[134] A species of Arundinaria.

[135] Bactus ciliata.

[136] The wood used is paxiaba-i, the Iriartea setigera (Spruce, ii. 522). This small palm grows from ten to fifteen feet high, with a stem of an inch to two inches in diameter. When dry the soft inner pith is removed, and the bore polished with a bunch of tree-fern roots pulled up and down (Wallace, p. 147).

[137] Jacitara (Bates, ii. 236).

[138] From the arbol-del-lacre (Hardenburg, Man, p. 136); Pao-de-lacre, Vismia guianensis (Spruce, ii. 522).

[139] Bombax (Wallace, p. 147); Eriodendron sp. (Sterculiaceae), (Spruce, ii. 523; Bates, ii. 237).

[140] Oenocarpus Batawa (Spruce, ii. 522).

[141] These blow-pipes appear to be similar to those still in use among the Orang Kuantan Malays, of which a specimen is to be seen in the British Museum. It is made of two grooved halves of a hard wood, bound with cane, and coated with “a gutta-like substance” (Skeat, Man, 1902, No. 108). This is, however, a shorter instrument than the Witoto or Boro use, the measurements given being only 5 feet 2 inches for total length, with an interior diameter of seven-sixteenths of an inch at the mouthpiece and three-eighths of an inch at the muzzle-end. The blow-pipe is found among all Malayan tribes. For distribution in the South Seas, cf. map in Skeat and Blagden’s Pagan Tribes, i. 254.

[142] Deniker states that the Miranha hunt “like the ancient Quechuas by means of nets stretched out between the trees, into which they drive, with cries and gestures, the terrified animals” (Deniker, p. 561). I have never seen or heard of such nets among them.

[143] Orton, pp. 169-70.

[144] Cf. method of poisoning adopted by natives of Torres Straits (Torres Straits, iv. 159).

[145] Jacquinia armillaris. According to Spix and Martius babasco poison is made from the leaves and blossom of the Budleya connata (Spix and von Martius, Reise, 1820, p. 98).

[146] Simson, p. 131.

[147] Paullinia pinnata (Sapindaceae) (Spruce, ii. 523; Bates, ii. 82-3). Spruce also mentions cunambi, poison obtained from the roots of Ichthyothera cunambi (Spruce, ii. 520); and Yuca-raton, the root of Gliricidiae sp. (Spruce, ii. 455).

[148] The frame is made of timbo-titica, Heteropsis sp. (Spruce, ii. 523).

[149] Such very hard wood is procurable, and so abundant is it that even tribes like the Botucudo, who could use shell, stone, or metal, use wood in preference, and many tribes prefer their lithic axes to metal ones. The inference is obvious—these peoples are not, and never have been, metal-using races, and poisoned wood suits sufficiently their purposes for arrow-heads.

[150] Oakenfull, p. 30.

[151] Compare with customs of the Mafulu in British New Guinea (Williamson, p. 179; Fiji, Thompson, p. 35).

[152] Clough, pp. 104-5; Wallace, p. 353.

[153] Partridge, Cross River Natives, p. 59; “Upper Congo Cannibals,” J.R.A.I., xxiv. pp. 298-9.

[154] For example, Maw, p. 160.

[155] Wallace, pp. 346-7.

[156] Ratzel, ii. 138-9; Orton, pp. 171-2.

[157] See British Museum, Cambridge Museum, Munich Museum.

[158] Bates, ii. 132.

[159] I was never present at a cannibal feast. This information is based on Robuchon’s account, checked by cross-questioning the Indians with whom I came in contact.

[160] Johnson, Liberia, ii. 898.

[161] On the other hand earth-eating is prevalent among the Torres Straits people, where salt is not rare. The pregnant woman eats it to make her infant light in colour and strong and brave (Torres Straits Exped., iv. 139).

[162] Crevaux, p. 287.

[163] Bates, ii. 195.

[164] Ibid.

[165] Some tribes, for example the Jivaro (Simson, pp. 93-4), are said to be more provident in this respect, but the Boro and Witoto groups are not among them. Occasionally a store of pines may be made in October, when pines are most plentiful, but this is all.

[166] It may be noted here that all the denizens of the forest, including even the larger carnivora, are by popular report fruit-eaters, and are specially fond of the wild alligator pear (cf. Spruce, ii. 362-3).

[167] Tapirus americanus.

[168] All animals when wounded appear to take to water.

[169] Coelogenys paca.

[170] Hydrochaerus capybara.

[171] Dasyprocta agouti.

