4 Timehri. 



armadillo. Each dancer bears a different animal and in the dance is 

 supposed to go through the antics and make the noises typical of the 

 creature he represents. One can imagine the difficulty this man would 

 have ; think of trying to make a noise like an armadillo, or a lizard, or o 

 imitating a sloth ! 



Here is another Acawoia in a very different costume, that of the 

 parasara dance, and which is made of palm leaves. This is probably the 

 only photograph ever taken of an Akawoia wearing this costume. During 

 the dance the head covering is turned down and conceals the wearer's 

 face. The object in the left hand is the dance drum and that in the right 

 is the rattlestick. After the dance the suits are hung upon fallen trees 

 in the rivers or on stumps in the fields to keep off evil spirits. 



But dancing is only a very small part of an Indian's life. He must 

 hunt and fish, fell trees for fields to plant, build his houses, make baskets 

 and weapons and perform many other duties, for despite popular belief, the 

 Buck is not an idler until he is Christianized and civilized, and the women 

 do no more than their share of labour. It is their duty to till the fields, 

 prepare food, spin cotton, weave hammocks and rear the children. The 

 principal food is cassava and the preparation of this staple is very interest- 

 ing. In the picture is seen the first step in the process, a girl grating th i 

 roots on a grater made of a board into which bits of stone are fastened 

 with cement-like wax. 



The next step is to remove the poisonous juice from the pulp, which 

 is done by means of the metapee, as illustrated in this photograph. The 

 pulp is placed in the metapee which is then suspended and is stretched 

 out by means of a lever and a woman's weight. The juice extracted is 

 preserved and used in making cassarecp and starch. 



Next the compressed material is broken up and made into a coarse 

 meal by rubbing it through a basket work sifter, as shown here, after 

 which it is spread in round, thin cakes on a stone or iron and baked over a 

 slow fire, as is illustrated in this picture. 



How the Indians first discovered that a deadly poisonous root could 

 be transformed into a nutritious food is one of the unsolved puzzles of 

 Indian history. Certainly it could not have been by experiment, for the 

 experimenters would have succumbed to their experiments long before 

 they discovered the process. 



This slide shows another Indian woman at another of her daily 

 tasks, squeezing sugar cane in a primitive mill consisting of post and 

 lever. 



The women also do a groat deal of the droghing and they carry 

 as large or even larger loads, than the men. Here is a girl with a 

 1401b. load ready for a 20-mile jaunt over a mountain. I was anxious 



