26 



BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bull. 64 



alongside the dory. Harpooning is rather an exciting form of sport, 

 as it is impossible to tell what sort of fish has been struck until it 

 is landed. Hicatee and bucatora are harpooned with an unbarbed 

 triangular point, this givmg the best hold on their tough shells; they 

 are captured also by spreading small nets in the vicinity of the stumps 

 and holes along the river banks, which they frequent. 



CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES AND 

 FURNITURE 



The Indians construct their houses 

 in the following manner: First a 

 number of straight trees about 8 

 inches in diameter at the base and 

 crotched at the top are selected in 

 the bush for posts. These are usu- 

 ally Santa Maria, chichem, sapo- 

 dilla, or some hardwood. They are 

 cut down, and after having been 

 peeled are dragged to the site of the 

 new house, where they are firmly 

 planted, one at each of the four cor- 

 ners and others, the number de- 

 pending on the size of the house, at 

 short intervals between in the lines 

 of the waUs. In the crotches other 

 slightly smaller poles 5 to 6 inches 

 in diameter, also peeled, are laid ; to 

 these are attached still smaller poles, 

 which run up to the ridgepole 

 (honacTie), forming rafters (uinciche). 



Fig. 7.— Indian can \mg load of bejuco, a liana ^jj t,}^jg fpameWOrk is firmly boUlld 

 used as rope in houes building. , .^ ^ r r i • 



together by means oi ropes oi liana 

 (fig. 7) . Rows of long thin phable sticks are next bound round the 

 rafters, and to these are attached layer upon layer of " huana " (shaan) 

 leaves till a thatch, sometimes 18 inches thick and quite impervious 

 to rain, is formed (pi. 4). 



The walls between the posts are filled in with 'Hasistas," a small 

 palm trunk, or in some cases with strips of spht cabbage palm. The 

 outer sides of the waUs may be daubed with a mixture of mud and 

 hair, or of chopped fiber {paMoom), and whitewashed, or they may 

 be thatched with palm leaves. The floor is made of marl dust 

 pounded down to a flat hard surface. 



Doors and windows may be made of wickerwork of liana, of spht 

 cabbage palm, or of a frame of sticks thatched with pahn leaves. 

 When a man undertakes the building of a new house his neighbors 



