DEADLY URARI.

Northland Age, Volume VII, Issue 15, 10 December 1910, Page 8

DEADLY URARI.

~* PREPARED BT BRAZILIAN TRIBES. ''Urari (or Curari) 1» tbo most powerful sedative in nature ; tipped with it, the needle like arrows used by the Indians of the Upper Amazon, in their blow-pine, will kill an ox in 2d minutes and a monkey in ten." This is substantially the statement made by Professor James Orton, A. M,, In bis volume "The Antes and the Amazons " The fact that tho secret of compounding this unique poison has been kept so long from •ts numberless seekers Is perhaps the strangest thine about It. The first mention of It made to the civilised world was by Orellana in his account of his descent of the "great river” when ho deserted with a portion of the men from the conquering army of Francisco Pizarro and sailed down to the Atlantic Ocean in 1539. He WTote that his company was '’fired upon by the hostile Indians with minute, poison id arrows.” This is the same trip when he reported that he was att arkid by a band of savage female warriors with bows and arrows. His report of the poisoned arrows habeen verified by later travellers, although the "lemale warriors,” from whom the mighty river derived its name, proved to lie a shiftless tribe of savages too lazy to make other garments, who wore in the place ol clothes a sheet of thin berk with a hole in the middle to slip orer the hsad, after which It was belted at the waist, and was easily mistaken for a Woman’s dress. The same cos tume is still worn by them. - The great traveller and naturalist, Baron von Humboldt, In Ifo3 was * the first to bring to Europe a suftlr-* tier* .lUouiity of the poison for analysis. It was found to contain a a hitherto unknown alkaloid, which was named curarine. Urari is prepared by only a few tribes of savages on the upper waters of Ihe Amazon and Orinoco rivers, where It is almost the only article made for sale. It Is sold mostly to other tribes, who use It for killing birds whose plumage has been in great demand in late years among the river trader*. The price of urari, where it is made, is quite uniformly Its weight in silver. In Quito, where considerable is marketed, a half-gill cup of it costs 1.50 dollar*. The gun in which these poisoned arrows are used consists ol a straight bamboo tube, from five to six feet long, with a sight on one end and a funnel expansion to fit the mouth at the other. The principle is precisely the same as a schoolboy's tube for blowing pjitty balls, but the bore Is so large, about J-lncb, that it requires more breath than untrained lungs can supply to make it effective. Even the most expert can shoot only a short distance, as compared with firearms, but their accuracy Is wonderful when one considers the difficulty of sighting a tube from the position in which It is held. The arrows consist of a point of wood or bone, not more than an Inch long, and the size of a toothpick, in which is attached a little tuft of the airy fibre of the silk cotton tree, vhich is as light as thistledown and will not pack like cotton fibre, and so lose the necessary symmetry of form to insure accuracy. The point is then dipped in a thick solution of the poison, dried, and is ready for use. These arrows, owing to their lightness, travel in an almost horizontal line until the air's resistance stops them, when they drop almost Jtraight to the ground. Ever since the unique qualities of urari became known, great interest has been taken and many efforts made to learn the secret of compounding it. Humboldt learned that one plant waa always an important Ingredient ; this is the vide; Strychaos toxifera, which, however, contains no trace of strychnine, but is very po-sonous. It must be used in combination with other plants to produce the characteristic effects of orari. In 1872 one additional ingredient was learned, by Professor Orton, who wrote, "Tobacco and the milk of another plant is added, coagulating ft.” Without this "milk of another plant,” it is not the pre-eminent •edative which the medical world 1 *eeks—one which produces death, indistinguishable from sleep. In its approach. A few weeks before my return home from Brazil a gentleman left the steamer on its downward trip and e»me for two weeks’ rest to the plantation where I was visiting, before taking the sea voyage home. He was a professor in a German unlvereity, he told us, and had spent two ycart 1000 miles further up the Amazon, among the Ticuna Indians, and was now on his way back. He was bin and sallow, and seemed to need ; •e*t. ‘ A few days before his departure I questioned him about the pur>ose of such an unusual proceeding, and he related the following expertrace “The medical faculty of onr university has beta experimenting for •everal years with urari, and believed they were on the eve of finding a ■ way of using the tremendous potentiality of this unique poison to good account In beating some nervous i diseases whea our supply became exhausted "After thoroughly aatlefying our selves that some vital element was ; unknown to the travellers who be- 1 Ueved they had learned the Becret, I and had given ua their preparations to teat, tb* university decided to tend n botanist, who was also a physician, among the Indians who . had made our bust sample*, and who -

v as to remain long enough to secure their carefully-guarded secret. I was the one chosen and equipped for this service, and started immediately. “I wus elx montkß before I could g«t to work. I bad to find a village where they made it, learn a little of their inhuman language, and win their confidence enough to be received among them without exciting their suspicions of my object in coming, for their secret had often been sought by visitors, gnd they were very sus picions. "When one day it was announced that urari was to be made, I joined one of the parties gent out to gather the vine, Strychnos toxifera, which I already knew, having seen it in gome European botanical gardens, cultivated as a curiosity. Thi9 was cut in suitable lengths and thrown into a kettle of water, which was kept boiling three days, adding more and throwing away the old, after it had cooked six hours. "The third night, when the vine had all been used, the refuse was thrown away, and aome hoodoo ceremonies and incantations were performed by the leaders as they marched around the kettle. “I thin!; I should say here that from first to last three old men directed everything, and I believe that other members of the tribe knew as little about making urari as I did. Thi; seemed, however, to be greatly impressed by the ceremonies. “The next day only three people were sent to the woods, each to gather some „one’ plant I had no trouble in identifying all these before they were put into the kettle of boiling water, left after the vines bad been thrown away, and I was | encouraged "The following day nearly tbe whole tribe went out in small parties for the final gathering. When they came in at midday, each had a bundle of plants containing many varieties, which were thrown down in a pile beside the kettle. It would have taken the best botanist a week to identify them all, even if' there had not been some of them that were unknown and unnamed by botanists. “That evening a short ceremony was performed, in which the great medicine spirit was asked to show them which of these were to be used. Then all three began to pick them up, one by one. Nearly all were thrown away, and the few chosen were hastily tossed into the pot and lost sight of in the cloud of evilsmelling steam that rose above it. So many kinds of leaves of tropical plants exhnde a "white milky sap" that I saw at once that 1 was defeated in my quest, at least In that settlement. "However* I went down the river to another village where urari was made, but only stayed long enough to learn that similar tactics were used for guarding the secret. “I realised that I was beaten. My health had suffered by exposure and unaccustomed food, and I started home, alter buying, for its weight in I silver, all the poison that they had J ready for market.”—Dewey Austin j Cobb, in "Geographic Magazine.” I