S90 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



it forms the staple food of this rodent. Hunters are 

 always careful to remove every part of the intestines of 

 the agouti, which they say are poisonous, and they take 

 care to bury, or in any case to throw away, this dangerous 

 delicacy so that their dogs may not be able to partake 

 of it. Other curious instances of animals enjoying the 

 privilege of being able to take certain poisons without 

 evil effects are those of the goat and hemlock, the horse 

 and aconite, and the rabbit and belladonna. 



But to return to the manufacture of cassava-cakes. 

 The women carry the tubers from the field to the house 

 in deep baskets, by means of a broad band of bark passed 

 over the head. After the contents of these baskets have 

 been heaped into a pile on the ground, they sit around 

 and peel the skin off the roots with knives. The roots 

 having been peeled are washed thoroughly, after which 

 they are grated into pulp. In the far-away districts the 

 graters are of board into which sharp bits of stone have 

 been cemented ; but at Mura, where it is possible to obtain 

 pieces of tin from the cans that have contained kerosene 

 oil, the Indians make their graters, by driving a nail 

 through the tin in the form of small squares. The tubers 

 are rubbed up and down over the graters, placed in an 

 inclined position in the carapace of a water tortoise. 

 The pulp is then transferred to the squeezer, a long 

 cylinder of wicker-work which hangs by the loop at the 

 upper end from one of the beams of the house or from 

 a post with a cross-bar planted in the ground outside. 

 Through the loop at the lower end a pole is passed and 

 to this heavy stones are attached, in addition to which 

 the women and children sit on it, so as to apply as much 

 pressure as possible to the cassava in the cylinder. The 

 poisonous juice is by this means forced out through the 



