A white deposit of unknown composition and the mineral gaylussite 
cover the urao (9). 
Codazzi (19), writing of Venezuela in the 19th Century, says the 
Indians remove the urao by diving four or five fathoms deep. Métraux 
and Kirchoff (45) give details of use at the time of the Conquest: 
““‘The Indians living at Lake Jurao in the Venezuelan Andes cut 
through two layers of deposits in the lake bottom to obtain chunks 
of sodium carbonate (jurao). They used itas a salt substitute on food, 
they mixed it with coca (?) in place of lime, and they made it into a 
paste which they licked.’’ They add that these Indians traded urao 
to many other tribes. 
A lively and interesting account of urao at the time of the Conquest 
is that of Fray Pedro de Aguado (3), who wrote in the 16th Century, 
part of which follows: “*. . . these Indians are superior and respected 
by the other Indians of this province. . . because of a certain lake or 
lagoon that (they) have in their land in which, . . there coagulates 
in the bed and bottom of it a kind of very bitter. . . saltpeter, that 
is neither salt nor saltpeter, which would not serve us for either; and 
of this kind of saltpeter the whole floor of the lagoon is made, or most 
of it, a crust which in part is very thick and in part thin, from which 
the Indians break off and take away to sell to all who come to buy 
.... Actually, the Indians want this saltpeter principally to eat, 
though it is eaten in various ways; some eat it with echayo [hayo or 
coca meant here, possibly] instead of lime, and others eat it with 
other food instead of salt, and others make a kind of paste (belin) of 
it like mead (sic) and this they eat by licking and giving evidence of 
enjoying ita great deal, and thus they are all vassals and contribute 
to those who have the lagoon and take out this saltpeter, which in 
their language they call rurao, and it is the principal money between 
these Indians I have described, because with it (they) give and sell 
all they have and are solicited (for). Also the Spanish make use of 
this saltpeter to give it to their horses, which purges and fattens 
them a great deal.”’ 
I have quoted this account at length because from it several signi- 
ficant inferences may be drawn. First: urao was known and used 
among a great number of Indians and was employed in several ways. 
One possibly was with coca. Granted the supposition is valid that 
tobacco borrowed details of preparation and use from coca, it may be 
supposed as well that urao was also utilized in chim6, although Aguado 
does not mention it. On the other hand, if chim6 borrowed from to- 
bacco concentrate in its preparation, plant ash would more probably 
be the alkalizer used, though use of urao would not be ruled out. 
Second: urao was made into a paste, probably resembling chimo in 
form and was licked. This closely parallels chim6 use and could have 
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