoises also frequent the South-American rivers; and large fresh-water fish of numerous species. The game hunted by the Amazonian Indians can scarcely be termed noble. We have seen that the large mammalia are few, and thinly distributed in the tropical forest. With the exception of the jaguar and peccary, the chase is limited to small quadrupeds – as the capibara, the paca, agouti – to many kinds of monkeys, and an immense variety of birds. The monkey is the most common game, and is not only eaten by all the Amazonian Indians, but by most of them considered as the choicest of food.

      In procuring their game the hunters sometimes use the common bow and arrow, but most of the tribes are in possession of a weapon which they prefer to all others for this particular purpose. It is an implement of death so original in its character and so singular in its construction as to deserve a special and minute description.

      The weapon I allude to is the “blow-gun,” called “pucuna” by the Indians themselves, “gravitana” by the Spaniards, and “cerbatana” by the Portuguese of Brazil.

      When the Amazonian Indian wishes to manufacture for himself a pucuna he goes out into the forest and searches for two tall, straight stems of the “pashiuba miri” palm (Iriartea setigera). These he requires of such thickness that one can be contained within the other. Having found what he wants, he cuts both down and carries them home to his molocca. Neither of them is of such dimensions as to render this either impossible or difficult.

      He now takes a long slender rod – already prepared for the purpose – and with this pushes out the pith from both stems, just as boys do when preparing their pop-guns from the stems of the elder-tree. The rod thus used is obtained from another species of Iriartea palm, of which the wood is very hard and tough. A little tuft of fern-root, fixed upon the end of the rod, is then drawn backward and forward through the tubes, until both are cleared of any pith which may have adhered to the interior; and both are polished by this process to the smoothness of ivory. The palm of smaller diameter, being scraped to a proper size, is now inserted into the tube of the larger, the object being to correct any crookedness in either, should there be such; and if this does not succeed, both are whipped to some straight beam or post, and thus left till they become straight. One end of the bore, from the nature of the tree, is always smaller than the other; and to this end is fitted a mouthpiece of two peccary tusks to concentrate the breath of the hunter when blowing into the tube. The other end is the muzzle; and near this, on the top, a sight is placed, usually a tooth of the “paca” or some other rodent animal. This sight is glued on with a gum which another tropic tree furnishes. Over the outside, when desirous of giving the weapon an ornamental finish, the maker winds spirally a shining creeper, and then the pucuna is ready for action.

      Sometimes only a single shank of palm is used, and instead of the pith being pushed out, the stem is split into two equal parts throughout its whole extent. The heart substance being then removed, the two pieces are brought together, like the two divisions of a cedarwood pencil, and tightly bound with a sipo.

      The pucuna is usually about an inch and a half in diameter at the thickest end, and the bore about equal to that of a pistol of ordinary calibre. In length, however, the weapon varies from eight to twelve feet.

      This singular instrument is designed, not for propelling a bullet, but an arrow; but as this arrow differs altogether from the common kind it also needs to be described.

      The blow-gun arrow is about fifteen or eighteen inches long, and is made of a piece of split bamboo; but when the “patawa” palm can be found, this tree furnishes a still better material, in the long spines that grow out from the sheathing bases of its leaves. These are 18 inches in length, of a black colour, flattish though perfectly straight. Being cut to the proper length – which most of them are without cutting – they are whittled at one end to a sharp point. This point is dipped about three inches deep in the celebrated “curare” poison; and just where the poison mark terminates, a notch is made, so that the head will be easily broken off when the arrow is in the wound. Near the other end a little soft down of silky cotton (the floss of the bombax ceiba) is twisted around into a smooth mass of the shape of a spinning-top, with its larger end towards the nearer extremity of the arrow. The cotton is held in its place by being lightly whipped on by the delicate thread or fibre of a bromelia, and the mass is just big enough to fill the tube by gently pressing it inward.

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