ROTH] WEAPONS: HUNTING AND FIGHTING lite 
paddlelike weapons are seen toevary from almost straight sides (fig. 
58 b) to highly convex (¢, d, e) and concave (7), even double concave 
(g) edges. The last mentioned may be highy ornamented with incised 
designs (GOE, pl. v1). Modifications of this paddle club can be 
employed for dance purposes by Ojana (GOK, pl. v, fig. 1), Korda 
(KG, 11, 133), Makusi (pl. 37 A), Wapishana, and others. 
1538. Another form of club (pl. 39), the block or cubical type, of 
similar or perhaps even wider distribution than the former, is the 
mossi, or mushi, of the Arawak, the potu, butu, or aputu of the Carib 
(fig. 58 2). Manufactured from the hardest and heaviest woods pro- 
curable, it had square ends with sharp corners, thinned in the middle 
where it was wound round with strong cotton thread, to which a 
strong loop of the same material (woven into a band—see. 53) was 
affixed. In the old days it would seem to have been occasionally pro- 
vided with a sharpened celt inserted into a carefully cut pit, hollowed 
out on one of its sides, wherein it was fixed with karaman cement. The 
extraordinary statement of Stedman that the Indians used to fix the 
stone in the future club by sticking it in the tree while growing, where 
it soon became imbedded, when in due course the tree was cut, etc. 
(St, 1, 397), has been repeated by Brett (Br, 134), Crévaux (Cr, 16), 
and others. Modifications of this block form of club, but on a much 
smaller scale, and often with an incised decoration, are requisitioned 
on occasions of dance and festivity, perhaps also of ceremonial. Cer- 
tain of the stone hatchets have been mentioned as fighting implements 
(PBA, 168, 174). 
154. The remaining type of Guiana war club (pl. 37 B) approxi- 
mates that of a dagger (fig. 58 7), and though met with by Schom- 
burgk among the Makusi, is said by him to have been peculiar to the 
Maiongkong. Both Akawai and Carib have told me that their fore- 
fathers were wont to use this weapon. It runs at one extremity to a 
sharp point, above which the club broadens more and more until it 
becomes again bluntly pointed above. The handle is toward the 
middle of the weapon. The object of the sharp point is to insert it in 
the ear and then drive it into the brain of the fallen foe (SR, 1, 425). 
It was thus used as a club, a cutting weapon, and a bayonet. The con- 
stant companion of the Maiongkong, when he sits down or squats, he 
sticks it into the ground in front of him (ScF, 238). The handle was 
overcast with cotton thread (sec. 48). 
