206 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS * [PTH. ANN. 83 
and two hind toes on opposite feet, and passing the toes between the 
bone and sinew in such a manner that they could not be disengaged. . . . 
The manner in which they were slaughtered, viz, by inserting a hard 
pointed stick up one nostril into the brain, was also a very cruel 
proceeding (BB, 14). Iguana eggs (Jguana tuberculata Laur.) are 
eaten (SR, 1, 303; m, 171; SeO, 47). It was Carib who caught 
lizards of a peculiar kind, with slipknots at the end of sticks, and 
placed them in baskets, previous to feeding on them when a sufficient 
quantity had been obtained (BB, 179). On the Pomeroon I have 
seen a trap (fig. 63) used by Portuguese and blacks for catching the 
iguana that prove very destruc- 
tive to their fowls, but whether it 
is of mixed Negro or pure Indian 
origin I can not say. At the 
mouth of a small inclosure, made 
of closely apposed twigs stuck 
firmly into the ground, is fixed a 
frame, by means of which a trigger, 
attached to a spring, holds the key 
pin in check. Attracted by the bait 
inside, usually a fowl egg, the sala- 
penta has to pass through the run- 
ning noose attached to the trigger, 
and while doing so presses on the 
key pin; this releases the trigger, 
the spring flies back, and the noose, 
now tightened, hoists the creature 
in mid-air. 
217. Alligators, or caymans, the 
name which the Indians gave them 
(St, 1, 145), form no unimportant 
item of the aboriginal larder, both 
flesh and eggs being much relished 
(AK, 127). Schomburgk apparently emphasizes the tail as being 
the part specially fancied by the upper Pomeroon Carib (SR, m1, 425). 
The following delightful account of the capture of the reptile is 
given by Gumilla: The Otomaec and Guamo Indians, who eat the 
flesh as a delicacy, in wintertime and during the rise in the. river, 
when fish are scarce, catch it as follows: They hunt it in pairs, with 
a strong rope of manati hide having a loop at its extremity. One 
man carries the rope and the other the end with the loop. Managing 
to approach the creature lying in the sun without being seen until 
it is Just about to fall into the stream, the Indian who carries the loop 
will jump upon it in all security, because the animal can not turn its 
head to bite him nor fold up its tail to strike him. What with the 
Fic. 68.—Trap for iguana. 
