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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    121. At end oj section add: More to the eastward the Trio possess the secret of curare prepara¬ tion. The plant that supplies the main ingredient of the poison is a Strychnos (S. Crevauxiana Baill., S. toxiftra Schomb.) which, ac¬ cording to the Indians, is present on the Paloemeu. The poison, that must work very swiftly, is smeared with a brush on loose arrow points about 10 centimeters long. When out hunting, these are carried along in a bamboo tube. For use, such a point is cut half- way through and stuck into the tubular proximal extremity of an ordinary long hunting arrow [from which its own point has been removed for the purpose]. The poisoned point then breaks off in the wound, and the shaft falls back. (HER, i, 943.) So again, blowguns are not known among the Trio, Waiwai, Pianocoto, etc., though these all employ curare- tipped arrow points. 122. Page 150, last line, after 13 )add: I came across such similarly con¬ structed flat compound brushes among the Waiwai. (PI. 24,A,e.) 123. Page 151, line 10, after RO, 526, add: The [mainland] Indians make use of the markoeje or mancenielle [Bippomane manicella Linn. See Schomburgk’s Travels, i, sec 707] to poison their arrows. “This tree is remarkable on account of its poisonous property, which is dangerous even to rest or sojourn under, because the fluid that trickles down, after it has rained, makes the body swell just as if it had been burned with boiling water. If the fluid drops into the eyes, and one rubs it with a moist finger, one runs the risk of being blinded, because they first of all get red’ afterwards blue, and finally full of pus. The principal venonu however, is contained in the fruit, and the antidote is, as a rule, oil. This tree, the shade of which even animals seem to avoid, grows to an uncommon height on the seacoast, resembling the pear tree very much, though the trunk is thicker. The bark is filled with a sharp astringent, sap. The timber beneath the sapwood is gray, mixed through with small veins of various colors much more beauti¬ ful than the nut tree or roots of the olive tree. The fruit has much resemblance to a cannetje apple, and is dangerous to eat, being of a nting through’ and poisonous material, as is said; so also is the bark wood, and the leaves. So much so that a fish that has eaten it becomes a poisonous food for man. Yet man can discover such kinds by the blackness of their death.” (HRT, 79, 80.)