to slender saplings which frequently die after the first 
tapping. Seedlings are absent from most areas because 
the local custom of burning the chapadas, even though 
prohibited by law, has exterminated most perennial 
plants which do not have a protective covering of bark 
or heavy leaf bases. 
Only the poorest and most primitive of the Indian- 
White mixtures live in the areas which mangabeira pre- 
ters. These people are strongly resistant to innovations 
and, even where it is possible to demonstrate positive 
superiority of a new method, there must be an inertia- 
overcoming incentive before the change will even be 
considered. While this conservatism is characteristic of 
most people dependent upon the soil, and equally true 
of American farmers as well as Brazilian agriculturists 
and woods-people, this conservatism is especially evident 
in the Cearé coastal mangabeira areas, because most of 
the tapping is done by women who are even more con- 
servative in their outlook than men. The trees are usu- 
ally tapped three times each year with deep V-notches 
cut with a small paring knife. Because the latex flow is 
of short duration and cups are seldom on the tree for 
more than half an hour, mangabeira may be tapped 
throughout the year, in both the rainy and the dry sea- 
son. For cups, tough and leathery araticum leaves (An- 
nona coriacea Mart.) are folded into cones (Plate XL, 
A), pinned with splinters or cactus spines and slipped 
under a flap cut in the soft bark. If the tree yields well, 
the shallow cup overflows; if the wind blows, it over- 
turns. Even though the additional latex gathered by 
using tin cups would pay for all the necessary cups in 
less than two days, only a small portion of the workers 
have been induced to adopt them. Yet, even leaf cups 
are an advance over the method which, though rare in 
Ceara, is common in Maranhao, a state to the north- 
[ 804 ] 
