180 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [PTH. ANN. 38 
jam it into an earthen pot which is kept well covered. It is said 
that it can be preserved a long time in this manner (JO). 
Fish roes are a great delicacy to the Indians, who, in the spawning 
season, shoot an immense number of heavy fish, the bodies of which 
are of little account when the roes have been extracted. The roes are 
then smoked, and in this state large baskets of them may often be seen 
in their houses (IT, 237-238). On the Rupununi I have watched the 
Makusi eating arowanna (Osteoglossum sp.) eggs, after folding them 
up in a kokerit leaf and roasting. 
The Orinoco Indian fashion of cooking a turtle is to place the dead 
animal in a hole in the sand, just as it is, without any cleaning and 
without removing the shell. It is then covered with sand and a big 
fire ighted on top (Cr, 576). So far as the eating is concerned, the 
husband takes the upper shell and attached meat, fat, etc., and the 
wife the lower shell (G, 1, 292-298). To preserve turtle for future 
requirements, the practice of penning them up in pools or stockades 
was, and is, in vogue throughout the Guianas. On the Orinoco they 
kept large quantities of the very little ones in artificial pools dug out 
of the sand (G, 1, 292-293). On the Amazon they dug a pond of a 
moderate depth to hold a good quantity of water, which they inclosed 
with a palisade of stakes, etc. (AC, 63). In Cayenne they kept the 
turtles in stockades (PBA, 156). Turtle eggs are considered a deli- 
cacy and are eaten fresh or smoked. Immense quantities of the eggs 
are placed on frames and dried over a slow fire and in the sun’s heat. 
They kept lots of such dried eggs in baskets at their houses (G, 1, 
180, 292-293). An extremely important product of the turtle egg 1s 
the oil (sec. 26). With regard to bird’s eggs, all kinds, even when 
stinking, are eaten by the Surinam Carib with great relish (AK, 188, 
191-192). The eggs of the Crotophaga major, or “ Old Witch ” bird, 
are sought by the Makusi on the Zuruma or Cotinga (SR, m, 159). 
As to the eating of the ordinary domestic fowl egg, see section 724. 
164, Acouri, agouti (Dasyprocta aguti), adouri (D. acuchy), and 
labba (Coelogenys) are hunted with dogs, or shot either when 
coming to feed or when “called” within range. The labba... 
always keeps near the water and plunges in when pursued. The In- 
dians hunt it in two parties, one chasing it with dogs to the stream, 
while the other, in a small canoe, follows the sound of the chase (Br, 
20). Favorite foods of the acouri are the fruits of the mora and 
awarra (Astrocaryuwm), and hence the hunter will build a staging up 
in a tree near one of these, and there keep watch on a moonlight night 
for the quarry to come and feed on the fallen fruit. In the Patamona 
country I saw a “ bench ” fixed to a tree at such a height as to require 
a special apparatus (fig. 59) to reach it—a sapling, bent to one side 
and tied to the trunk, and a vine hoop hung on the bench itself, each 
