Cuapter XXV ” 
ANIMALS UNDER DOMESTICATION AND CAPTIVITY 
Suckling, taming, etc., in general (716). 
Dogs: Indigenous (717); hunting in packs, the “ Warracabba tiger” (718) ; 
training, etc. (719, 720) ; domestic curs (721). 
Monkeys (722). 
Other four-footed mammals (723). 
Birds (724). 
Reptiles (725). 
Bees and other insects (726). 
716. Women will often suckle young mammals just as they would 
their own children; e. g., dog, monkey, opossum-rat, labba, acouri, 
deer, and few, indeed, are the vertebrate animals which the Indians 
have not succeeded in taming. It is the women who especially culti- 
vate the art of bird taming, some of them holding quite a reputation 
in this respect. The period for the creature to be tamed is usually 
before it is feathered, but occasionally it would seem that the bird’s 
age is immaterial. Bates gives a very interesting example of what 
can be done in this way, from the Tapajos, lower Amazon, in con- 
nection with a Maracand parrot (Conurus guianensis), which had 
dropped from a flock that seemed to have been fighting in the air. 
I wished, he says, to keep the bird alive and tame it, but all our 
efforts to reconcile it to captivity were vain. It refused food, bit 
everyone who went near it, and damaged its plumage in its exertions 
to free itself. My friends in Aveyros said that this kind of parrot 
never became domesticated. After trying nearly a week, I was rec- 
ommended to lend the intractable creature to an old Indian woman 
living in the village, who was said to be a skillful bird tamer. In 
two days she brought it back almost as tame as the familiar love birds - 
of our aviaries. I kept my little pet for upward of two years. It 
learned to talk pretty well.. . I do not know what arts the old 
woman used. Capt. Antonio said she fed it with her saliva (HWB, 
230). 
But it is not only young birds and animals that are tamed. Many 
are shot with special arrows poisoned with just sufficient ourali 
(urari) to bring the animal down without actually killing it. The 
animal is then picked up, its face is rubbed with faroah .. . and it is 
next put under an inverted pot or in some other dark and secluded 
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