Among the Chaimas, as among all semi-barbarous people, the state of women is one of privation and suffering. The hardest work falls to them. In the evening when we saw the Chaimas return from their gardens the men carried only their machetes to cut their way through the undergrowth. The women walk loaded with bananas, a child in their arms and two others sometimes perched on top of their load. Despite this social inequality South American Indian women seem, in general, happier than North American ones. In the missions men work in the fields as much as women.

In the missions there are a few villages where families belong to different tribes, speaking different languages. Societies composed of such heterogeneous elements are difficult to govern. In general, the padres have settled whole tribes, or large parts of them, in villages not far from each other. The Indians see only those of their own tribe, for lack of communication and isolation are the main aims of missionary policy. Among the tamed Chaimas, Caribs and Tamanacs racial characteristics are retained if they are allowed to keep their respective languages. If man's individuality is reflected in his dialects, then these in their turn influence thoughts and feelings. This intimate link between language, national character and physical constitution ensures the differences and idiosyncrasies of the tribes, which in turn constitutes an unending source of movement and life at the mental level.

The moment the sticky sap of the kiracaguero tree is poured into the poisonous and concentrated liquid, kept boiling, it blackens and coagulates to become rather like tar or a thick syrup. This mass is the curare that is sold inside crescentia fruit; but as its preparation is in the hands of a few families, first-class curare from Esmeralda and Mandavaca is sold at high prices. When dried this substance looks like opium, but it attracts humidity if exposed to air. It tastes agreeably bitter, and Bonpland and I have often swallowed little bits. There is no danger as long as you make sure your gums and lips are not bleeding. The Indians regard curare taken by mouth as an excellent stomachic. The way the poison is made is rather similar everywhere, but there is no certainty that different poisons sold under the same name in the Orinoco and Amazon are identical or from the same plant.

There is exciting chemical and physiological work to be done in Europe with the effects of New World poisons once we are sure that different poisons from different areas are properly distinguished. As far as our botanical knowledge about these poisonous plants is concerned we could sort out the differences only very slowly. Most Indians who make poison arrows completely ignore the nature of poisonous substances used by other tribes. A mystery surrounds the history of toxics and antidotes. Among wild Indians the preparation is the monopoly of piaches, who are priests, tricksters and doctors all at once; it is only with Indians from the missions that you can learn anything certain about such problematic matters. Centuries passed before any Europeans learned, thanks to Mutis's researches, that the bejuco del guaco is the most powerful antidote to snake bites, and which we were the first to describe botanically.