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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Our Botanical Knowledge Of The
Plants Employed In Making Poison Can Be But Very Slowly Acquired.
Most
of the Indians who make poisoned arrows, are totally ignorant of the
nature of the venomous substances they use, and which they obtain from
other people.
A mysterious veil everywhere covers the history of
poisons and of their antidotes. Their preparation among savages is the
monopoly of the piaches, who are at once priests, jugglers, and
physicians; it is only from the natives who are transplanted to the
missions, that any certain notions can be acquired on matters so
problematical. Ages elapsed before Europeans became acquainted through
the investigation of M. Mutis, with the bejuco del guaco (Mikania
guaco), which is the most powerful of all antidotes against the bite
of serpents, and of which we were fortunate enough to give the first
botanical description.
The opinion is very general in the missions that no cure is possible,
if the curare be fresh, well concentrated, and have stayed long in the
wound, to have entered freely into the circulation. Among the
specifics employed on the banks of the Orinoco, and in the Indian
Archipelago, the most celebrated is muriate of soda.* (* Oviedo,
Sommario delle Indie Orientali, recommends sea-water as an antidote
against vegetable poisons. The people in the missions never fail to
assure European travellers, that they have no more to fear from arrows
dipped in curare, if they have a little salt in their mouths, than
from the electric shocks of the gymnoti, when chewing tobacco. Raleigh
recommends as an antidote to the ourari (curare) the juice of garlick.
[But later experiments have completely proved that if the poison has
once fairly entered into combination with the blood there is no
remedy, either for man or any of the inferior animals. The wourali and
other poisons mentioned by Humboldt have, since the publication of
this work, been carefully analysed by the first chemists of Europe,
and experiments made on their symptoms and supposed remedies.
Artificial inflation of the lungs was found the most successful, but
in very few instances was any cure effected.]) The wound is rubbed
with this salt, which is also taken internally. I had myself no direct
and sufficiently convincing proof of the action of this specific; and
the experiments of Delille and Majendie rather tend to disprove its
efficacy. On the banks of the Amazon, the preference among the
antidotes is given to sugar; and muriate of soda being a substance
almost unknown to the Indians of the forests, it is probable that the
honey of bees, and that farinaceous sugar which oozes from plantains
dried in the sun, were anciently employed throughout Guiana. In vain
have ammonia and eau-de-luce been tried against the curare; it is now
known that these specifics are uncertain, even when applied to wounds
caused by the bite of serpents. Sir Everard Home has shown that a cure
is often attributed to a remedy, when it is owing only to the
slightness of the wound, and to a very circumscribed action of the
poison. Animals may with impunity be wounded with poisoned arrows, if
the wound be well laid open, and the point imbued with poison be
withdrawn immediately after the wound is made. If salt or sugar be
employed in these cases, people are tempted to regard them as
excellent specifics. Indians, who had been wounded in battle by
weapons dipped in the curare, described to us the symptoms they
experienced, which were entirely similar to those observed in the bite
of serpents. The wounded person feels congestion in the head, vertigo,
and nausea. He is tormented by a raging thirst, and numbness pervades
all the parts that are near the wound.
The old Indian, who was called the poison-master, seemed flattered by
the interest we took in his chemical processes. He found us
sufficiently intelligent to lead him to the belief that we knew how to
make soap, an art which, next to the preparation of curare, appeared
to him one of the finest of human inventions. When the liquid poison
had been poured into the vessels prepared for their reception, we
accompanied the Indian to the festival of the juvias. The harvest of
juvias, or fruits of the Bertholletia excelsa,* (* The Brazil-nut.)
was celebrated by dancing, and by excesses of wild intoxication. The
hut where the natives were assembled, displayed during several days a
very singular aspect. There was neither table nor bench; but large
roasted monkeys, blackened by smoke, were ranged in regular order
against the wall. These were the marimondes (Ateles belzebuth), and
those bearded monkeys called capuchins, which must not be confounded
with the weeper, or sai (Simia capucina of Buffon). The manner of
roasting these anthropomorphous animals contributes to render their
appearance extremely disagreeable in the eyes of civilized man. A
little grating or lattice of very hard wood is formed, and raised one
foot from the ground. The monkey is skinned, and bent into a sitting
posture; the head generally resting on the arms, which are meagre and
long; but sometimes these are crossed behind the back. When it is tied
on the grating, a very clear fire is kindled below. The monkey,
enveloped in smoke and flame, is broiled and blackened at the same
time. On seeing the natives devour the arm or leg of a roasted monkey,
it is difficult not to believe that this habit of eating animals so
closely resembling man in their physical organization, has, to a
certain degree, contributed to diminish the horror of cannibalism
among these people. Roasted monkeys, particularly those which have
very round heads, display a hideous resemblance to a child; and
consequently Europeans who are obliged to feed on them prefer
separating the head and the hands, and serve up only the rest of the
animal at their tables. The flesh of monkeys is so lean and dry, that
M. Bonpland has preserved in his collections at Paris an arm and hand,
which had been broiled over the fire at Esmeralda; and no smell has
arisen from them after the lapse of a great number of years.
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