454 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



of Canelos, and my coffee gave out, I made tea of 

 guayiisa leaves, and found it very palatable. The 

 Jibaros make the infusion so strong that it becomes 

 positively emetic. The guayiisa- pot, carefully 

 covered up, is kept simmering on the fire all night, 

 and when the Indian wakes up in the morning he 

 drinks enough guayiisa to make him vomit, his 

 notion being that if any food remain undigested on 

 the stomach, that organ should be aided to free 

 itself of the encumbrance. Mothers give a strong 

 draught of it, and a feather to tickle the throat with, 

 to male children of very tender age. I rather think 

 its use is tabooed to females of all ages, like caapi 

 on the Uaupes. Indians are not by any means so 

 solicitous to empty the bowels early in the day as 

 to clear out the stomach. On the contrary, all 

 through South America I have noticed that when 

 the Indian has a hard day's work before him, and 

 has only a scanty supply of food, he prefers to go 

 until night without an evacuation, and he has 

 greater control over the calls of nature than the 

 white man has. Their maxim, as an Indian at San 

 Carlos expressed it to me in rude Spanish, is 

 : ' Quien caga de manana es guloso " (he who goes 

 to stool in a morning is a glutton). 



* 



From all that has been said, it may be gathered 

 that the domestic medicine of the South American 

 Indians is chiefly hygienic, as such medicine ought 

 to be, it being of greater daily importance to 

 preserve health than to cure disease. If their 

 physicians be mere charlatans, their lack of skill 

 may often be compensated by the ignorant faith of 

 their patients ; and their methods are scarcely more 



