196 ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND [chap, vii 



Before leaving we prepared for shipment back to the 

 museum some of the bigger skins, and also some of the 

 weapons and utensils of the Indians, which Kermit had 

 collected. These included woven fillets, and fillets made 

 of macaw feathers, for use in the dances, woven belts, 

 a gourd in which the sacred drink is offered to the god 

 Enoerey, wickerwork baskets, flutes or pipes, anklet 

 rattles, hammocks, a belt of the kind used by the 

 women in carrying the babies, with the weaving-frame. 

 AU these were Parecis articles. He also secured fi-om 

 theNhambiquaras wickerwork baskets of a diflFerent type, 

 and bows and arrows. The bows were seven feet long 

 and the arrows five feet. There were blunt-headed 

 arrows for birds, arrows with long, sharp wooden blades 

 for tapir, deer, and other mammals ; and the poisoned 

 war-arrows, with sharp barbs, poison-coated and bound 

 on by fine thongs, and with a long, hollow wooden 

 guard to slip over the entire point and protect it until 

 the time came to use it. When people talk glibly of 

 " idle " savages they ignore the immense labour entailed 

 by many of their industries, and the really extraordinary 

 amount of work they accomplish by the skilful use of 

 their primitive and ineffective tools. 



It was not until early in the afternoon that we started 

 into the " sertao,"* as BraziUans call the wilderness. 

 We drove with us a herd of oxen for food. After going 

 about fifteen miles we camped beside the swampy head- 

 waters of a little brook. It was at the spot where 

 nearly seven years previously Rondon and Ljn-a had 

 camped on the trip when they discovered Utiarity Falls 

 and penetrated to the Juruena. When they reached 

 this place they had been thirty-six hours without food. 



* Pronounced " sairtown," as nearly as, with our preposterous 

 methods of spelHng and pronunciation, I can render it. 



