Cuarprer XII 
PLANT FOOD: ITS CULTIVATION, PRODUCTS, ETC. 
Clearing of the land (228); not always necessary (229) ; occasionally, no agri- 
culture in any form (230). 
Ensilage (2381). 
Starch: From fruit grain (232); from mauritia palm (233); from cassava 
(234). 
Cassava (235); bread (236); and leaves (237). 
Substitutes for cassava (23S—248). 
Maize (244). 
Rice (245). 
Other economic plants (246). 
Wild fruits (247). 
228. The clearing of a field in the days before the introduction of 
metal was a work of no inconsiderable difficulty, and the following 
description furnished by Gumilla on the Orinoco will give some 
idea of the nature of the task undertaken: “ With their axes made of 
a stone celt, with a cutting edge at each extremity (sec. 6), fixed mid- 
way in a suitable wooden handle, they would cut the green stems of 
the brambles and briers (maleza) after having broken them down 
with their macinas or hardwood clubs, the women subsequently 
burning the dry timbers. It took them two months to cut down a 
tree... . To start, throw up, and form furrows, after burning the 
undergrowth they employ shovels formed of very hard wood (which 
some call avaco, others macana, each nation giving it a name)... . 
They manufacture these shovels with fire, burning some parts and 
leaving others free, not without skill, symmetry, and the expendi- 
ture of much time. .. . They heap up the earth on either side of 
the furrow and with it cover the straw and dried grass. They then 
sow their corn, cassava, and other roots . . .” (G, 1, 229). That two 
months were required to cut down a tree is quite comprehensible. 
The Carib Islanders were obliged . . . to set fire to the base of the 
tree and then surround it above with moistened moss to prevent the 
fire ascending, and thus they undermined the tree little by little 
(RO, 508). As to the exact nature of the local primitive agricul- 
tural instruments, but little more than the above shovels is known, 
though one observer suggests the existence (on insufficient evidence, 
it seems to me) of their traces in a certain hoe-like dancing orna- 
ment met with at the present day on the upper Rio Negro (KG, 1, 
213 
