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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The Spanish missionaries
say onotarse, to rub the skin with anato.) called by the Spaniards
achote, and by the planters of Cayenne, rocou. It is the colouring
matter extracted from the pulp of the Bixa orellana.* (* The word
bixa, adopted by botanists, is derived from the ancient language of
Haiti (the island of St. Domingo). Rocou, the term commonly used by
the French, is derived from the Brazilian word, urucu.) The Indian
women prepare the anato by throwing the seeds of the plant into a tub
filled with water. They beat this water for an hour, and then leave it
to deposit the colouring fecula, which is of an intense brick-red.
After having separated the water, they take out the fecula, dry it
between their hands, knead it with oil of turtles' eggs, and form it
into round cakes of three or four ounces weight. When turtle oil is
wanting, some tribes mix with the anato the fat of the crocodile.
Another pigment, much more valuable, is extracted from a plant of the
family of the bignoniae, which M. Bonpland has made known by the name
of Bignonia chica. It climbs up and clings to the tallest trees by the
aid of tendrils. Its bilabiate flowers are an inch long, of a fine
violet colour, and disposed by twos or threes. The bipinnate leaves
become reddish in drying. The fruit is a pod, filled with winged
seeds, and is two feet long.
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