TEE PIRO OF THE URUBANBA (1)
Esther Matteson
The tribe                   ................25
Sub istence  . .. .. . ... .. .. .. .. .. .  . .. .. . . ..  35
Habrishing............ ............... ... -27
Dresseand.sornamentation.................. 49
Liavestc   an.pt... ................ .......  56
Predtr animase an. pests................. 58
Duriseaseandmedicin..................... 61
Knowedgean ofntraphnomentatin..............4
Deaeand ineledctulinterests..................  63
270
Thowedsuerofnatural       .                   73nae
Ath lecye...             ..77............6
The ho4.                                       1
Etiquette . ... .. . .... . .                 837
Recreaion                                  ....... 85
Kinhip rueconitionand tennm.            .    88....7
Seial    orgamentation........       ...... 89
Peredatioraniml    and............. 85
Dinsh easeiio and  t    e     n    n    m     61................8
Rel      ationship with other tribes...........  92
Relationship with the whites       ....................  93
andintelcta            teersts.............*....** 639
Bibliography. .. .. . .. . ..   . . .. . . . . . . .. 96
The tribe
The Piro of the Urubamba are a linguistic group of mixed blood
of various tribes of the Montana of eastern Peru and the borders of
surrounding countries. A large proportion of the Piro are mixed with
the neighboring Campa. Other tribes represented in the preceding two
generations are the Machiguenga, Atmahuaca, Cocama, Amuesha, Shipibo,
Chayahuita, and. Quechua. Of the Piro inhabiting the largest village,
Huau, there was not one who did not name a parent or grandparent of
some neighboring tribe. The statistics were the same for representa-
tives of various other villages who were questioned..    About a half
dozen individuals are known to be descendents of whites.
The predominant racial type is Mongoloid, with obliquely placed
eye-alit,s, dark brown eyes, high and prominent cheek bones, and straight
25
black hair. The noses are flat, but less so than the noses of most
Orientals. All of the babies examined so far have the Mongolian
spot. The unexposed skin of some has a yellow rather than a brown
tinge. In contrast with this type, some of the Piro have typical
North American Indian features and coloring.  There are various types.
Hair frequently falls in deep waves and even in ringlets, and some-
times has patches of reddish pigment, as though faded. Beards are
absent or scant. Body hair is generally scant, but a few men have
heavy body hair. Newborn infants are frequently hairy, especially
on the forehead and chest. Light brown and hazel eyes are found
infrequently, and one small child whose father claims to be full-
blooded Cocama has blue-brown eyes. Lips are usually thick. In
height, men vary from five feet to five feet four and a half inches.
The women average about two.inches shorter.
In general the Piro are an intelligent, industrious, and pro-
gressive people, merry in play, though grave and quiet otherwise.
History
The earliest recorded contact of whites with the Piro was that
made by E. Richter, a Franciscan who in 1685 published a vocabulary of
Campa, Piro, and Conibo. The Franciscans of Richter's day named five
Piro dialects: Cushinabas, Manatinabas, Mochoas, Upatarmnabas, and
Ipitos, names not identifiable with Piro forms, but somewhat remi-
niscent of the names of Pano tribes. The next published ethnographic
and language material. was that of a voyager, Francisco Carrasco, who
on a trip in 1846. compiled a vocabulary of Piro and three other languages,
giving a list of. about. 170 words. In June of 1879 a Franciscan mission
entered Piro territory to reestablish a deserted project then called
"the ancient mission of Lima Rosa". The Padre, Agustfn Alemany,
compiled a vocabulary of about 1775 words. lie found the language
study discouraging .and the people unfriendly, and in August of 1881
the mission was abandonedf
In the early part of this century the rubber dealers attempted
to enslave the Piro. According to Fuentes, one of them, Fiscarrald,
"conquered the tribe by blood and fire". Rather than submit to him,
they fled from the region and not until he had disappeared did they
return to their accustomed forests. A little later there was reported
an uprising of the Piro against the whites, ending with the capture
and shooting of the Piro leader.  Until quite recently most of the
Piro of the Urubamba were serving patrons to pay off debts. In spite
of their labor the debts continued to mount steadily as they received
a pitifully small amount of trade goods. In the last few years a
good number of the Piro have freed themselves from these debts.
During the past two decades Peruvian Seventh Day Adventist
missionaries have had considerable contact vith the Piro. In their
schools, and in the Franciscan and Dominican schools, about two
dozen of the Piro now living have learned to read and write Spa9nish
more or less adequately.  Though some pronounce the, words fluently,
26
most of them do not understand a great deal of what they are reading.
