Cuarrer XTX 
HAMMOCKS 
Preliminary (458); materials (459). 
Manufacture on a frame of two vertical posts: The cotton hammock of the 
Arekuna (460); the tucum, etc., hammocks of the Upper Rio Negro (461) ; 
cotton hammocks of the Arawak, Carib, Akawai, Makusi, Wapishana, etc. 
(462) ; the ite (sarau) hammock of the Warrau (463, 464). 
Manufacture on a frame of two horizontal timbers (loom) (465); warps in- 
terwoven, without division (466) ; with division (467) ; permanent separator 
(468) ; raiser (469) ; temporary separator, beater, or presser (470) and their 
manipulations (471) ; geographical distribution (472); variations in the bar 
of the cotton hammock (478, 474); an obsolete variety (475); cotton ham- 
mock ornamentation (476). 
Manufacture of the ite (sensoro) Warrau hammock (477). 
Hammocks: Coloration (478); classification (479); scale lines (480) ; method 
of slinging (481, 482). 
458. The first mention in history of a hammock is in Chanca’s 
letter relative to the second voyage of Columbus—the hamaca of the 
Santo Domingo natives. The bed was made of cotton network, and, 
according to their custom, suspended (DAC, 450). Another kind 
of bed besides the cotton hammock used by the Island Carib was 
the cabane, a quantity of banana or other leaves placed on several 
withes wattled across, the whole suspended at the four corners with 
thick ropes (RO, 490). Wilson, who was on the River Wiapoco 
(Oyapock), Cayenne, in 1606, writes thus about the Indians’ beds, 
“which they call Hamakes; they are some of them made of cotton 
wooll, and some of barkes of trees; they use to lye in them hang- 
ing” (JW, 348). Some 20 years later Davies had this to say about 
the natives on the Amazon stream: “ The manner of their Lodging 
is this: they have a kinde of Net made of the rinde of a tree which 
they call Haemac, being three fathom in length, and two in breadth, 
and gathered at both ends, at length, then fastening either end of a 
Tree, to the full length, about a yard and halfe from the ground: 
When hee hath desire to sleepe, hee creepes unto it” (DW, 415). 
On the Berbice the cotton hammocks had a board at each end (BER, 
131). These descriptions seem to bear interesting comparison with 
that of the very primitive article of the Mura Indians of the lower 
Amazon—a rudely woven web of ragged strips of the inner bark of 
the Mongtba tree (HWB, 157). So large is the seed pod of the 
kokerit palm that, with a cord fastened at either end, it is frequently 
used as a child’s cot in place of a hammock. Some of the tribes, e. g., 
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