[172] I captured some and brought them away as pets.

[173] Spruce, i. p. 182.

[174] Dicotypes tajacu is the only one I observed in these parts, but D. labiatus is common in the bush. The peccary is called kairooni by the Arawak; mero and emo by the Witoto according to the species; mene by the Boro; and whinga by the Macusi.

[175] See Wood’s Natural History, “Mammals.”

[176] Oakenfull, p. 30.

[177] Turning turtles is prohibited by law in Brazil, but no law reaches these wilds.

[178] The Indians of British Guiana who eat the turtles’ and iguana eggs, also “will not touch the egg of a fowl” (im Thurn, p. 18).

[179] They do not, however, object to their food being decidedly “high” (cf. Simson, p 115).

[180] In this they share the tastes of the Liberian women (cf. Johnston, Liberia, ii. 954).

[181] Spruce, ii. 381.

[182] Manihot aypi.

[183] The description given by Fr. Pinto in Dr. de Lacerda’s eighteenth-century journal of the preparation of manioc flour by the Murunda Kaffirs differs only from the Indian method in that the root is not squeezed, merely soaked till “almost rotten,” then dried and pounded (R.G.S., The Lands of Cazembe, 1873, p. 129).

[184] It would seem that the Boro use what is known in Brazil as Farinha de aqua, and the Witoto make Farinha secca (cf. Spruce, i. 11-12). Brazilian arrowroot and tapioca are products of the manioc prepared in different ways. Only the Boro and Menimehe make Farinha de aqua.

[185] “A mandiocca oven (called budari in Barré)” (Spruce, ii. 477-8).

[186] Bates noted that he saw Indians on the Tapajos season this sauce with ants in place of fish (Bates, i. 318-19).

[187] Wallace, p. 340.

[188] Simson mentions salt-licks in the neighbourhood of the Rio Salado Grande (Simson, p. 238).

[189] The ashes of the drum tree (Cecropia peltata) “are saline and antiseptic” (Spruce, ii. 447). “A kind of flour which has a saline taste” is extracted from the fruits of the Inaja palm (Maximiliana regia), and the Jara palm (Leopoldinia major), and the Caruru, a species of Lacis (Wallace, p. 340). Cuaruru is given by Spruce as a native name for Pogostemon sp.; when this is burnt the ashes give salt (Spruce, ii. 520).

[190] Cf. Torres Straits, “The chief meal of the day is taken at night, soon after sundown; the remains are eaten in the morning,” iv. 131.

[191] This is probably the puruma (Puruma Cecropiaefolia Martius) mentioned by Bates (Bates, ii. 217).

[192] Yerba Luisa (Simson, p. 61).

[193] This may be Mimusops sp. (Sapotacae) or Callophora sp. (Aponcynaccae) (Spruce, i. 50, 224; ii. 520). Bates, i. 69; Spruce, i. 51; Orton, pp. 288, 500, 581.

[194] Caapi is known as aya-huasca, the drink of Huasca, the greatest king of the Inca, to the Zaparo and other tribes farther west (Spruce, ii. 424).

[195] Spruce, ii. 419-21.

[196] Banisteria Caapi (Spruce, ii. 414).

[197] Haemadictyon amazonicum (ibid. p. 415). This is only added by the Uaupes tribes.

[198] Both Manihot utilissima and Manihot Aypi (Spruce, ii. 414).

[199] Cf. Tylor, pp. 179-80.

[200] Paullinia cupana (Spruce, i. 180).

[201] Guarana, “pro panacea peregrinantum habetur” (von Martius), is made from the roasted seeds. It is “almost identical in its elements with theine and caffeine” (Spruce, i. 181). It is cultivated on the Negro as an article of trade. According to Bates it is made from the seeds of a climbing plant (Paullinia sorbilis) (Bates, ii. 134).

[202] Coca Erythroxylon.

[203] Spix and von Martius, p. 153.

[204] Joyce, p. 97.

[205] Markham, Peruvian Bark, p. 151.

[206] According to Bates the leaves of the candelabrum tree (Cecropia palmata) are used (Bates, ii. 211-12). Spruce has the imbauba or drum tree (Cecropia peltata) (Spruce, ii. 447). Markham gives the quinoa plant (Markham, op. cit. p. 151).

