On the urari : the deadly arrow-poison of the Macusis, an Indian tribe in British Guiana / by Richard Schomburgk.

  • Schomburgk, Richard, 1811-1891.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the urari : the deadly arrow-poison of the Macusis, an Indian tribe in British Guiana / by Richard Schomburgk. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to him the process. Mr. Yoncl succeeded in persuading the poison-maker to boil the poison in Pirara, in a hut erected for the purpose in the front of the missionary’s house, which enabled Mr. Youd to watch the process. My brother was again successful in witnessing the preparation of the urari on his third visit to Pirara. The experience gathered by these witnesses agrees in every respect with that obtained by myself, which may have arisen from our seeing the preparation made by the same individual. I now made my own observations. I found at the Canuku Mountains the same renowned urari preparer who served my brother as a guide to the regions of the urari plants, and whom I engaged also as my guide. Under the same difficulties we reached the plants, which, to my great disappoint- ment, showed neither fruit nor flower. We collected a great quantity of the bark of the plants, as the Indian had promised, after our return to the village, to prepare the urari in my presence. To my great consternation the old poison-boiler tried, when I reminded him of it the next morning, to evade his his given promise with all kinds of excuses; pretending to be sick, com- plaining of headache, and wishing to put off the boiling for some days. The cunning Indian knew too well from experience that such pretended refusal would secure to him a greater reward, and to gain my purpose I had to add to the payment already promised some more powder and knives. At last my long cherished wish to witness the preparation of the urari, of which so many fables had been told (as there always will be about anything enveloped in a certain mystery), was to be fulfilled, and I found the process, except a few unimportant ceremonies, as simple as possible. The small hut, which on my arrival in the village I supposed to be the laboratory of the chemist, was really the urari house. The Indian began first to take the bark from the Strychnos which we had brought from the Ilamikipang, then produced the other ingredients, which it seemed he had in store, and separated the required quantities. I am sorry to say that from the barks he used beside the Strychnos, I could not ascertain the botanical names of these plants, which he called Tarireng, Wakarimo, and Tararemu ; but to all appearances they also belonged to a species of Strychnos. When I asked him where they grew, he answered, far, far away in the mountains ; it would take him five days to get there. The preparation of the several ingredients would be according to the weight, as follows:—Bark of Strychnos toxifera, 21bs., from Yakki (Strychnos Schomburykii), Jib. ; Arimaru (Strych- nos cogens), Jib.; Wakarimo, Jib.; the root of Tarireng, Joz.; the root of Tararemu, |oz. ; the fleshy root of Muramu (Cissus spec.) ; four small pieces of wood of a tree of the species of Xanthoxyleae* called Manuca. *Manuca is the strong bitter wood of a tree of the Xanthoxyleae. The bark and the root are used as an effective remedy against syphilitic sickness on the Kio Negro, Amazon, and Kio Branco.