Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Spanish missionaries
say onotarse, to rub the skin with anato.) called by the Spaniards
achote, and by the planters of Cayenne, rocou.
It is the colouring
matter extracted from the pulp of the Bixa orellana.* (* The word
bixa, adopted by botanists, is derived from the ancient language of
Haiti (the island of St. Domingo). Rocou, the term commonly used by
the French, is derived from the Brazilian word, urucu.) The Indian
women prepare the anato by throwing the seeds of the plant into a tub
filled with water. They beat this water for an hour, and then leave it
to deposit the colouring fecula, which is of an intense brick-red.
After having separated the water, they take out the fecula, dry it
between their hands, knead it with oil of turtles' eggs, and form it
into round cakes of three or four ounces weight. When turtle oil is
wanting, some tribes mix with the anato the fat of the crocodile.
Another pigment, much more valuable, is extracted from a plant of the
family of the bignoniae, which M. Bonpland has made known by the name
of Bignonia chica. It climbs up and clings to the tallest trees by the
aid of tendrils. Its bilabiate flowers are an inch long, of a fine
violet colour, and disposed by twos or threes. The bipinnate leaves
become reddish in drying. The fruit is a pod, filled with winged
seeds, and is two feet long. This plant grows spontaneously, and in
great abundance, near Maypures; and in going up the Orinoco, beyond
the mouth of the Guaviare, from Santa Barbara to the lofty mountain of
Duida, particularly near Esmeralda. We also found it on the banks of
the Cassiquiare. The red pigment of chica is not obtained from the
fruit, like the onoto, but from the leaves macerated in water. The
colouring matter separates in the form of a light powder. It is
collected, without being mixed with turtle-oil, into little lumps
eight or nine inches long, and from two to three high, rounded at the
edges. These lumps, when heated, emit an agreeable smell of benzoin.
When the chica is subjected to distillation, it yields no sensible
traces of ammonia. It is not, like indigo, a substance combined with
azote. It dissolves slightly in sulphuric and muriatic acids, and even
in alkalis. Ground with oil, the chica furnishes a red colour that has
a tint of lake. Applied to wool, it might be confounded with
madder-red. There is no doubt but that the chica, unknown in Europe
before our travels, may be employed usefully in the arts. The nations
on the Orinoco, by whom this pigment is best prepared, are the
Salivas, the Guipunaves,* (* Or Guaypunaves; they call themselves
Uipunavi.) the Caveres, and the Piraoas. The processes of infusion and
maceration are in general very common among all the nations on the
Orinoco. Thus the Maypures carry on a trade of barter with the little
loaves of puruma, which is a vegetable fecula, dried in the manner of
indigo, and yielding a very permanent yellow colour.
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