[207] Re effects. Spruce notes that it had little effect on him (Spruce, ii. 448). One of my companions though “at first affected … with slight nausea … soon became accustomed to it, and found it very useful on many occasions” (Hardenburg, p. 137-8). This is interesting in relation to my own continued intolerance. “In Peru its excessive use is said to seriously injure the coats of the stomach” (Spruce, ii. 448). At Ega it was regarded as a vice only to be indulged in secretly (Bates, ii. 211). Markham, on the other hand, considers it “the least injurious, and the most soothing and invigorating” narcotic (Markham, op. cit. p. 152). He even recommends it as a preventative of loss of breath to Alpine climbers (ibid. p. 153). With this I cannot concur.

[208] See Appendix for this and other notes.

[209] Spruce relates that a Guahibo told him, “With a chew of caapi and a pinch of niopo … one feels so good! No hunger—no thirst—no tired!” (Spruce, ii. 428).

[210] Mimosa acaciodes (Bentham). “A species of Inga” (Bates, i. 331). The seeds of Acacia Niopo (Humbolt). Piptadenia peregrina (L.) (Bentham and Spruce, ii. 427).

[211] The Guahibo use no quicklime (Spruce, ii. 426).

[212] This is curious, but I can advance no reason.

[213] Or “a bit of the leg-bone of the jaguar, closed at one end with pitch” (Spruce, ii. 427).

[214] And by the natives on the upper Orinoco (Spruce, ii. 423).

[215] “Two feet long and as thick as the wrist” (Spruce, ii. 420). It “is smoked in the ordinary way”. A long cigar is also smoked on the Equatorial Pacific coast, but “held in the mouth at the lighted end” (ibid. p. 436). This is common amongst negroes.

[216] Like the eyes of a cocoanut—to allow passage to the budding rootlets.

[217] Spruce, ii. 413-55.

[218] Bates, ii. 288.

[219] Also called curari, ourali, worara, woorari, urari, ervadura. “A powerful South American arrow-poison occurring in commerce as a blackish extract, somewhat resinoid in appearance,” used for tetanus, hydrophobia, epilepsy (Dict. Mat. Med.).

[220] Strychnos castelmoeana and Cocculus toxicoferus (Hardenburg, p. 136).

[221] “Many ingredients are used, such as several kinds of barks, roots, peppers (Capsicum), ants, and the poison-fangs of snakes” (im Thurn, p. 311).

[222] Crevaux gives a long description of the preparation of this poison (Crevaux, pp. 268-337).

[223] According to Bates, salt is considered to be an antidote for this poison (Bates, i. 247).

[224] Bates, ii. 200. This agrees with Darwin, Descent of Man, i. 128.

[225] Dr. Galt considered “that there is no more fertile race than the pure-blooded Indian of the Marañon” (Orton, p. 465).

[226] Menstruation has been known to commence in England at the age of eleven, generally in cases of well-nourished blondes, and in exceptional cases even earlier. It has been known to occur at nine years, but this was induced by a severe accident. This is unknown among the forest people. I made out the age of puberty to be not less than fifteen for girls, and eighteen for boys, among the tribes I was with.

[227] Cf. Thomson, The Fijians, pp. 179-80; Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 228, etc.

[228] Tapir flesh is undoubtedly rich, and over-indulgence would have evil effects upon any woman independent of other conditions, for equally it would upset a man.

[229] A tribe in British Guiana, the Macusi, carry this idea even further, and impose such restriction on a man before his actual marriage (im Thurn, p. 222). I have never met with this.

[230] Wallace in his account of the Uaupes Indians states that “the women are generally delivered in the house, and do no work for four or five days” (Wallace, p. 345). This does not tally with the customs among the Issa and Japura tribes, at least I never found it to be the case.

[231] These Indians adopt a sitting, i.e. continental (not English left lateral) position for parturition.

[232] For similar treatment elsewhere see Schomberg, Reisen in Britisch Guiana, ii. 66.

[233] Hardenburg, p. 135.

[234] I cannot help thinking that some infanticides may be due to the fear by the wife that the husband would refrain from the fulfilment of his debitum conjugale did he find that it resulted in his having to support an unduly increasing family.

[235] Infanticide is a subject open to unlimited misapprehension and misrepresentation. Compare with the above, for instance, the statements of a missionary among some of the Indian tribes farther south. Mr. Grubb speaks of “a shrill cry of pain when a child perhaps has been cruelly murdered” (An Unknown People in an Unknown Land, p. 17). A reviewer with much knowledge and experience of Paraguay, remarks, “I never remember hearing the women’s shrill cry of lamentation. The children are killed almost immediately after birth, as secretly as possible, and no one pays much attention to the fact” (Seymour H. C. Hawtrey, for R.A.I.). This is certainly the case with the Issa and Japura groups.

