486 
ON THE ABORIGINES 
Besides these they make much use of sweet potatoes, 
yams, roasted corn, and many forest fruits, from all of 
which, and from mandiocca cakes, they make fermented 
drinks, which go under the general name of '' caxiri/’ 
That made from the mandiocca is the most agreeable, 
and much resembles good table-beer. At their feasts 
and dances they consume immense quantities of it, and 
it does not seem to produce any bad effects. They also 
use, on these occasions, an intensely exciting preparation 
of the root of a climber, — -it is called capi, and the 
manner of using it I have described in my Narrative 
(page 298). 
The weapons of these Indians are bows and arrows, 
gravatanas, lances, clubs, and also small hand-nets, and 
rods and lines, for catching fish. 
Their bows are of different kinds of hard elastic wood, 
well made, and from five to six feet long. The string is 
either of the ‘‘ tucum’’ leaf fibre {Astrocaryum vulyare), 
or of the inner bark of trees called ‘Hururi.” The 
arrows are of various kinds, from five to seven feet long. 
The shaft is made of the flower-stalk of the arrow-grass 
{Gynerimn saccharimm). In the war-arrows, or “curubis,’' 
the head is made of hard wood, carefully pointed,' and 
by some tribes armed with the serrated spine of the ray- 
fish : it is thickly anointed with poison, and notched in 
two or three places so as to break off in the wound. 
Arrows for shooting fish are now almost always made 
with iron heads, sold by the traders, but many still use 
heads made of monkeys’ bones, with a barb, to retain 
a hold of the fish : the iron heads are bent at an angle, 
so that the lower part projects and forms a barb, and 
