Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/304

 292 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

(the Warapaima of the Macusis) on the Amazon side, and its transport to the market at Para. The author describes a couple of methods of catching smaller animals and deer; in the former case by means of a loop placed in the runway through which the creature's head is supposed to pass, and in the latter by stretching a net across the path along which the deer is forced to run by setting fire to the grass behind (p. 53). Unfortunately neither of these devices have been hitherto seen or heard of in the whole of the area under consideration. Furthermore, on the same page the illustration of the birdtrap lacks the upper portion of the peg supporting the structure, and upon which the whole delicacy of the trap depends.

Again, the form of spring-basket fish trap, excellently illustrated no doubt, is unknown amongst all three tribes: it is met with amongst the Wai-Wais further to the southeast.

The value of the list of fish poisons (pp. 61-64) is inappreciable in view of the absence of any scientific identification of the plants so em- ployed, although several of them- have been already described, and it would have been preferable to defer publication of the whole work until those of the fourteen out of the twenty-four despatched for the purpose to the Department of Agriculture at Washington had come to hand. It is true that one or two of the poisons mentioned are traceable, but yet errors seem to have crept in here. Puraunun (p. 62) is certainly not a thistle, but an agave; the bulbs, and not the seeds of which are used as mentioned. Haiarri is undoubtedly a species of the universally used Lonchocarpus, and Haiarri Kupa (p. 63) is evidently intended for the Haiarri used or found in the river bays or bights, e.g., (Macusi Kuba) of the Rupununi, etc., while Haiarri bali (p. 63) simply means a plant like or similar to (Arawak balli) the Haiarri itself.

The bibliography is far from complete, and it is certainly puzzling to know why the name of Roth, who so far has published nothing con- cerning the three tribes under review, should be included in it.

As to the remaining portions of the text, the present reviewer has the authority of Mr. Melville, to whom, and to Mr. Ogibrie, the Professor rightfully admits his main sources of information, for stating that the legends interpreted by him for the author are now scarcely recognizable, and that the Wapisiana vocabulary is hopelessly inaccurate. How much reliability can therefore be placed upon the grammar and language of the Central Arawaks? The author should remember that the history and language of any of our Guiana tribes is not to be picked up by a few months' cursory travel, with notes and queries obtained enroute, even when the expedition is backed by a lavish expenditure of money.

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