IN the morning I expected to start out, but learned that the cassava cakes must be made. The women had started the process the night before. But after that I frequently saw it made and the process is interesting.

Cassava is a root, something like a large turnip, yet longer and more in the shape of an immense sweet potato. The inside is quite white and somewhat soft, a trifle “woody,” like a turnip that we would throw away. These roots grow wild. There is no cultivating necessary, although in some localities they cut away the other vegetation and allow the cassava plants to thrive a little better.

A grater is made by driving sharp bits of flint into a board. This is covered with a sort of wax which hardens and leaves only the sharp tips of the flints sticking out. The women peel the cassava roots with dull knives or sharp flints. The root is then grated over this flint grater and the fine particles fall down into a woven frame.

Next comes the “metapee.” This is a most peculiar basket, made solely for the manufacture of cassava flour. It may be pulled out long or pushed in short. It works something like an old-fashioned “accordion” hat rack. When pushed down short it is very large around but as it is pulled out it grows smaller and smaller in circumference. It is a great trick to weave these metapee baskets, for they must be exceedingly strong.

The grated cassava is put in the metapee when it is squat down short and large around. One end of this basket is hung from a pole or limb. In the bottom of the metapee is a loop through which a pole is run. One end of the pole is lashed to the ground, at the foot of a tree. The woman now sits on the other end of the pole. This makes a lever and her weight stretches the metapee out into a long wicker cylinder. This squeezes all of the moisture out of the ground cassava root. And here is a most remarkable thing—that juice is a deadly poison! Yet the pulp that remains makes a nourishing bread.

The woman bounces up and down on her end of the pole until every bit of the juice is out. This juice is saved, as the poison can be used by the men. Or the juice may be allowed to evaporate and what remains of that, instead of being poison, is good seasoning for food!

The pulp is spread in the sun to dry. When dry it is sifted through a basket sieve and becomes rather coarse flour. To this water is added, the dough is kneaded with the fists much as our women knead wheat flour and water into dough. This dough is flattened out into cakes three feet in diameter and half an inch thick and baked on a flat slab, a sheet of iron if it be possible to get it, or on anything handy. The bread is now ready to eat. It is firm, fairly hard, rather crisp and has but little flavor. To me it tasted like refined sawdust. But it is extremely nourishing.

It takes half an hour to cook these cassava cakes and, kept dry, they will last a great while. That is why the women baked a number of them to take with them upon the impending journey. It was comforting to have this much certain about the uncertain journey which we were now to take.

While the Indian women busied themselves making cassava cakes for the journey back to our camp I studied all of the weapons of the men in the village, for they interested me. There were but two guns in the village, owned by the chief and another very “wealthy” native. These were the muzzle-loading “lead” guns.

What interested me most of all was the blowpipe. It is really a wonderful weapon. It is a wonder to me that we boys back home did not make similar weapons. I am sure that with a little skill we could have picked off rabbits, squirrels and game birds, although, of course, we would have had to become good woodsmen. Of all the weapons to be faced, I believe the blowpipe as made and used by these Indians is the most deadly. I would rather face almost anything else.

These pipes are from eight to twelve feet long. They are made of two strong reeds, a hollow-stemmed variety that grows in the jungle. They take the midribs of a great palm leaf, dry them, split them up, char one end in the fire to make it hard, and with this force out the little partitions that appear at the joints in all reeds, as in bamboo. Then a smaller reed is found that will just slide inside the larger one. They now have a double reed which makes an extremely long yet strong tube. The hole is made through the inner reed in the same manner, and these palm midribs and fine sand are worked inside the inner tube until it is quite as smooth as a rifle bore.

The arrows are made from the same palm midribs, split as fine as an eighth of an inch in thickness. While at work mining I hired an Indian boy to make a collection of bird skins for me. These boys can skin a bird perfectly and prepare the skin so that it will be like soft, thin kid, without misplacing a feather. I watched this boy make blowpipes and arrows. He dried the palm midribs in the sun a few days and they split readily into as fine arrows as he needed.

Just how he made the deadly poison with which he tipped them I was not certain. I will admit that we kept clear of that poison just as you would keep clear of dynamite. I know that it was made from crushed leaves and roots and put in a gourd. This poison is called “waurali.” As soon as the poison is dried on, in the sun, a string is woven in and out around each end of each arrow until there is a long row of them, and this is rolled around a stick so that there is a solid roll of these arrows, which may be pulled out one by one.

The quiver is made of woven grass, the bottom made of some wax that hardens from trees. This roll of arrows is placed, poison tips up, in the quiver and a skin top put over them to keep out moisture. Attached to the quiver is a small basket containing loose cotton.

When the boy was ready to shoot a bird he would remove one of the arrows, pinch off a bit of cotton from the basket and wrap it loosely around the blunt end. Thrusting the arrow into the tube this cotton made it fit just enough to take the compression of air. Sighting the bird, the boy placed the blowpipe to his lips, aimed at the bird and gave a sudden sharp puff.

The speed of that slender arrow was marvelous. Seldom did the boy miss. If the bird was merely scratched, it would fly but a short distance before the deadly poison would get in its work and then it would come fluttering to the ground, quite dead by the time the boy, running after it, would pick it up. Sometimes the great tapirs, as large as a hog, would be killed by these slender arrows.

Their bows and arrows interested me. Their bows are longer than most of those used by the American Indians, being six feet or more. And these men are generally smaller than the American Indians. They have many kinds of arrows for the various game, and they also use a sort of harpoon, a large barbed spearhead on the arrow with a long stout woven cord fastened to it. This is for shooting fish.

One day an Indian took the fruit of a star apple tree, wove a loose covering for it, hung it in a pool of water at the shore of the river from a limb overhead and waited. I saw a great fish dart for this bait and at the same time “Zowie!” went this harpoon arrow.

There was a great thrashing about in the water, but the Indian calmly hauled in his harpoon and there was a big pacu on it, a very tasty fish when properly cooked. They also use hand spears with a half dozen barbed points branching out and get many fish in that manner.