576 BOWS AND ARROWS IN CENTRAL BRAZIL. 



and tobacco. In their ceremonies these weapons play a leading- role. 

 In the consecration of the skull of a dead man, a long- and complicated 

 mortuary ceremony, live bows set up in a semicircle form the founda- 

 tion of a kind of sanctuary. Whether in the traditions here as on the 

 Shiugu the arrow plays a special role is not known. The great value 

 of the bow and arrow naturally finds expression in the carefulness of 

 their manufacture. Since they set forth the characteristic attribute of 

 the hunter they are prepared only by the men, who expend a pains- 

 taking accuracy and care upon their production. Perhaps centuries of 

 using the bow and arrow have developed different kinds for different 

 functions, which show, indeed, the same characteristic marks of the 

 tribe, differing in the choice of material and the form of the point, 

 The arrows for war and for hunting larger mammals, as the jaguar, 

 being much heavier in consequence of the use of the dense Seriba 

 palm wood for the shaft, have their penetrating power greatly increased. 

 Arrows with shaft from light Cambayuva reed are lighter and have 

 longer flight. 



These original, characteristic types of weapons, since they seem to 

 remain relatively pure, enable the student to recognize through them 

 tribes far away and correspondences with neighboring forms. From 

 their next neighbors, the Cayapo, their hereditary enemies, they appear 

 never to have learned the great strengthening of the shaft by wrapping 

 it with Cipo bast, and this makes obtrusive the similarity of their 

 arrow with that of the Caraja and with certain forms on the Shingu. 

 Firstly, in the feathering, beautifully executed and decorated with little 

 tufts of feathers, a relationship with the Caraja arrow can not be 

 recognized, likewise the form of the bamboo point of the peccary arrow 

 is the same as that of the Caraja bamboo point previously described. 

 To both tribes, furthermore, the plain arrow cut out of a single piece 

 of Cambayuva reed is common. (PI. LIX, fig. 15). The barbed wooden 

 point of the fishing arrow is suggestive of the Ges form. 



All these correspondences point to the east or the northeast; for all 

 that, relationships with the western tribes are not to be denied. The 

 points made from the tubular part of the humerus bone of a monkey (PI. 

 LVII, fig. 8) are common to them and the tribes on the Shingu, the west 

 Bororo, and the Guato. An artificial winding of the dark Cipo, asso- 

 ciated with the loosened wind of the reed at the butt end of the feather- 

 ing, points to similar work on the northern Paraguay, the black and 

 white wrapping of thread for the fastening of the feather (PI. LX, 

 fig. 9; cf. fig. 14) is likewise in use among the southeastern tribes — the 

 Guato, for example. The attachment of the bow to the Peruvian type is 

 recognized by the natural peculiarities of the materials and the cross 

 section (PI. LX, figs. 1 to 7), as must strikingly appear, since these 

 examples stand out isolated in the eastern Brazilian bow region. The 

 black x»alm-wood bows with greatly thickened ends are somewhat aber- 

 rant by reason of their long elliptical, somewhat hollowed cross section. 



