CULTURE OF PEOPLE OF SOUTHEASTERN PANAMA 57 



The darts used with the blowgun to-day are of two kinds, the 

 short and the long darts, but otherwise similar. 



The short darts, made from the midrib of a cokerite palm leaf 

 {MaximAliana regia) 17.8 cm. (6.9 in.) in length (Cat. No. 327590, 

 U.S.N.M.), (pi. 11, No. S), are sharpened to a knitting-needle like 

 thinness, having the greatest diameter in section about two inches 

 back from the unnotched point and tapered toward the nock end, 

 Avhich is skillfully wrapped with tree cotton sufficient in quantity 

 and of the proper consistency to fit the tube of the blowgun and to 

 propel the dart when pressure is applied by a puff of air from the 

 operator's mouth. The dart, smoothed with a bit of shell, is not 

 always perfectly rounded in section. 



While the North American Indian feathers the shafts of his 

 arrows at the butt to insure directness of flight, the Indians of 

 Darien accomplish the same result by locating the center of gravity 

 in their darts and arrows near the head end of the shaftment or in 

 a foreshaft of heavier wood than that of the posterior end of the 

 shaft. The blowgim darts along with the various types of fish 

 spears and arrows are heaviest in section near the head of the shaft- 

 ment. 



Another blowgun dart (Cat. No. 327589, U.S.N.M.), (pi. 11, 

 No. 7), 49 cm. (19.3 in.) in length, has a shaft three times 

 the length of the dart just described. Considerable skill based on 

 long practice is required in properly wrapping the cotton about the 

 posterior or nock end ; Avhen properly fitted to the bore of the blow- 

 gun a dart is effective at 100 yards. 



In the interior and on the coast as well, hunting is of secondary 

 importance to fishing, for which the dart is not available, as it can 

 not penetrate under water. The blowguns are cylindrical tubes 

 167.5 cm. (66 in.) in length (Cat. No. 327605, U.S.N.M.; pi. 9, No. 

 4), composed of two cylindrical reeds each 1.7 cm. (.7 in.) in diam- 

 eter, joined by a cylindrical band composed of a third section of 

 similar reed, 2.1 cm. (.8 in.) in section and 25.4 cm. (9.9 in.) in 

 length. The joining of the cylindrical section is so neatly adjusted 

 as to offer no obstruction to the passage of the dart through the 

 tube, which is of burnished evenness. The light yellow color and 

 other descriptive details identify the stems as similar to those in 

 use in the Guianas described by Roth (p. 145) in the Thirty-eighth 

 Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology : " The reed 

 grows hollow and there is not the least appearance of a knot or joint 

 throughout the whole extent." 



The Darien blowguns and darts from the San Bias coast collected 

 by the Marsh-Darien expedition are crude in construction when 



