710 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [BTH, ANN. 38 
929. Snake bite, ete—In addition to the ordinary methods of 
treatment for snake bite, such as cutting out and sucking of the wound, 
and eating the fresh sap of the sugar cane (also considered a certain 
cure for poisoned arrows), there is something peculiar to each tribe. 
Thus, in certain of them, neither the bitten person, nor his children, 
nor his parents, together with his brothers and sisters, so long as 
they live in the same settlement, are allowed to drink water, bathe, or 
come into the neighborhood of water, during the period immediately 
following the accident. His wife alone is allowed to do this. A thin 
pumpkin stew, only to be taken warm, has to quench his thirst, 
roasted plantain being the only food allowed him just now. If the 
person has taken sugar-cane juice upon being bitten he must later on 
avoid all sweet things. Other tribes believe in woman’s milk as an 
efficacious antidote in conjunction with emollient cassava-bread poul- 
tices. Others apply the expressed juice of the Dracontium dubium 
Kunth. Apparently widely spread for the bites of rattlesnakes is an 
infusion of Byrsonima crassifolia, Mourelia, and Quebitia quianensis 
Aubl. (SR, 1, 130). For the treatment of snake bite on the Essequibo, 
Bernau is responsible for the following: If an Indian is bitten on his 
finger, which, however, occurs very rarely, he chops it off with one 
stroke of his knife. But when bitten in the heel, which happens 
oftener, or in any other part of the body, he kills the snake, chops off 
the head, and cuts it up until it is something like a paste, which he 
then binds upon the wound, and leaves it there till it becomes periectly 
dry. He goes in search of a plant called in their language [ Arawak] 
boru-boru, and having dug out a sufficient quantity of roots, makes 
a decoction of them which he drinks and pours upon the wound. I 
have known several cases of recovery by means of this root, but the 
individuals bitten, though healed, have betrayed at times a painful 
state of aberration of mind, and were affected with a trembling of 
all their limbs (BE, 173). 
For sting-ray wounds the Indians of the lower Amazon use a 
poultice of mangrove bark mixed with palm oil (S-M, m1, 955). 
I have seen the Wapishana scrape a length of moku-moku, heat it 
over a fire, and squeeze the juice into the wound, a course of treat- 
ment which certainly appeared to alleviate the pain. 
The very sticky gum of the wallaba (Hperua sp.) and that 
of the Protium aracouchili, used as a plaster, are said to constitute 
an excellent treatment for wounds in general. Otherwise, such in- 
juries are carefully washed and then held for some time over a fire 
(SR, m1, 334). 
Indians will allow abscesses to develop and apply heat with fire 
until they burst. 
