The Muras, a quarrelsome and savage tribe, with whom the Mundurucús are at perpetual feud, are the most confirmed paricá takers. The Mauhés, a neighboring tribe, use it as a means of repelling ague in the months between the wet and dry seasons, when miasma always abounds.
They keep the powder in the state of dried paste, and when they wish to use it, scrape it into a flat shell, spreading it very carefully with a little brush made from the hair of the great ant-eater. They then produce the snuff-taking apparatus. This is made of two eagle quills tied side by side for part of their length, and diverging at one end to such a distance from each other that the extremities will go easily into the possessor’s nostrils. The shape of the instrument is very much like that of the letter Y.
Inserting the diverging ends into his nostrils, the Mauhé places the other end on the powder, and draws it through the quills, the end travelling over the shell until every particle of the powder has been taken. Sometimes the snuff taker employs, instead of the quills, the bone of a plover’s leg. This instrument, however, is very rare, and cannot easily be procured, the possessor esteeming it to be a most valuable piece of property. It is remarkable that the paricá, under different names, is used in places a thousand miles apart.
The cookery of the Mundurucús is very simple. They make cassava bread and tapioca, after a fashion which will be presently described, and feed on yams, plantains, and similar vegetables. Animal food is obtained by hunting, and chiefly consists of the monkeys with which the South American forests abound. When a monkey is to be eaten, it is cooked in one of two ways. Should there be time, a large fire is made and allowed to burn nearly down, so that there is little or no smoke. Over the red embers a number of green sticks are laid parallel to each other, just like the bars of a gridiron, and on these bars the monkey is placed just as it is killed, the skin never being removed, and the interior seldom cleaned.
There is even a simpler plan than this, which is employed when the Mundurucú has no time to build a large fire. He makes up as large a fire as he can manage, impales the monkey on a stick sharpened at each end, and fixes the stick diagonally in the ground, so that the body of the monkey hangs over the fire, just as a soldier cooks or rather burns his rations by impaling the piece of meat on his ramrod. Very little cooking is required by these people, who are content if the skin is well calcined and the flesh not quite raw.
The Mundurucú can also procure fruits that are capable of preservation, so that he need be in no fear as to suffering from lack of provisions. The chief fruits are the “nuts” of the Lecythis and the Bertholetia. The fruit of the former tree is popularly known as “monkey-cup,” because the hard envelope which encloses the seeds has a movable lid, that falls off when the fruit is ripe, and enables the monkeys to draw the seeds out of their case.
The fruit of the Bertholetia is familiarly known as the Brazil nut. A number of these nuts are enclosed within a very thick and hard pericarp, which has no lid, though there is a little hole at the top through which the seeds can be seen. When the fruit is ripe, it falls to the ground with such force that if it were to strike a man on the head it would instantly kill him. One of these fruits in my collection measures exactly a foot in circumference, and, though very dry, weighs nine ounces. The reader may imagine the force with which such a fruit would fall from the height of a hundred feet or so.
To guard themselves against accidents, the Mundurucús always wear thick wooden caps when they go after the Brazil nuts, and are careful to walk very upright, so as not to be struck on the back or the nape of the neck.
CHAPTER CXXIX.
THE TRIBES OF GUIANA.
WEAPONS.
CHANGES OF LANGUAGE — INVERSION OF WORDS AND SENTENCES — THE TALKING PARROT — THE FIVE CHIEF TRIBES OF GUIANA — PECULIARITY OF CLIMATE, AND CONSEQUENT EFFECT ON VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE — THE HAMMOCK OF GUIANA — THE WEAPONS PECULIAR TO THE COUNTRY — THE TWO KINDS OF BLOW GUN — THE ZARABATANA, AND MODE OF CONSTRUCTION — WEIGHT OF THE WEAPON — THE PUCUNA — ITS DOUBLE TUBE — THE OURAH AND SAMOURAH — THE KURUMANNI WAX — THE INGENIOUS FORE AND BACK SIGHTS — THE BLOW GUN ARROWS — THEIR CONSTRUCTION — MODE OF SHARPENING — THE PIRAI FISH — INGENIOUS MODE OF PACKING THE ARROWS — MODE OF PROPELLING THE ARROWS — THE WINGED ARROW — THE QUIVER AND COTTON BASKET.