west. In this method, the bark is smoothed with a ma- 
chete to within 4 mm. of the wood on about a third of 
the circumference of the trunk to a height of 70 cm. 
Many pricks and small cuts are made in this panel with 
the tip of the machete, and the latex which exudes is 
scraped off with a spoon and collected in a gourd. Many of 
the trees tapped in this manner are left with huge gaping 
wounds and cannot be retapped even if they survive. 
The best methods of tapping mangabeira are those 
used in the Serra de Araripe. The workers organized to 
tap on the high chapada use a special knife with one end 
bent into a U for cutting the latex groove, the other 
end sharpened to a point to make an incision cutting all 
the latex vessels underlying this groove down to the 
wood. Below this V-cut a tin cup is pushed into the 
bark to receive the pink latex. Cuts are made at 40 cm. 
intervals from the ground as high up on the tree as can 
be reached (Plate XX XVIII, C). Even branches as 
small as a man’s arm may be tapped and some trees 
support as many as twenty-five cups. When a basal cut is 
made before dawn, the latex may overflow a 120 ce. cup, 
yet the same cut made at 10 a.m. would yield only 5 cc. 
A few workers in the Serra de Araripe use the same 
style of two-ended knife to cut a deep spiral groove on 
the trunk, from the highest point they can reach to the 
ground. Here a leaf is inserted in the cut to funnel the 
latex into a bottle. While there have been reports of 
trees which will fill a 750 ce. bottle by this method, these 
trees must be extremely rare, for even with cups the most 
skilled worker seldom secures more than 400 cc. of latex 
even from the rare large virgin trees. Claims of five to 
eight liter yields must be received with skepticism. Most 
trees can be tapped three times in good years, but only 
once if rains are scarce. 
Mangabeira latex usually coagulates very slowly in 
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