Habitat
The population and locations of all the scattered communities of
the tribe cannot be estimated at present. Asked by an outsider, the
Piro of the Urubamba insist that they are the only surviving members
of their tribe. They have, however, frequent intercourse with their
close relatives of the Manu River in the Madre de Dios region near
the frontiers of Brazil and Bolivia, and also with the Piro of the
nearby Tambo and the several Upper Ucayali groups among whom they work
and trade. Among intimates they list relatives in several communities
far down the Ucayali, even to below Iquitos on the Amazon. Grandmothers
and grandfathers mention the names of their brothers and sisters on the
Pur=s River in Brazil, and on its affluent the Acre River which
flows along the border between Brazil and Bolivia. Some claim to know
other Piro in Bolivia, corroborating the statement by showing a
Bolivian coin on a string worn about the neck of a child in the village
of Miar{a. The coin had been brought via the Manu River. Whites
have reported Piro on the Napo, Samiria, and Tamaya Rivers.  However
little the Uruba ba Piro may know of the scattered members of their
tribe, they regard them as kinsfolk.
The Piro of the Urubamba number between four and five hundred,
the number varying greatly because of the frequent migrations to
and from the Menu and Tambo Rivers.  The thirteen settlements exist-
ing at present are scattered along same ninety miles of winding river,
beginning at the village of Mapohirga (Boa Creek) which is up-river
from the Spanish-speaking village of Atalaya a day' s poling by canoe
as the Indians travel, or little more than five minutes by airplane.
The most distant Urubamba settlement is that at the Pacrfa, founded
in 1952. All of the thirteen settlements are at present on the banks
of the Urubamba, except the Dominican Mision del Rosario, which is
located Just above the mouth of the tributary Sepahua.
The terrain of the lower Urubamba where the Piro live is broken
by innumerable low ridges covered with tropical forest. The highest
ridge rises to a peak visible from the Urubamba some ten miles down-
stream. The Piro call the peak Puyga Mriji. The banks of the river
in places rise gently with scrubby willow or cane in the margin
seasonally inundated, tall cane beyond, then usually the white-
trunked cetico tree with its giant-fingered leaves, and the heavy,
dark forest beyond. Occasionally a clay cliff, red, gray, blue or
stratified, rises some hundred meters above the water. More typi-
cally the red clay banks are only a meter or two high in the rainy
season, with a solid wall of Jungle growth along them.
Rains become frequent in October. The river is usually high by
December and does not recede until May. During the months of July,
August, and September the gravel beaches are wide, dry, and glowing
with heat as they reflect the blazing sun. The tropical forests along
the banks are stifling and humd. Dust, settled every clear night by
27
PLATE II
Map of Piro Territory and Settlements
iCA
REPORTED LOCATI CS
OF THE PIRO
(Indicated by triangles)
Scale in Miles
0   50 1o0    zoo     300
- -     n
1  f 2- -I    1 , I    I -1 1 - -                                                  p
a heavy dew, dries in the early morning and blows in the clearings.
Only the river is still breezy and cool. The evenings are always
cool and pleasant.
The river itself averages about three hundred meters in width.
The depth of its channel is unsounded. From rainy season to dry
season the river varies as much as eight meters in depth, and fre-
quently rises two meters in a single day.
Settlements
Village sites are selected with 'big water season' in view.
Some of the settlements are high enough to be secure the year around,
but many of them are flooded once or twice in the wet season. In
the smaller villages the houses are in a single line along the bank
of the river, either in the samn large clearing, or else separated
by plantings and bush, each with its own small clearing. The larger
village of Huau has houses on opposite sides of a central clearing,
but more than half of the homes are scattered along the river bank,
each with its own clearing. The old village of Miarfa, abandoned in
1950-51, had three streets with houses on both sides of the street,
the streets forming three sides of an uncleared rectangle. This
village was located two hours by canoe up a small stream which would
average about fifteen feet in width during low water. Another recently
abandoned settlement was hidden securely in the jungle, just a few
moments by canoe back on an overflow which ran like a moat below the
steep ridge on which the few houses were clustered. The Piro blandly
denied the existence of this settlement until terms of the closest
inti cy were established.   The houses were, of course, clearly visible
from the air.
The spacing of villages at intervals of some miles is necessary
in order that the natural resources suffice for each village. Of
utmost importance is the selection of a stretch of river in which
the preferred species of fish abound, and the bank affords favorable
soil for the growth of plantains. The river is also the principal
means of transportation. It is the only means of travelling any
distance, and is often the preferred means of going even from one end
of a village to the other.
