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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It Is More Than Two Thousand Six Hundred
Toises Broad, And It Runs Without Any Winding, Like A Vast Canal,
Straight Toward The East.
Two long and narrow islands (Isla de Uruana
and Isla vieja de la Manteca) contribute to give extent to the bed of
the river; the two banks are parallel, and we cannot call it divided
into different branches.
The mission is inhabited by the Ottomacs, a
tribe in the rudest state, and presenting one of the most
extraordinary physiological phenomena. They eat earth; that is, they
swallow every day, during several months, very considerable
quantities, to appease hunger, and this practice does not appear to
have any injurious effect on their health. Though we could stay only
one day at Uruana, this short space of time sufficed to make us
acquainted with the preparation of the poya, or balls of earth. I also
found some traces of this vitiated appetite among the Guamos; and
between the confluence of the Meta and the Apure, where everybody
speaks of dirt-eating as of a thing anciently known. I shall here
confine myself to an account of what we ourselves saw or heard from
the missionary, who had been doomed to live for twelve years among the
savage and turbulent tribe of the Ottomacs.
The inhabitants of Uruana belong to those nations of the savannahs
called wandering Indians (Indios andantes) who, more difficult to
civilize than the nations of the forest (Indios del monte), have a
decided aversion to cultivate the land, and live almost exclusively by
hunting and fishing.
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