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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 15 



vanna, but they hunt for rhea eggs and the young 

 birds. 



When hunting caymans they do not use the 

 word "cayman," nor will they take their eggs 

 for fear of angering the mother cayman. After 

 a jaguar or tapir is killed the hunters sing and 

 dance the following night. 



Every group hunt has a hunt leader who is an 

 experienced man. He tells each man exactly 

 what he is to do. Hunting such animals as pec- 

 cary, tapir, and jaguar demands careful team- 

 work. If the band splits up to hunt, the band 

 chief will appoint the hunt leaders. If any man 

 disobeys the hunt leader he will take the man's 

 bow away from him and send him back to camp 

 where he has to listen to the riducule of the women. 

 This is considered a great humiliation and hap- 

 pens only seldom and then to youths who are, as 

 yet, inexperienced and overanxious to make a kill. 



As the Nambicuara hunt along the banks of 

 the rivers they are always ready to shoot any fish 

 that happens to come near the bank. Sometimes 

 they stand in one spot for hours waiting for 

 pacu or matrincha to pass near the bank. Cer- 

 tain berries which the fish like to eat are often 

 thrown into the water to bring fish to the surface. 

 At other times they tie a piece of broiled meat 

 onto a stick and push the stick into the bottom. 

 A man then stands on the bank, sucks air through 

 his cupped hand, and as be lets the air out with a 

 grunt he motions with his hand as if beckoning the 

 fish to come near. This appears to be a magical 

 act, for the Nambicuara claim that the fish under- 

 stand the call. Sometimes they even talk to the 

 fish saying that they have brought fat meat for 

 them. 



Timb6 fishing is practiced in the shallow cut- 

 offs of the main streams. First the pond is 

 dammed off, then bundles of timb6 vine (kunte) 

 are thrown into the shallow water and beaten 

 with sticks until the vines are crushed, the bundles 

 are then doused in the deeper water. As the fish 

 in the ponds are very small, they are scooped up 

 with baskets, either the cylindrical burden baskets 

 or a shallow square basket. They also use a conical 

 trap made on the spot from a few sticks which 

 they thrust into the weeds where the fish are 

 hiding. When they have finished with this trap 

 (tandru) it is thrown away. Compared with the 

 efficient equipment and methods in the Upper 



Xingu, the Nambicuara timb6 fishing appears 

 very elementary. The small fish are wrapped in 

 leaves and placed in hot ashes until cooked. 

 Large fish are broiled on a babracot. The Nam- 

 bicuara also claim that they fish at night with 

 torches along the river banks. This method may 

 have been taken over from the Brazilians. 



AGRICULTURE 



The principal food crops grown by the Nam- 

 bicuara are bitter manioc, sweetpotatoes, arrow- 

 root, cara, maize, beans, and peanuts. To this 

 list we must add such nonfood crops as cotton, 

 tobacco, urucu, and gourds. The scientific and 

 native names of these plants are listed in Appen- 

 dix 1. In more recent times they are known to 

 produce sweet manioc and sugarcane. The de- 

 pendence upon food crops in relation to game, 

 fish, and wild food plants is difficult to gage. 

 The statements of missionaries, however, appear 

 to indicate that cultivated crops do not provide 

 a year-round food supply and may actually play 

 a minor role as compared with dependence upon 

 noncultivated resources. 



Farming is done on the slopes of the "galeria" 

 forests, where, as we have seen, they also do most 

 of their hunting and collecting. The Waklitisu 

 band clears and cultivates a single field and, as we 

 have said, fives in a single house while thus 

 occupied. In the past the field (hmtsu) was 

 cleared with a stone ax (etunsu) and a wooden 

 club (hukwenisu). Today steel axes and machetes 

 are used, but the method of planting is still the 

 same. The efficiency of steel tools over stone 

 axes and wooden clubs is indicated by the state- 

 ment that in the past when a new field had to be 

 cleared the people had to work during most of the 

 wet season in order to fell the trees, a task which 

 they now perform in May and June. 



Formerly the light undergrowth was pulled out 

 by hand and the bushes and saplings were beaten 

 down with the wooden club. The Nambicuara 

 had a unique way of felling trees. Starting near 

 the bottom of the slope, they cut all the small 

 trees part way through, then selected a number of 

 large trees as kingpins. When these large trees 

 were felled they knocked down the smaller trees 

 below them. This was continued until they had a 

 circular clearing of the required size on the slope. 

 Today the clearing is done with axes and knives, 



