tobacco and take snuff.
Their chief masker represents their demon Jurupari, but he does not
appear to be treated with any particular respect.

Very little information has been gathered of the history of these
tribes, as they seldom possess any knowledge of their ancestors beyond
the times of their fathers or grandfathers. Few of them have benefited
in any way by their intercourse with white men, but remain in the same
barbarous condition in which they have probably existed for many
centuries. A further description of their savage customs would be more
disagreeable than satisfactory. We can only hope that the true gospel
may be some day carried among them, and that they may be redeemed from
their present barbarous condition.

PART THREE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

INDIAN WEAPONS AND MODES OF KILLING GAME.

THE BLOW-PIPE.

The Indian, destitute of firearms, ranges through the forest in chase of
the fiercest and largest animals which haunt its shade, armed with a
slender tube, and a quiver full of needle-like arrows. The tube, ten or
eleven feet long, is the celebrated gravatana, or blow-pipe; called also
the zarabatana by the Spaniards. Slight as are the arrows which are
blown through this weapon, they will penetrate the thickest hide; and
being tipped with a deadly poison, carry death through the veins of the
wounded animal in the course of a few minutes.

Blowpipes are formed in various ways,--for one, the stems of a small
palm, the triatea setigera, are used. Outside they appear pointed, from
the scars of the fallen leaves, but within they have a soft pith, which
soon rots in water, and is easily extracted, leaving a smooth, polished
bore. They vary from the thickness of a finger to two inches in
diameter. Each of these stems is slender, the one of a size which may
be pushed inside the larger. This is done that any curve in the one may
counteract that in the other. A conical wooden mouthpiece is fitted on
the one end, and the whole is spirally bound with the smooth black bark
of a creeper. Two teeth, fastened about a couple of feet apart from the
mouth end, serve as sights to enable the sportsman to take better aim.
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 pal