BOWS AND ARROWS IN CENTRAL BRAZIL. 563 



side of the Tocantin received this technique, a tribe from the Shingu, 

 which at the beginning of the century supplanted the Carib tribe of the 

 Apiaka. This phenomenon is more interesting because through it the 

 center of radiation of the sewed feathering is fixed on the head waters 

 of the Shingu or the Paranatinga, and perhaps this feathering can be 

 fixed as specially Carib. Therefore the circumstances bear witness 

 that on the Madeira, among the Arara, who are to be assigned to the 

 Caribs, the sewed feathering might first occur; still, even as easily it 

 could have come to this tribe through the medium of the Apiaka of the 

 Tapajoz, for the typical Arara feathering is also found again among the 

 Apiaka. 



Older collections from the Shingu perhaps will furnish information 

 on this topic. Still, the possibility of finding such is far from certain, 

 since the Shingu tribe, up to a short time ago, were wholly unknown. 



A good transition from the central group to the westward or mixed 

 group is furnished by the settled Baccairi belonging to the Shingu 

 branch of the Baccairi, who lead a peaceable existence as agricultur- 

 ists in the area between the Paranatinga, the Cuyaba, and the Arinos, 

 in slight contact with their culture. As we know from the accounts of 

 the Baccairi collected by Von den Steinen, both divisions were orig- 

 inally united near the falls of the Paranatinga, from which, accidentally, 

 in the middle of the last century, one part drew away upon the Bonuro 

 and Batovy to the Kulisehu, the other settled in the above-named 

 region in a southwestern direction. We possess some arrows of these 

 settled Baccairi in the Vienna museum, collected by batterer in 1827 

 from the Arinos. (PI. LVIII, fig. 15.) I was surprised to see among 

 them Baccairi arrows, since this type deviated so much from them in the 

 Von den Steinen collection, so well known to me, and at once, by nearer 

 comparison, I could prove that they belonged there. With exception 

 of the point, they pertain to the group of cemented feathering, and 

 indeed to those in use on the Tapajoz and on the Madeira with x>ointed 

 notches or barbs cut out and for the most part overlaid with reddish 

 brown pitch: The well-known Uba reed of the Shingu is here replaced 

 by the lighter and thinner Cambayuva reed. Von den Steinen says 

 (op. cit., p. 229), " the settled Baccairi have, since they became 

 acquainted with muskets, given up the Uba reed in general use on the 

 Upper Shingu and possess now, if not purely boys' arrows, at least 

 small arrows in comparison with those on the Shingu." I refer this 

 change in the choice of material and the turning to another technique 

 not to contact with culture but rather to association with the tribes of the 

 Arinoz and Tapajoz. Any affiliation with the kindred tribe on the 

 Shingu later has demonstrably not taken place. This tribe was known 

 to the settled Baccairi only through the tribal history. Assimilation 

 with the Tapajoz tribes could for that reasou go on more easily. That 

 the western Baccairi originally and indeed also down to the separation 

 have used the Uba reed is proved by the Baccairi tribal history con- 



