56 BULLETIN" 134, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



fibers, a dearth of metal objects is usually encountered. The Guaymie 

 of the headwaters of the Bio San Felix west of the Canal Zone still 

 chip stone celts with which to pick and to shape their mealing stones. 

 Such celts are chipped and nearly always unpolished. Where stone 

 celts and other nonmetallic objects are not serviceable in shaping 

 implements and weapons, trade objects are employed. Steel files 

 and steel hand saws are thus used by the Tule in cutting to proper 

 dimension their household furniture. A more popular imported 

 tool employed in chipping, cutting, and shaping hardwood is the 

 machete. 



The machete scabbard from the Rio Chico, south Darien (Cat. No. 

 327622, U.S.N.M.), is a typical example of the decorative art of the 

 Choco (pi. 19, No. 3). The object is fashioned from two slabs of 

 hollowed balsa wood large enough to cover the blade of the machete 

 to the hilt, 57.7 cm. (22.7 in.) in length. The lateral surfaces of the 

 two wood sections are concave on their inner surface and convex 

 without — both sections tapering at the distal end to a conical knob. 

 Several strands of cotton cord encircle the two sections of the scab- 

 bard at the ends and middle and may be severed without the removal 

 of blade from scabbard. The lateral surfaces are not flattened but 

 ovoid in outline at the hilt. A geometric ornamental design in black 

 and yellow alternates with the natural white color of the balsa wood. 

 The black pigment is obtained from the jet caustic pigment of the 

 Genipa americana, the coruto of the native tongue; it is laid on in 

 fantastic openwork pattern consisting of black lines in the form 

 of a diamond-shaped rectangle alternating with an hour-glass design 

 with extended neck region. The yellow, a more brilliant coloring 

 matter extracted from the pulp of the Bixa orellana and known 

 locally as anoto, arnotto, or anatto, is laid on in closing wedges at 

 each end and in four-leaved floral designs within each rectangle. 



Blowguns and darts. — The employment of poisoned arrows and 

 of blowgun darts is on the wane. The Tule chief, Igwa Nigdibippi, 

 said in 1924 that his people did not use poisoned darts, but that the 

 Choco did. Mrs. E. Y. Bell, in the Smithsonian Report for 1909, 

 writes that the San Bias Indians formerly poisoned their arrows by 

 dipping them in the juice of the "Manzillano del playa," a plant 

 growing near the sea. In Cullen's "Darien" (p. 67), it is said that 

 "some woorali and poisoned arrows that I obtained from the In- 

 dians of the interior were procured hy them from Choco." In the 

 "Darien Surveys," Self ridge writes (p. 136) : "We inquired of all 

 the Indians, both men and boys, at Caledonia Bay and at San Bias 

 for the ; curari ' or ' urari ' poison * * *. They brought us what 

 they represented to be the bona fide poison. It turned out to be 

 nothing but the juice of the manzanillo del playa." 



