NOTES ON PERAI 367 



He uses a different and more certain method, one in which his 

 forefathers were adept hundreds of years ago. Paddling 

 the canoe to a proper spot, he holds the entrails of a freshly 

 killed agouti, tightly fastened to the end of a long stick, 

 over the water so that the ends trail and the blood spreads 

 away with the current. The perai, its appetite aroused by 

 the thin taint of blood, rushes upstream until it reaches the 

 dangling treasure, and greedily seizes it. Quickly then, for 

 another instant would see the mass torn away from its hold 

 on the stick, comes the twang of a bow-string; the fish is 

 transfixed by a long, hollow, spear-like arrow, and suddenly 

 finds itself, twisting and biting, with others of its kind in the 

 bottom of the wood-skin. 



There are other uses for perai beside food. A lower 

 jaw with its saw-like row of teeth always dangles from the 

 woven, pitch-covered baskets that act as quivers for poisoned 

 darts. When a dart is prepared for action, its dark, poisoned 

 tip is nearly severed against one of the sharp teeth, so that 

 when it enters the body of its victim, the point breaks oft' 

 and remains to do its work, even though the arrow be torn 

 away. 



