ROTH] GUMS, WAX, OILS, PIGMENTS 81 
is obtained (ScD, 98). The rough masses of this deliciously scented 
white resin, . . . which is very inflammable, are often collected and 
stored by the Indians for lighting fires. Sometimes it is broken up into 
small pieces, which are put into hollow sticks [or rolled in leaves] 
and used as torches [or tapers, ScO, 54]. Made pliable by the 
admixture of a little oil, it is formed into balls . . . and in this state 
is stored and used to scent oil for anointing the bodies and hair of 
Indians (IT, 315-316). 
Protium (Ieica) guianense March is mentioned by Crévaux in 
Cayenne: The Maroon negroes of Guiana call the incense mond 
(money) doubtless because it serves them to buy from the whites 
that which they may require (Cr, 304). 
Protium aracouchili (= Icica acouchini= Amyris heterophylla), from 
which is derived the balsam of acouchi. I take this to be identical 
with the arrecocerra and racaciri balsams mentioned by Bancroft and 
Fermin, respectively. This [arrecocerra] is the grand Indian vulner- 
ary for wounds, etc., which it speedily digests or incarns (BA, 87). 
It is also used for sticking on feathers (BA, 275). Balsam racaciri 
is derived from a tree on the banks of the Amazon. They let it 
trickle into a calabash from incisions made in the tree; a sovereign 
remedy for all recent sores and even old wounds, applying it in the 
form of a plaster put on as hot as possible (FE, 83). 
Protium Ucica, Amyris) carana.—The greatest part [of the resinous 
substances] employed in the trade from the village of Javita on the 
upper Orinoco with Angostura [Bolivar] comes from the mararo or 
caragna, which is an Amyris ... It yields a resin strongly odorif- 
erous and white as snow . . . It becomes yellow where it adheres to 
the internal part of the old bark (AVH, 1, 357). This extract from 
Humboldt very probably affords a clew to the identification of certain 
resins mentioned by Gumilla—the mara and carafia. Mara is a rare 
resin, but it is not yet known whence the Guayba, Tunebo, and 
Chiricoa Indians obtain it. It is used for hunting deer, which are 
said to be attracted by its perfume . . . Carafia is a resin which the 
Indians extract, of a reddish color, but I am ignorant of its uses or 
effects (G, 1, 269). The word is met with again in Surinam, where 
Fermin believes the ‘“‘gomme de janipabas”’ to be identical with the 
caranna or, in French, caregne (FE, 250). Schomburgk speaks of the 
substance as being something like gum elemi (SR, 1, 337). 
Humiria floribunda Juss —Known as the bastard bullet tree. 
It would seem to be identical with what the French in Cayenne 
call the ‘bois rouge’? and the Indians coumery. Even at a 
distance the tree gives a strong and agreeable perfume (PBA, 21). 
Perhaps the same may be said, in the way of identity, of the cunasiri 
of the Orinoco: A tree of large size, color of the timber reddish; saw- 
dust filings from it give the odor of incense (G, 1, 267). From the 
humiria is derived the umiri balsam (SR, 1, 337). 
