88 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
process begins... The whole heap is thrown into an empty 
canoe and mashed with wooden prongs; but sometimes naked Indians 
and children jump into the mass and tread it down, besmearing them- 
selves with yolk, and making about as filthy a scene as can well be 
imagined. This being finished, water is poured into the canoe 
and the fatty mass then left for a few hours to be heated by the 
sun, on which the oil separates and rises to the surface. The floating 
oil is afterward skimmed off with long spoons made by tying large 
mussel shells to the ends of long rods, and purified over the fire in 
copper kettles (HWB, 313). 
The Orinoco Indians twice daily use turtle-egg oil for anointing 
themselves (G, 1, 293). Much employed for culinary purposes by 
the Brazilians ... The turtle oil (mantega de tartaruga) consti- 
tutes a branch of commerce in the province of Para (ScD, 39). 
Used both for lighting and for cooking; millions of eggs are thus 
annually destroyed (ARW, 323). 
27. Another animal oil is that obtained from the guacharo or 
salies birds (Steatornis caripensis) on the upper Mazaruni (BB, 386), 
but no details of manufacture are given. 
28. With perhaps two exceptions, pigments are all of vegetable 
origin. The following plants give colors of a more or less reddish 
nature: 
Bignonia chica Humb.—The pigment obtained from this plant is 
known as caraweru to almost all of the British Guiana tribes (SR, ny, 
208), as carivaveru (ScO, 307), as carawelu (Da, 274), as carayuru 
on the upper Rio Negro, and as barisa or barahisa to the Warrau. 
I believe it to be identical with the tamiremui of the Trio and Ojana 
(GO, 2) in Surinam; with the biauro of the Arawak, ete., on the 
Demerara River (Da, 213); with the kariarou of Cayenne (PBA, 
197-198). In our own colony its preparation [by a process of fer- 
mentation] is confined exclusively to the Wapishana, Taruma, and 
Makusi. The leaves are first of all slightly dried in the shade, 
then thrown into a large trough or pot with water, in which on the 
second or third day they have already begun to ferment, whereby 
the red material is deposited as a powder. When this process is 
over the powder is washed until all foreign particles are removed. 
The deposit is next laid out in the sun to dry and then packed in 
small boxes made of palm leaves. The Indians use this delicate 
powder for face painting, for which purpose it is mixed with a sweet- 
smelling gum (SR, u, 393). A similar method of preparation is 
followed on the upper Rio Negro (KG, nu, 237). Im Thurn and B. 
Brown (BB, 162) instead of a fermentation speak of the water in 
which the leaves are soaked as being boiled. Thus, the dried leaves 
are boiled for a few minutes over a fire and then some freshly cut 
pieces of the bark of a certain tree and a bundle of twigs and fresh 
‘ 
