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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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.
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