roTH] WEAPONS: HUNTING AND FIGHTING 145 
targets which they make of canes split in two, and which they so 
fitly and closely join one with another, that though they are much 
lighter, yet they are no less strong than those others which they make 
of the skin of the fish pegebuey [manati] (AC, 88). On the upper 
Rio Negro Wallace found wickerwork shields, some of them covered 
with tapir hide (ARW, 351), among the Uaupes River Indians 
(ARW, 195, 351), where they have remained up to the present day as 
dance shields used by the Tukano and Desana (Betoya stock), the 
illustrations (pl. 34.A) representing them as circular in shape and 
apparently manufactured on a spiral foundation (KG, 1, 344). [It 
is interesting to note that at the time of the conquest, in 1509, but 
far to the westward of the Guianas, Ojeda speaks of a brave and 
warlike race of Carib origin defending themselves with osier targets 
(WI, 645-646). Another reference to shields, also outside the area 
under consideration, is given by Simson from among the Jivaro of 
the Pastassa, a tributary of the Amazon (AS, 91).] Wooden shields 
have also been noted. Thus, in Cayenne, Barrére mentions a shield 
(pl. 34 B) made of extremely light wood, which they daub on the 
front with various colors. The shape is almost square, and a little 
concave inward, where there is a handle at the middle, which serves 
to hold it conveniently (PBA, 168). According to a translation 
given in Timehri, 1893, page 45, of Hartsinck’s Beschrybing van 
Guiana, 1770, the only weapon of defense they (apparently Surinam 
Indians) possess, is a shield of very light wood, which they paint in 
different colors. Its form is almost square, a little hollow in the 
center, where a handle is fixed. The Tigiboro shield of the Surinam 
Carib was large and cut out of the spur of a species of corkwood 
tree, bebe (PEN, 1, 52). The Arawak of the Pomeroon, I am in- 
formed, employed in the early days a corkwood shield or jacket, 
known as a nonabokuanna (WER, v1, sec. 370). Brett also speaks 
of a wooden buckler here (Br, 487; BrB, 36). (For wrestling 
shields, see sec. 608.) The Island Carib are said to have possessed 
no targets or bucklers (vondaches), . . . but their bodies were naked 
(RO, 526). 
117. The blowgun or blowpipe; the sarbacan (ScG, 235), zaraba- 
tana (HWB, 295), or gravatana (ARW, 147); the cura of the 
Makusi, etc. Three types of this implement have been recorded, 
from the westerly areas of the Guianas, according as they are built 
up of (a) two complete tubes, one within the other; (4) an inner 
tube incased in another made of two split halves; (¢) a single tube 
composed of two split halves. Among the earliest more or less 
accurate descriptions of the first type of implement (pl. 35 A,a) is 
that of Waterton (from among the Makusi). The reed. he says, 
