145 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [BLH, ANN. 38 
former locality is as follows: It is generally 9 or 10 feet long, and 
is made of two separate lengths of wood, each scooped out so as to 
form half of the tube. To do this with the necessary accuracy 
requires an enormous amount of patient labor and considerable 
mechanical ability, the tools used being simply the incisor teeth of 
the paca (Coelogenys paca) and cutia (Dasyprocta aguti). The two 
half tubes when finished are secured together by a very close and 
tight spirally wound strapping, consisting of long, flat strips of 
Jacitara or the wood of the climbing-palm tree, and the whole is 
smeared afterwards with black wax, the production of a Melipona 
bee. The pipe tapers toward the muzzle, and a cup-shaped mouth- 
piece made of wood is fitted in the broad end. A full-size zara- 
batana is heavy, and can only be used by an adult Indian who has 
had great practice. The young lads learn to shoot with smaller and 
lighter tubes (HIWB, 295). 
120. The arrow generally used with the blowpipe is from 9 to 
10 inches long. It is made out of the leaf of a species of palm tree 
called coucourite (kokerit), hard and brittle, and pointed as sharp 
as a needle. About an inch of the pointed end is poisoned (with 
urali). The other end is burned to make it still harder, and wild 
cotton is put round it for about an inch and a half. It requires 
considerable practice to put this cotton on well. It must be just 
large enough to fit the hollow of the tube and taper off to nothing 
downward. They tie it on with a thread of the silk grass to prevent 
it from slipping off the arrow (W, 96-98). The arrows which the 
Maiongkong use are more than twice the length of those of the 
Makusi, which are only 12 inches long. They are made of the middle 
fiber (midrib) of the palm leaf and dipped in poison for 3 inches 
from the point. The poison looks like the urari, but the Indians call 
it cumarawa and the Guinau markuri (ScI’, 229). The arrows are 
rendered as sharp as needles by scraping the ends with a knife or 
the tooth of an animal; that of the pirai fish, Pygocentrus niger 
(SR, 1, 425-426), appears to be very commonly employed. On the 
upper Rio Negro the arrows are made of the spinous processes of 
the G@nocarpus batawa (ARW, 147). According to Pinckard’s 
account, it would seem that the blunt end of the poisoned dart was 
not always necessarily wrapped round with the silk cotton. He says: 
The manner of using it (the dart) is by blowing it from a cylin- 
drical tube about 7 feet in length. A bit of cotton is lightly put in 
at one extremity of the tube, the arrow is dropped in at the other, 
and falls to the cotton; the lips are then applied and the arrow is 
forced forward by a sudden puff or jerk of the breath (Pnk, 1, 
488-489). 
121. Among the arrow poisons employed by the Guiana Indians 
the most important, and one that has undoubtedly aroused the greatest 
