The classic material of which chimo boxes are made is 
cow horn (cacho, cuerno de res). Tesser (pers. comm. ) 
states that they also may be made from sections of cane 
or reed or made of small gourds. Seen here and there in 
use also are round metal boxes which originally held 
ointment or pills (27, 39). 
Although chimo boxes vary in detail, sizes are rather 
constant—the diameter of a quarter to a silver dollar, 
even a little larger. 
Acosta Saignes (2), in an illustrated monograph, de- 
scribes the making of cow horn chim6 boxes. He watched 
an elderly cajetero at work and questioned him on each of 
twenty-seven operations. Working some ten hours a 
day, this man could produce about twenty cajetas a 
week. He sold them for one bolivar apiece. All sizes are 
priced the same, since the smaller ones are harder to 
make. He sometimes sold to a shopkeeper who asked 
a slightly higher price for them. 
A cajetero buys horns from a slaughter house (mata- 
dero) at a very low price. His work on this raw material 
is slow and laborious and requires patience and skill. 
Most cajeteros are elderly men. Their only competitors 
have been prisoners, who made chim6 boxes until re- 
cently when there developed a tourist trade in birds and 
other novelties made of horn. 
The process of making chim6 boxes is too complicated 
to describe here. Most boxes have a slightly convex top 
and bottom, a shape obtained by pressing heated pieces 
of horn onto a wooden mold. These parts and the rims 
are made in quantity and are then matched up. 
Each box consists of two similar halves fitted together 
and matched in horn-color. They are selected to fit a 
little tightly, as the chim6 lubricates and loosens them. 
Not all boxes have convex sides; some light colored 
boxes are flat, adorned with simple patterns of circular 
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