[236] Among the Ucayali deformed children are killed because they “belong to the devil” (Orton, p. 321).

[237] A similar practice is reported among the Kuni of British New Guinea (Williamson, The Mafulu, p. 178).

[238] Among Zaparo tribes also this is the case (Simson, pp. 175, 183).

[239] Early History of Mankind, p. 247.

[240] This is one of the many supposed indications of a possible Asiatic origin of these peoples, “remnants of a race driven into the mountains by the present dwellers in the plains,” as Tylor says of the Miau-tsze, who also practice the couvade (op. cit. p. 295). The practice is as widespread as the performance of the medicine-man or shaman, though not invariably an accompaniment of so-called shamanism or kindred performances: for example the Arunta have medicine-men but do not practise the couvade, the Basque people have couvade but no medicine-man.

[241] In support of this theory note that in Melanesia proper couvade has only been observed “where the child follows the father’s kindred” (Codrington, p. 228).

[242] According to one writer some Indians go so far as to remove all weapons and furniture from the house (Clough, p. 104).

[243] With the Issa-Japura tribes the father is subjected to no such torturing processes at the hands of his friends as are recorded of other tribes and peoples, “in such sort that from being sick by pure imagination they often make a real patient of him” (Tylor, loc. cit. p. 288 et seq.; J.A.I. xviii. 248; cf. also Crevaux, Spix, and Martius, p. 381; Schomburg, Reisen in Britisch Guiana, ii.).

[244] Bird names, as is commonly the case in South America, are attempts to repeat the cry of the birds themselves. Kweko, for instance, is a most suggestive name for a parrot. Birds, it may here be noted, very seldom sing in Amazonia.

[245] See Brinton on this subject, Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 196. Cf. Howitt, p. 739.

[246] Witoto.

[247] Boro.

[248] Cf. Tylor, Early History of Mankind; im Thurn, p. 220; Hodson, Naga Tribes, p. 176; Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. p. 139; Brinton, p. 195, etc.; Seligmann, p. 140; André, p. 16; Lang, Origin of Religion, etc.

[249] See Folklore Journal; Mitchell, Past in the Present.

[250] Every Indian man has two names, his own name and his secret name (name of genitalia). The latter is generally a significant name, and is used in ribald jesting round the fire, e.g. “the Okaina (a rodent) went to the stream to bathe,” etc. etc., ad nauseam.

[251] The converse of this holds good elsewhere, for the names of the dead are often tabu. See Rivers, Todas, pp. 625-6; Tylor, p. 142; Brinton, pp. 94-5.

[252] Brinton, p. 197.

[253] Pace Ratzel, ii. 128.

[254] Simson, p. 92; Ratzel, ii. 128.

[255] Markham, Clough, p. 104.

[256] Wallace, p. 360.

[257] According to Waitz the Carib medicine-man was accorded the jus primae noctis (Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. 382); Westermarck, p. 76. Von Martius also attributes this custom to certain Brazilian tribes, the chief, not the medicine-man, claiming the right (i. 113, 428, 485).

[258] Letourneau, The Evolution of Marriage, p. 52.

[259] Wallace, p. 355.

[260] This is quite usual of course. See Westermarck, pp. 445-7.

[261] Cf. custom among the Muskoks (Ratzel, ii. 125. See also im Thurn, p. 221; Westermarck, p. 18).

[262] Wallace, p. 346.

[263] Westermarck puts the disparity of years at from five to six among natives of Brazil (op. cit. p. 137; Spix and Martius, ii. 248).

[264] This invariably takes place in the forest, for no intimacy, even between husband and wife, is ever permitted in the publicity of the house. According to Westermarck a similar custom prevailed in Fiji (op. cit. pp. 151-2), but this is denied by Thomson, The Fijians, p. 202.

[265] im Thurn, pp. 186, 221.

[266] As De Morgan remarked of a somewhat similar practice among the Sakai of Perak, this is a form of marriage by purchase “modified by the smallness of the price paid … a purely formal substitute” (Bulletin de la Société Normande de Géographie, vii. 422; Skeat and Blagden, ii. 60-61).

[267] Or potacea, a nut of bitter taste the size of an acorn.

[268] See von Martius, i. 113. For similar instances cf. Westermarck, p. 151.

[269] This confirms the account given by Wallace, p. 346; von Martius, i. 600.

[270] See for similar etiquette, Alcedo-Thompson, Dictionary of America and the West Indies, i. 416; E.R. Smith, The Aurocanians, p. 215; Westermarck, pp. 383-4.