204 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



museum some of the bigger skins, and also some of the 

 weapons and utensils of the Indians, which Kermit had 

 collected. These included woven fillets, and fillets made 

 of macaw feathers, for use in the dances; woven belts; 

 a gourd in which the sacred drink is offered to the god 

 Enoerey; wickerwork baskets; flutes or pipes; anklet rat- 

 tles; hammocks; a belt of the kind used by the women in 

 carrying the babies, with the weaving-frame. All these 

 were Parcels articles. He also secured from the Nham- 

 biquaras wickerwork baskets of a different type and bows 

 and arrows. The bows were seven feet long and the ar- 

 rows five feet. There were blunt-headed arrows for birds, 

 arrows with long, sharp wooden blades for tapir, deer, and 

 other mammals; and the poisoned war-arrows, with sharp 

 barbs, poison-coated and bound on by fine thongs, and 

 with a long, hollow wooden guard to slip over the entire 

 point and protect it until the time came to use it. When 

 people talk glibly of "idle" savages they ignore the im- 

 mense labor entailed by many of their industries, and the 

 really extraordinary amount of work they accomplish by 

 the skilful use of their primitive and ineffective tools. 



It was not until early in the afternoon that we started 

 into the "sertao," * as Brazilians call the wilderness. We 

 drove with us a herd of oxen for food. After going about 

 fifteen miles we camped beside the swampy headwaters of 

 a little brook. It was at the spot where nearly seven 

 years previously Rondon and Lyra had camped on the 

 trip when they discovered Utiarity Falls and penetrated 

 to the Juruena. When they reached this place they had 



* Pronounced "sairtown," as nearly as, with our preposterous methods of 

 spelling and pronunciation, I can render it. 



