BOWS AND ARROWS IN CENTRAL BRAZIL. 565 



western Baccairi mark the farthest projection of this ethnographic 

 development from the west. The cement feathering, which has 

 wandered from the west to the east, whose starting point is to be 

 sought in Peru, has undergone many variations in its long journey to 

 the Tapajoz. In the Mato-Grosso, coming westward, is found the 

 type of feathering with the notches cut out, on which generally a 

 little bunch of red feathers is fastened. (PI. LVIII, fig. 15.) The Madeira 

 River is approximately the boundary between this and a western 

 group, where the cement feathering comes in without notches, but 

 with bauds of network woven on the shafts. In the great Pareutintim 

 tribe these groups touch one another. A common peculiarity with the 

 cement feathering, and also with the Arara feathering, is a decoration 

 of the shaft by means of small encircling bands made of white quill, 

 which explains the wrapping in stepped winding of cotton, previously 

 mentioned as on the Shingu. (PI. LVIII, fig. 14.) These quill rings are to 

 be found among all groups of the cement feathering, and have perhaps 

 served as suggestive methods for the bast rings on the Shingu sewed 

 feathering. The Arara feathering appears to have derived the quill 

 ring likewise from the pitch feathering, as will be seen. It is in this 

 manner further perfected through an ornamental weaving in black and 

 white strips of quill. (PI. LVIII, fig. 17.) The notch has been here copied 

 from the arrows with cement feathering influenced by the Arara type, 

 and is cut out narrow and with a pointed angle. 



Generally in this Madeira-Tapajoz region a large, broad, bamboo 

 point, 30 to 40 cm. long, is distributed, which on one side is cut into an 

 angle lying in the long axis, and is hollowed out on the under side so 

 that the cross section shows a concavo-convex outline. (PI. LVIII, fig. 

 16.) The foreshaft, upon which the point is fastened by means of a 

 wrapping of thread, extends somewhat above this wrapping and is set 

 at its other end, which is pointed, into the bamboo shaft. This point, 

 which differs jrom the bamboo points of the western region as well as 

 from those of the Shingu, is found outside of our region also among 

 the Arawak tribe and the Juberi, on the Purus. It is well to mention 

 that this point, like the cement feathering of the Madeira, has gotten 

 as far as the Tapajoz. 



Likewise a peculiar, barbed point, which is formed by a spindle- 

 shaped bone, 10 to 15 cm. long, pointed at both ends and seized at its 

 middle upon the upper end of the foreshaft, appears to have come 

 among the Apiaka and Mauhe from the Madeira in abundance. (PI. 

 LVIII, fig. 19.) Thence it spread among the Pareutintim, and from them 

 is to be found among the Manaos on the lower reaches of the Madeira. 

 In a remarkable way it makes its appearance also on the Tocantins, 

 where exists also a kind of Mauhe feathering. If I had not found 

 examples of this in different museums labeled Tocantins, I should have 

 attributed them to the Tapajoz area. 



Of the distribution of the Arara and the Mauhe feathering mention 



