Additional studies of the arts, crafts, and customs of the Guiana Indians : with special reference to those of Southern British Guiana / by Walter E. Roth.

  • Roth, Walter E. (Walter Edmund), 1861-1933.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Additional studies of the arts, crafts, and customs of the Guiana Indians : with special reference to those of Southern British Guiana / by Walter E. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [bull. 91 was slowly smoldering away. The faggots that were required for preparing the food, and the torches with which they betook them¬ selves of an evening to the sleeping huts, were kindled at this huge fire hearth. (HER, 124.) 5. Page 72, after (BA, 231), second line from top, add: Candles are made from the fruit of the dalie [wild nutmeg]. The nut is pounded, boiled, and squeezed through a cassava press or jouri above water, whereupon the fat immediately congeals, from which, after being properly purified and melted, the candles are molded like yellow wax. (HRT, 72.) At end of section add: One finds there (in Surinam) a plant which the Spaniards call palo de luz—i. e., stok-kaars (stick candle), usually 2 feet high. It shoots from the root several stalks which are straight and smooth up to the top, where these give rise to small shoots provided with narrow leaves. When the stalks are cut off, and while still green, they burn like a candle and thus can be used as a torch or flambeau, provided that, from time to time, one knocks off the burning end. (HRT, 87.) 9. Line 12, after Orinoco, add: In Surinam, at one spot on the Tapanahoni River, were to be seen certainly a few hundred whetting-grooves (slijpgroeven), spoon-shaped excavations that have been caused by the Indians grinding their stone axes and knives on the rocks. So also at several falls in the upper river were masses of these grooves, the characteristic signs of the former sojourn of Indians at those spots. (HER, i, 884, 924-925, 961.) 14. At end of section add: Mention is made in one of the Arekuna myths of a wooden knife being made of Astrocaryum tucuma, a very hard wood. (KGR, ii, 61.) 18. Seventh line from top, after (JO), add: I have illustrated such a specimen (pis. 24, A, a; 29, f), which I obtained from the Waiwai who called it fakelioli. Like most of their implements, it is ornamented with feathers. 23. Page 82, seventh line from bottom, after Indians, add: It would seem that the turara or turala (Wap.) is a tree distinct from the balata {M. globosa) which these Indians call iriari. They distinguish between the two which otherwise—in bark, size, and shape of leaf—are very similar by the under surface of the turara leaf being more “greyish” and lighter colored, and by the latex being less watery. Whereas the cut in a balata tree will start to “run milk” almost at once, the turala takes a day at least before exuding, and then only in smaller or larger drops, when it is picked off with the fingers or with a knife. In both trees the latex is equally white, and the bark is practically identical in appearance and conformation.