In Sennaar, According To Burckhardt, It Is Equally Esteemed, And Sold In The Markets.

The little village of Uruana is more difficult to govern than most of the other missions.

The Ottomacs are a restless, turbulent people, with unbridled passions. They are not only fond to excess of the fermented liquors prepared from cassava and maize, and of palm-wine, but they throw themselves into a peculiar state of intoxication, we might say of madness, by the use of the powder of niopo. They gather the long pods of a mimosacea which we have made known by the name of Acacia niopo,* cut them into pieces, moisten them, and cause them to ferment. (* It is an acacia with very delicate leaves, and not an Inga. We brought home another species of mimosacea (the chiga of the Ottomacs and the sepa of the Maypures) that yields seeds, the flour of which is eaten at Uruana like cassava. From this flour the chiga bread is prepared, which is so common at Cunariche, and on the banks of the Lower Orinoco. The chiga is a species of Inga, and I know of no other mimosacea that can supply the place of the cerealia.) When the softened seeds begin to grow black, they are kneaded like a paste; mixed with some flour of cassava and lime procured from the shell of a helix, and the whole mass is exposed to a very brisk fire, on a gridiron made of hard wood. The hardened paste takes the form of small cakes. When it is to be used, it is reduced to a fine powder, and placed on a dish five or six inches wide. The Ottomac holds this dish, which has a handle, in his right hand, while he inhales the niopo by the nose, through the forked bone of a bird, the two extremities of which are applied to the nostrils. This bone, without which the Ottomac believes that he could not take this kind of snuff, is seven inches long: it appeared to me to be the leg-bone of a large sort of plover. The niopo is so stimulating that the smallest portions of it produce violent sneezing in those who are not accustomed to its use. Father Gumilla says this diabolical powder of the Ottomacs, furnished by an arborescent tobacco-plant, intoxicates them through the nostrils (emboracha por las narices), deprives them of reason for some hours, and renders them furious in battle. However varied may be the family of the leguminous plants in the chemical and medical properties of their seeds, juices, and roots, we cannot believe, from what we know hitherto of the group of mimosaceae, that it is principally the pod of the Acacia niopo which imparts the stimulant power to the snuff of the Ottomacs. This power is owing, no doubt, to the freshly calcined lime. We have shown above that the mountaineers of the Andes of Popayan, and the Guajiros, who wander between the lake of Maracaybo and the Rio la Hacha, are also fond of swallowing lime as a stimulant, to augment the secretion of the saliva and the gastric juice.

A custom analogous to the use of the niopo just described was observed by La Condamine among the natives of the Upper Maranon. The Omaguas, whose name is rendered celebrated by the expeditions attempted in search of El Dorado, have like the Ottomacs a dish, and the hollow bone of a bird, by which they convey to their nostrils their powder of curupa. The seed that yields this powder is no doubt also a mimosacea; for the Ottomacs, according to Father Gili, designate even now, at the distance of one hundred and sixty leagues from the Amazon, the Acacia niopo by the name of curupa. Since the geographical researches which I have recently made on the scene of the exploits of Philip von Huten, and the real situation of the province of Papamene, or of the Omaguas, the probability of an ancient communication between the Ottomacs of the Orinoco and the Omaguas of the Maranon has become more interesting and more probable. The former came from the Meta, perhaps from the country between the Meta and the Guaviare; the latter assert that they descended in great numbers to the Maranon by the Rio Jupura, coming from the eastern declivity of the Andes of New Grenada. Now, it is precisely between the Guayavero (which joins the Guaviare) and the Caqueta (which takes lower down the name of Japura) that the country of the Omagua appears to be situate, of which the adventurers of Coro and Tocuyo in vain attempted the conquest. There is no doubt a striking contrast between the present barbarism of the Ottomacs and the ancient civilization of the Omaguas; but all parts of the latter nation were not perhaps alike advanced in civilization, and the example of tribes fallen into complete barbarism are unhappily but too common in the history of our species. Another point of resemblance may be remarked between the Ottomacs and the Omaguas. Both of these nations are celebrated among all the tribes of the Orinoco and the Amazon for their employment of caoutchouc in the manufacture of various articles of utility.

The real herbaceous tobacco* (for the missionaries have the habit of calling the niopo or curupa tree-tobacco) has been cultivated from time immemorial by all the native people of the Orinoco; and at the period of the conquest the habit of smoking was found to be alike spread over both North and South America.

(* The word tobacco (tabacco), like the words savannah, maize, cacique, maguey (agave), and manati, belongs to the ancient language of Haiti, or St. Domingo. It did not properly denote the herb but the tube through which the smoke was inhaled. It seems surprising that a vegetable production so universally spread should have different names among neighbouring people. The pete-ma of the Omaguas is, no doubt, the pety of the Guaranos; but the analogy between the Cabre and Algonkin (or Lenni-Lenape) words which denote tobacco may be merely accidental.

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