ROTH] WAR AND WARFARE 581 
jaguar claws buried in the ground (PEN, 1, 66, 67). So also 
with the Island Carib it was commonly at their public feasts 
and entertainments that they took their resolutions of engaging 
upon any war. ... When they begin to have their brains warmed 
with their drink, an old woman comes into the assembly with 
a sad countenance and deportment.... She represents the in- 
juries which the whole nation hath received from the Arawak, 
their ancient and inveterate enemies; and, having reckoned up 
the greatest cruelties which they have hitherto exercised against 
the Carib and the gallant men they have killed or taken in the 
battles that were fought between them, she comes to particularize 
those who were lately made prisoners, massacred, and eaten in some 
later engagement; that it were a shameful and an insupportable dis- 
paragement to their nation if they should not revenge themselves, 
etc. ... As soon as the old woman hath made an end of her dis- ~ 
course, the captain makes a speech, to the same purpose, to make a 
greater impression in the minds of the audience; which ended, the 
whole assembly unanimously applauds the proposition and make all 
demonstrations imaginable of the justice of the cause. From that 
time, being encouraged by the words they had heard, they breathe 
nothing but blood and wounds. ‘The captain, concluding by the 
applause of the whole assembly, and by their gestures and counte- 
nances, that they are resolved for the war, though they do not say 
so much, immediately orders it and appoints the time for the enter- 
prise... . In this place we are to make this particular remark 
. (says Rochefort), that they take these bloody resolutions when they 
are well loaded with drink and after the devil hath tormented them 
to egg them on thereto (RO, 524-525). 
798. In pursuance with the unwritten law in virtue of which the 
members of a tribe are ready to take the field to defend themselves 
or to attack others, there is a call to arms either by word of mouth, 
by the beating of the war drums, etc., or the “ mission of the arrow.” 
The day appointed, if not immediate, may be individually checked by 
knots in a string, nicks on a stick, or seeds in a calabash. With regard 
to the beating of the drum, the Caberre place sentinels on the hills, 
whence a large stretch of the Ormoco can be seen. ... On the first 
height whence the enemy is observed, the call to arms is struck, and 
the sound of the drum heard at the nearest settlement, which in turn 
repeats the signal, upon which all the people take to arms; the next 
settlement hears it, and soon. The whole nation is thus put upon the 
defensive (G, u, 74). Mention must be included here of the blowing 
of the shell, which seems to have answered a similar purpose. This 
was employed both on the islands and on the mainland. At the time 
of Juan Ponce de Leon’s expedition, 1510, the whole of this wild 
