6. Chimi. Chim6 is known as chimti in Colombia. Reichel-Dolmatoff 
(pers. comm.) states: ‘‘Chim6—or chimd as it is called in Colombia 
—is widely used by the peasants and lower urban classes of the De- 
partment of Santandér del Norte’’. Ram6n y Rivera (pers. comm. ) 
asserts that ““no author points out and I say it now, that in the Vene- 
zuelan Andes they say ‘chimd’, not ‘chim6’; this latter form is more 
correct’’. I did not hear ‘‘chimi’’; but I did not speak with culti- 
vated persons in the Andes. Valero (pers. comm.) insists that only 
“*chim6’’ is used in Venezuela. 
La 
7. En Isti. In this sense, this expression does not appear in any 
of several dictionaries consulted. Informants gave it also as indistu 
and en istu. Ina letter from the Ministerio de Fomento the word was 
written with a capital ‘‘I’’ and a later letter confirmed the correct- 
ness of this form. 
According to Valero and Rojas (pers. comms.) “‘isti’’ is an indige- 
nous word and the name of a wild medicinal plant of the Andes which 
is cooked and eaten as food. Acosta Saignes (1) lists isté as a plant 
cultivated by Venezuela’s aboriginal Indians for food, from which 
also, paint was made. Alvarado (5) says the ‘‘isté’’ of Trujillo fur- 
nishes an indelible black dye and that its fruit, boiled in soup, gives 
a flavor of meat. He quotes Ernst in giving it an identity also as 
‘‘conopio’’. Pittier (50) lists conopio as the zingiberaceous Renealmia 
occidentalis. 
There seems to be no connection between this word used for *‘crude 
chimo6’’ and the name of a plant—unless it be the very tenuous asso- 
ciation of the blackness of the crude chimé and the black dye of the 
isti plant. 
8. Cernada. The word “‘cernada’’ is employed for a solid cake of 
ash and also for the liquid resulting from the soaking or leaching of 
this ash. The ash results from the burning of plant material and the 
liquid is caustic potash or lye (/ejia). It ordinarily contains an average 
of 25% to 30% of lime and 0.5% potash and is strongly alkaline. 
In Venezuela, several types of plant material reduced to ashes are 
used to make cernada. The following according to Valero (pers. comm. ) 
are preferred: 1) The wood of bucare (Erythrina spp.), planted to shade 
coffee trees, likewise known as anauco, ceibo, immortelle. 
2) The rinds of fruit or the stem sheath of plantain or banana. 
Valero (pers. comm.) comments that the collecting and burning of 
these is customarily done by elderly country women. They add a 
little water to ash and form it into a cake, or they add water and 
evaporate it until a solid mass is left. This cake or mass, wrapped in 
the dried sheath of the banana or plantain stem, is sold to the chimoeros. 
This banana association is especially interesting, since it is charac- 
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