WAR POISON OF THE INDIANS.

[From Humboldt’s Personal Narrative.]

Esmeralda is the most celebrated spot on the Oroonoko for the fabrication of that active poison which is employed in war, in the chase, and, what is singular enough, as a remedy for gastric obstructions.

The poison of the ficunas of the Amazon, the upastieute of Java, and the curare of Guyana, are the most deleterious substances that are known.

Raleigh, toward the end of the sixteenth century, had heard the name of curare pronounced as being a vegetable substance, with which arrows were envenomed; yet no fixed notions of this poison had reached Europe.

The missionaries Gumilla and Gili had not been able to penetrate into the country where the curare is manufactured.

Gumilla asserts that this preparable was enveloped in great mystery; that its principal ingredient was furnished by a subterraneous plant, by a tuberose root, which never puts forth leaves, and which is called the root by way of eminence, raiz de si misma; that the venomous exhalations, which arise from the pots, cause the old women (the most useless) to perish who are chosen to watch over this operation; finally, that these vegetable juices never appear sufficiently concentrated, till a few drops produce at a distance a repulsive action on the blood.

An Indian wounds himself slightly; and a dart dipped in the liquid curare is held near the wound.

If it make the blood return to the vessels without having been brought into contact with them, the poison is judged to be sufficiently concentrated.

I shall not stop to refute these popular tales collected by Father Gumilla.

When we arrived at Esmeralda, the greater part of the Indians were returning from an excursion which they had made to the east beyond the Rio Padamo, to gather juvias, or the fruit of the Bertholletia, and the liana which yields the curare.

Their return was celebrated by a festival, which is called in the Mission la fiesta de las juvias, and which resembles our harvest homes and vintage feasts.

The women had prepared a quantity of fermented liquor, and during two days the Indians were in a state of intoxication.

Among nations that attach great importance to the fruits of the palm-trees and of some others useful for the nourishment of man, the period when these fruits are gathered is marked by public rejoicings, and time is divided according to these festivals, which succeed one another in a course invariably the same.

We were fortunate enough to find an old Indian less drunk than the rest, who was employed in preparing the curare poison from freshly gathered plants.

He was the chemist of the place.

We found at his dwelling large earthen pots for boiling vegetable juice, shallower vessels to favour the evaporation by a larger surface, and leaves of the plane-tree rolled up in the shape of our filters, and used to filtrate the liquors more or less loaded with fibrous matter.

The greatest order and neatness prevailed in this hut, which was transformed into a chemical laboratory.

The Indian who was to instruct us, is known throughout the mission by the name of the master of poison (amo del curare): he had that self-sufficient air and tone of pedantry, of which the pharmacopolists of Europe were formerly accused; “ I know,” said he, “that the whites have the secret of fabricating soap, and that black powder which has the effect of making a noise and killing animals, when they are wanted.

The curare, which we prepare from father to son, is superior to any thing you can make down yonder (beyond sea).

It is the juice of an herb which kills silently (without any one knowing whence the stroke comes).”

This chemical operation, to which the master of the curare attached so much importance, appears to us extremely simple.

The liana (bujuco), which is used at Esmeralda for the preparation of the poison, bears the same name as in the forest of Javita. It is the bejuco de mavacure, which is gathered in abundance east of the Mission, on the left bank of the Oroonoko, beyond the Rio Amaguaca, in the mountains and granatic lands of Guanaya and Yumariquin.

The juice of the liana, when it has been recently gathered, is not regarded as poisonous; perhaps it acts in a sensible manner only when it is strongly concentrated.

It is the bark, and a part of the alburnum, which contains this terrible poison.

Branches of the mavacure four or five lines in diameter, are scraped with a knife; and the bark that comes off is bruised, and reduced into very thin filaments, on the stone employed for grinding cassava.

The venomous juice being yellow, the whole fibrous mass takes this colour.

It is thrown into a funnel nine inches high, with an opening four inches wide.

This funnel was, of all the instruments of the Indian laboratory, that of which the master of poison seemed to be most proud.

He asked us repeatedly, of por alla (down yonder, that is in Europe) we had ever seen any thing to be compared to his empudo.

It was a leaf of a plantain tree rolled up in the form of a cone, and placed in another stronger cone made of the leaves of the palm-tree.

The whole of this apparatus was supported by slight frame work made of the petioli and ribs of palm leaves.

A cold infusion is first prepared by pouring water on the fibrous matter, which is the ground bark of the mavacure.

A yellowish water filters during several hours, drop by drop, through the leafy funnel.

This filtered water is the venomous liquor, but it acquires strength only when it is concentrated by evaporation, like molasses in a large earthen pot.

The Indian from time to time invited us to taste the liquid; its taste, more or less bitter, decides when the concentration by fire has been carried sufficiently far.

There is no danger in this operation, the curare being deleterious only when it comes into immediate contact with the blood.

The vapours, therefore, that are disengaged from the pans, are not hurtful, notwithstanding what has been asserted on this point by the Missionaries of the Oroonoko.

Fontana, in his fine experiments on the poison of the ticunas of the river of Amazons, long ago proved, that the vapours arising from this poison when thrown on burning charcoal, may be inhaled without apprehension; and that it is false, as M. de la Condamine has announced, that Indian women, when condemned to death, have been killed by the vapours of the poison of the ticunas.

The juice is thickened with a glutinous substance to cause it to stick to the darts, which it renders mortal; but taken internally, the Indians consider the curare to be an excellent stomachic.

Scarcely a fowl is eaten (adds our author) on the banks of the Oroonoko, which has not been killed with a poisoned arrow.

The Missionaries pretend, that the flesh of animals is never so good as when these means are employed.

Father Zea, who accompanied us, though ill of a tertian fever, caused every morning the live fowl allotted for our repast to be brought to his hammock, together with an arrow.

Notwithstanding his habitual state of weakness, he would not confide this operation, to which he attached great importance, to any other person.

Large birds, a guan (pava de monte) for instance, or a curassoa (alsetor,) when wounded in the thigh, perish in two or three minutes; but it is often ten or twelve before a pig or a pecari expires.

M. Humboldt does not seem to be acquainted with any certain antidote, if such exists, to this fatal poison.

Sugar, garlic, the muriate of soda, &c. are mentioned doubtingly.