Dili? ARTS AND GRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH, ANN. 38 
Von Humboldt makes mention both on the Rio Negro and the Cas- 
siquiare (which connects it with the Orinoco) of an ant paste used by 
the Indians. “ Four natives were sitting round a fire of brush wood, 
and they were eating a sort of white paste with black spots, which 
much excited our curiosity. These black spots proved to be vachacos, 
large ants, the hinder parts of which resemble a lump of grease. They 
had been dried and blackened by smoke. We saw several bags of them 
suspended above the fire. ... These vachacos furnish subsistence 
to the Indians of the Rio Negro and the Guainia [Waini]. They do 
not eat the ants as a luxury, but because, according to the expression 
of the missionaries, the fat of ants (the white part of the abdomen) 
is a very substantial food” (AVH, 1m, 389, 411). Certain ants are 
also considered a delicacy on the Uaupes River (Cou, 1, 168). 
226. The larvee of certain honeybees constituted as great a delicacy 
as the honey with the Makusi and Wapishana of the upper Takutu. 
These were stinging bees driven from their nests by bundles of dried 
grass attached to long sticks, and set fire to (SR, 1m, 104). Crévaux 
speaks of the Indian eating bees’ larvee after removal of the “ sting” 
with thumb and index finger (Cr, 223). Wasps’ larve are also re- 
garded as table delicacies and apparently eaten cooked or raw. The 
Indians make a fire under the nest and, after killing or driving 
away the old ones, they roast the young grubs in the comb and eat 
them (W, 217). The Wapishana on the Quitaro River were... 
busily engaged in picking out and eating the larve of a wasp, from the 
comb of a nest of that insect which they had knocked from the over- 
hanging branches of a tree. The children especially seemed to 
enjoy the little white grub-like larve (BB, 156). I myself, when 
traveling with Makusi and Patamona, have had experience of the 
avidity with which they “rush” a tree to get the larve in certain 
species of wasp’s nest. Wasps’ larve are known to the Cayenne 
Carib as ocomo (Cr, 224). They are also eaten by the Trio (GO, 5) 
and Carib (AK, 188) of Surinam. On the Merewari River the 
Indians came to a halt to dig up the larva of some insect, which 
Schomburgk found them eating with their cassava bread. It ap- 
peared to belong to the order Hymenoptera and was enveloped in a- 
lump of clay, hardened like a shell (ScF, 227). 
227. Honey is easily extracted by enlarging the entrance to the 
hive, or knocking over the timber and splitting the limb. Plentiful 
as honey is (on the Orinoco) it would be still more so were it not for 
the little monkeys which, so Gumilla assures us, stationed at the 
entrance, gobble up the bees, one after another, as they go in or out. 
When the very last one has thus been got rid of the monkey, if 
he can get his hand in, will not leave a bit of honeycomb behind. If 
any is left he puts his tail in, and what sticks to this he licks off 
(G, 1, 301). 
