The pods of the Acacia niopo—a small tree, with very delicate pinnate leaves—are plucked when ripe. They are then cut into small pieces and flung into a vessel of water. In this they remain until macerated, and until the seeds have turned black. These are then picked out, pounded in a mortar, which is usually the pericarp of the sapuçaia, or “monkey-pot” tree (Lecythys ollaria). The pounding reduces them to a paste, which is taken up, clapped between the hands and formed into little cakes—but not until it has been mixed with some manioc flour, some lime from a burnt shell (a helix), and a little juice from the fresh leaves of the “abuta”—a menispermous plant of the genus Cocculus. The cakes are then dried or “barbecued” upon a primitive gridiron—the bars of which are saplings of hard wood—and when well-hardened the snuff is ready for the “box.” In a box it is actually carried—usually one made out of some rare and beautiful shell.
The ceremonial of taking the snuff is the most singular part of the performance. When a Mundrucu feels inclined for a “pinch”—though it is something more than a pinch that he inhales when he does feel inclined—he takes the cake out of the box, scrapes off about a spoonful of it into a shallow, saucer-shaped vessel of the calabash kind, and then spreads the powder all over the bottom of the vessel in a regular “stratification.” The spreading is not performed by the fingers, but with a tiny, pencil-like brush made out of the bristles of the great ant-eater (Myrmecophaga jubata).
He is in no hurry, but takes his time,—for as you may guess from its effects, the performance is not one so often repeated as that of ordinary snuff-taking. When the niopo dust is laid to his liking, another implement is brought into play, the construction of which it is also necessary to describe. It is a “machine” of six to eight inches in length, and is made of two quills from the wing of the gaviao real, or “harpy eagle” (Harpyia destructor). These quills are placed side by side for the greater part of their length, forming two parallel tubes, and they are thus neatly whipped together by a thread. At one end they are pressed apart so as to diverge to a width corresponding to the breadth between the Mundrucu’s nostrils,—where it is intended they shall be placed during the ceremony of snuff-taking.
And thus are they placed,—one end of each quill being slightly intruded within the line of the septum, while the other end rests upon the snuff, or wanders over the surface of the saucer, till all the powder placed there is drawn up and inhaled, producing the convulsive effects already detailed.
The shank-bone of a species of bird—thought to be a plover—is sometimes used instead of the quills. It is hollow, and has a forking-tube at the end. This kind is not common or easily obtained, for the niopo-taker who has one, esteems it as the most valuable item of his apparatus.
Snuffing the niopo is not exclusively confined to the Mundrucu. We have seen elsewhere that it is also a habit of the dirt-eating Ottomacs; and other tribes on the upper Amazon practise it. But the Mahües, already mentioned as the allies of the Mundrucus, are the most confirmed snuff-takers of all.
Another odd custom of the Mundrucus is their habit of “tatooing.” I speak of real tatooing,—that is, marking the skin with dots and lines that cannot be effaced, in contradistinction to mere painting, or staining, which can easily be washed off. The Mundrucus paint also, with the anotto, kuitoc, caruta, and other pigments, but in this they only follow the practice of hundreds of other tribes. The true tatoo is a far different affair, and scarcely known among the aborigines of America, though common enough in the islands of the South Sea. A few other Indian tribes practise it to a limited extent,—as is elsewhere stated,—but among the Mundrucus it is an “institution;” and painful though the process be, it has to be endured by every one in the nation, “every mother’s son,” and daughter as well, that are cursed with a Mundrucu for their father.
It is upon the young people the infliction is performed,—when they are about eight or ten years of age.
The tatoo has been so often described, that I should not repeat it here; but there are a few “points” peculiar to Mundrucu tatooing, and a few others, not elsewhere understood.
The performance is usually the work of certain old crones, who, from long practice, have acquired great skill in the art.