THE BLOW-PIPE. 617 



The end applied to the mouth is bound round with a small 

 silk-grass cord to prevent it splitting ; while the other is 

 strengthened by having the seed of a nut, with a hole cut 

 through it, secured round it. 



The arrows, from nine to ten inches long, are made from 

 the leaves of a species of palm, or from the spinous processes 

 of the patawa, pointed as sharp as a needle. The other end 

 is burned hard, and round it is wound a little conical tuft of 

 tree-cotton, the silky covering of the bomba, so as exactly to fill 

 up the bore of the tube. They are carried in a quiver, which 

 holds some hundreds. It is in shape somewhat like a back- 

 gammon dice-box, formed of basket-work, and covered with a 

 piece of the skin of the tapir. To it is attached a bunch of 

 silk-grass, a small piece of bone for scratching the point of the 

 arrows, and a basket for holding wild honey secured round the 

 blunt end. The points of the arrows are tipped with the 

 deadly wourali or urali poison. 



Another kind of gravatana is made of two separate pieces 

 of wood, each scooped out so as to form one half of the tube. 

 The two halves are then secured together, by binding round 

 them spirally long flat strips of the jacitira, or wood of the 

 climbing palm-tree, the whole being afterwards smeared over 

 with the black wax of the melipona bee. The tube tapers 

 towards the muzzle, and a cup-shaped mouth-piece is fitted in 

 the broad end. It is so heavy that only a strong man, accus- 

 tomed to its use, can employ it. 



The boys learn to shoot with a smaller and lighter instru- 

 ment. The tools used are made of the incisor teeth of the 

 paca and cavy. A light arrow is put in at the inner end, and 

 when the ball of silk-cotton secured to the shafts fits tightly, 

 it can be propelled with such force by the breath that it 



