ith the
soft, silky cotton of the bombax, to be afterwards spun and woven for
shirts and dresses. You would have seen baskets of various shapes and
sizes woven out of the rind of the leaf-stalks of a singular palm called
"Iu" (_Astrocaryum_), which has no stem, but only leaves of ten feet
long, growing directly out of the ground. You would have seen chairs
made of split palms and bamboo, and a goodsized table, upon which, at
meal-time, might be noticed a table-cloth, not of diaper, but, what
served equally well, the broad smooth silken leaves of the plantain.
There were cups, too, and plates, and bowls, and dishes, and bottles, of
the light gourd-shell (_Crescentia cujete_), some of the bottles holding
useful liquids, and corked with the elastic pith of a palm. Other
vessels of a boat-shape might be noticed. There were large wooden
vessels pointed at the ends like little canoes. They were nothing more
than the spathes or flower-sheaths of one of the largest of palms, the
"_Inaga_" (_Maximiliana regia_). This noble tree rises to the height of
one hundred feet, and carries feathery fronds of more than fifty feet in
length. The spathes are so large that they are used by the Indian women
for cradles and baskets; and their wood is so hard, that hunters often
cook meat in them, hanging them over the fire when filled with water!
Many other singular implements might have been noticed in the new home.
One, a cylinder of what appeared to be wood, covered thickly with
spinous points, hung against the wall. That was a grater, used for the
manioc, or yucca roots; and it was a grater of nature's own making, for
it was nothing more than a piece of one of the air roots of the
"pashiuba" palm, already described. Another curious object hung near
this last. It was a sort of conical bag, woven out of palm-fibre, with
a loop at the bottom, through which loop a strong pole was passed, that
acted as a lever when the article was in use. This wicker-work bag was
the "tipiti." Its use was to compress the grated pulp of the manioc
roots, so as to separate the juice from it, and thus make "cassava."
The roots of the yucca, or manioc plant, grow in bunches like potatoes.
Some of them are oblong--the length of a man's arm--and more than twenty
pounds in weight. When required for use, the bark is scraped off, and
they are grated down. They are then put into the tipiti, already
mentioned; and the bag is hung up to a strong pin, while the l