SOUTH AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURES KRIEGER 415 



Lower lip labrets, consisting either of a wooden disk or one of metal 

 or stone, are worn. Large discoidal and ear lobe labrets are worn at 

 the same time by some of the more primitive tribes, such as the Boto- 

 cudo. This practice of distending the ear lobe is carried to exaggera- 

 tion by the tribes of the Upper Tocantins and Araguaya Rivers. 



Tattooing is fairly generally practiced, the faces of some of the 

 women of some of the tribes being elaborately patterned. Body 

 painting, a common practice among many tropical peoples who have 

 dispensed with clothing, is limited to the northern part of this area. 

 Communal houses are probably more common that is generally 

 known throughout the area. Houses are rectangular or circular in 

 outline, are built of posts and have a ridge roof covered with palm 

 leaves or grass thatch. Wattling is omitted entirely, the ends and 

 sides being left open. Palisaded villages are common. An easily 

 understandable architectural practice is the widespread use of pile 

 dwellings in a region subject to frequent overflow. The word " Ven- 

 ezuela " or " Little Venice " is a recognition of this and refers to the 

 pile dwellings once built on the shores of Lake Maracaibo. 



What little cultivation is done is effected by means of a stick. 

 Root crops, principally manioc and varieties of sweet potato and 

 yams are cultivated. It is perhaps correct to exclude this area from a 

 discussion of the agricultural area of native America in that such cul- 

 tivation as is done is more or less desultory and incidental to hunt- 

 ing and fishing. The flesh of monkeys, peccaries, jungle fowls, 

 birds, and snakes, and along the river courses, the mollusks and fish, 

 constitute the principal source of food supply. The American Indian 

 generally does not incline to the use of intoxicating beverages and 

 to the use of habit-forming narcotics, although an intoxicating drink 

 " chicha " made from manioc, palm fruit, fermented maize, bananas, 

 or cacao beans is known to the tribes of this area. The consumption 

 of edible earth or clay is perhaps a degenerate food habit on a par 

 with this form of perversion in dietetics wherever it occurs. The use 

 of tobacco is by means of bone tubes through which snuff is inhaled 

 into the nostrils. The cigar is smoked in the north, while farther 

 south in the Gran Chaco a bowled elbow pipe is used. 



Implements and utensils are few and are made of stone, shell, bone, 

 calabash, and other more or less improvised or extemporized mate- 

 rials. As mentioned before, the knowledge of metals had not pene- 

 trated the area. Excellent pottery is made, especially by the great 

 stocks, the Arawaks and the Caribs. The Caraya and others make 

 bark cloth like that of Polynesia and middle America. Although 

 the knowledge of weaving and the use of the loom is widespread, 

 bast fiber is also used as a plaiting material. The distribution of 

 carved wood, chiefly in the form of implements and weapons, has 



