nore] FIRE, STONE, TIMBER, TOOLS 79 
tribes apply it in the manufacture of the three-yarn cotton scale 
lines of their hammocks (sec. 38). 
20. Wallace was the first to draw attention to the cylindrical 
quartz chest ornaments (Sec. 537) from the Uaupes River Indians. 
These stones are 4 to 8 inches long and about an inch in diameter. 
They are ground round and flat, at the ends—a work of great labor— 
and each is pierced with a hole at one end, through which a string is 
passed so as to suspend it around the neck. It seems almost in- 
credible that they should be able to make this hole in so hard a 
substance without iron instruments. They are said to use the pointed 
flexible leaf shoot of the large wild plantain, triturating with fine 
sand and water. ... It is said to be a labor of years; yet it must 
take a much longer time to pierce that which the Tushaua wears as 
the symbol of his authority, for it is generally of the largest size, and 
is worn transversely across the breast, for which purpose the hole is 
bored lengthwise from one end to the other, an operation which . . . 
sometimes occupies two lives (ARW, 191). Another traveler has 
recently seen these ornaments again in the same district, and identi- 
fies the pointed wooden needle employed as made from the Jriartea 
exorrhiza palm (KG, 1,326). Quartz and other stone beads (sec. 76), 
likewise drilled, have been recorded. 
21. The rough and scabrous leaves of the Curatella americana 
Linn. were employed as our tradesmen would use sandpaper for polish- 
ing purposes (ScT, 20). The leaves of the trumpet wood (Cecropia 
peltata) were similarly employed (Da, 159). The dried tongue of the 
warapaima fish (Sudis gigas) is applied to the same use. The perfo- 
rated seed capsule chips for the necklaces of the Roucouyenne, etc., 
are threaded and polished by hand with the débris from pottery 
pounded up and moistened (Cr, 285). The polish on any of the 
hardwood timbers is completed by means of repeated rubbing with 
the hands and crabwood oil. 
22. With the introduction of iron, however, modifications took 
place in certain of the preceding processes. Thus, Schomburgk 
describes how he had often seen the Makusi and others take a piece 
of old iron, a discarded cutlass, for instance, make notches in it, and 
then use it as a saw, occupying a whole day, perhaps, in cutting an 
inch deep into some of their hard timbers (SR, 1, 424). Wooden 
hooks (sec. 191) have been replaced by metal ones. In the utmost 
confines of the area under consideration the latest of European and 
American aXes are in common use. Notwithstanding the fact that 
iron griddles were introduced upward of two centuries ago (sec. 363), 
clay griddles (sec. 362) are still used. 
