224 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [BTH, ANN. 38 
small clay pots, but the far mland inhabitants scarcely ever saw any 
in their lives (BA, 325). This author was evidently unaware in those 
days of the existence of large areas of natural salt incrustations on 
the savannas, from which the Indians manufactured an impure 
salt (BB, 318), that constituted a very important article of trade and 
barter. Thus Schomburgk speaks not only of Makusi (ScF, 212), 
but also of Wapishana (Sck, 218) journeying to the savanna to 
collect salt: of the article on the Takutu, he says that, looking like 
peat earth when collected, it takes on a white color with repeated wash- 
ing (SR, nu, 47). Salt is found in patches in minute crystalline par- 
ticles after the evaporation of the water left by the heavy rains. 
Thus, on the surface of the river loam within 200 yards of the Che- 
wow River, a branch of the Pirara, and at a distance of 5 miles from 
the Ireng River, there is one of those places where salt is obtained 
from the surface of the ground by the Indians . . . Near the head of 
the river there is another salt patch, also one near the Ireng not far 
off, and a third on the Pirara River to the northeast. The guide ex- 
plained that after every rainy season, when the country becomes dry 
and parched, the salt comes out on the surface, and is. then very pure 
and white and in greater quantity than at any other time. When 
removed by the Indians it continues to form, and the portion taken 
away is soon replaced (BRS, 177). The Indians gather it, mix it 
with water, and place it in a large funnel-shaped gourd, having a 
plug of grass in the bottom, through which the water, after taking 
up the salt in solution, slowly filters. The water is then boiled down 
and a dark, fine-grained salt obtained (BRS, 165). [A little to the 
westward of the Orinoco the abundance of salt contained in the 
peninsula of Araya was known to Alonzo Nino . . ; in 1499. Though 
of all the people on the globe the natives of South America con- 
sume the least salt, because they scarcely eat anything but vegetables, 
it nevertheless appears that at an early period the Guayquerias dug 
into the clayey and muriatiferous soil of Punta Arenas. Even the 
brine pits, now called new (/a salina nueva), situated at the extremity 
of Cape Araya, were worked in very remote times ” (A VH, 1, 179).] 
252. The taste for salt among the Indians would seem to be far 
from general. It was said of the Island Carib that, though plenti- 
fully supplied with salines, “they would not ordinarily taste it, re- 
garding salt as quite contrary to health and the preservation of life. 
. instead of salt, they peppered everything (RO, 365). Salt is 
not so much sought after by the Uaupes River Indians as by many 
other tribes. . . . Peppers seem to serve them in place of it (ARW. 
340). On the other hand, Im Thurn is responsible for the extraordi- 
nary statement that salt is largely eaten by itself, just as an Eng- 
lish child eats sugar (IT, 265); while Bernau even goes so far as 
to assure us that he has seen the Essequibo Indians eating it by 