Settlements have varied in population from a single home with
four residents to the old abandoned village of Miarfa which had 127
inhabitants with twenty-one occupied houses and a half dozen vacant.
Villages are continually changing. Few of the Piro occupy the
sam house throughout the year. Frequeat and lengthy visits are
made to relatives; hunting and fishing trips take the whole family
away for days; if planted fields are far from the village, the family
may remain in the field for some days; when beans are planted the
family usually moves to an island or wide sandy beach when the water
has re<ceded sufficiently for planting, and romains there in tunnel-
shalped, palm-thatch tambos (2); the making of a canoe takes the family
29
into the woods to the location of the chosen tree for weeks at a time;
and men go off to work lumber, or to hunt pelts.
Besides these temporary moves, there is a continual change of resi-
dence among the Piro.  During the five years from 1947 to 1952 five old
settlements were abandoned, and six new settlements opened. This corro-
borates the common estimate that the existence of a village of slash-
and-burn agriculturalists such as the Piro is limited to from ten to
fifteen years, since among ten to fifteen villages one is abandoned and
and a new one opened each year. The new settlements are Pacria, Sensea,
a new Miarfa, Mision del Rosario, Belcn, and Mapohirga.  Besides that,
the settlement of Manco Capac underwent a hundred per cent turn-over in
population from June 1949 to December 1951.
Travel
Travel is irresistibly pleasant. Breezes are cool on the water.
Poling upstream by dugout canoe, the Piro keep as close to the bank as
possible, even pushing through among the cane and willow when water is
high, to avoid the resistance of the current. When a family travels
the woman steers at the stern, directed by her husband who poles from
the prow.
The pole is of cane, usually about 2.6 meters long and 7.5 cm.
in diameter.  A man may pole from either side of the canoe.  The pole is
always kept close to the side of the canoe. The hand toward the prow
is the upper one on the pole. In average water the man' s weight on the
pole carries the canoe forward. In rough water or strong current the
m an runs to the point of the prow and thrusts the pole into the water
as far forward as possible. When the pole passes him he runs a few steps
toward the stern of the canoe moving hand over hand up the pole.
Poling is hard work, but the men seem to enjoy it, perhaps becauso
they started it as play. Even two-year-olds may take a little rod and
play poling as the canoe moves along. Men shout and laugh in the hard
passes. "How do you know Pablo is upriver if you didn't see him?" "Oh,
I heard him laughing on the other side of the island."
One of the delights of travel is that keeping close to shore we
see the wild life as we never see it in the villages. Alligators splash
quietly into the water ahead of us, and sometimes swim beside us, grin-
ning; monkeys come jumping from tree to tree, curious; flocks of gaudy
red, blue, yellow, green, and flame-colored macaws rise from tho cliffs
screaming as we approach; a shaggy brown peccary gets up from the muddy
bank and loafs off; a tapir crashes into the brush. The men hunt and
fish as they go along, their eyes constantly scaning woods, and sky,
and water. In smmer, women cut across the wide beaches and hunt turtle
eggs in the sand, as the men pole round the bend.
Breakfast is early, and the mid-morning snack of boiled plantain
drink and smoked fish is not sufficient for the keen appotite of a day
In the open. By early afternoon the hunters and fishers, if they have
30
not caught sufficient food along the way, may stop and take off through
the woods. Usually they come back with a wild turkey or some other game,
which the women cook at once on the beach, carrying along the remains for
supper and breakfast to supplement the supply of plantains brought from
home.
At night, if we have not reached a village, camp is made on the
beach. It is very important to Judge whet-her the river is going to- rise
or fall in the night, not only in order that a dry site for the shelters
may be secured for the night, but also so that the canoe may neither be
set adrift nor grounded. Usually rising water laps loudly enough on the
beach to rouse the sleepers, and they draw the canoe farther in to shore
and tie it securely. Receding water, on the contrary, may be an unwelcome
surprise in the morning. One evening they left our canoe tied to the
pole which had been driven into the earth in almost knee-deep water, and
we waded some 150 feet ashore to make our camp. In the morning the canoe
was found stranded on the gravel 150 feet inshore from the water line.
Driftwood logs were laid at four foot intervals across the path along
which we were to drag the canoe. Once the canoe was up on the logs it
dragged fairly easily. As soon as logs were left behind the canoe, the
children ran ahead with them and placed them in the path.
The fire made on a beach during a trip differs frcm the hearth fire.
On the beach drift wood is sought. TNo logs are laid parallel about
six inches apart. Heavy pieces of wood are laid in the bottom of the
trench thus formed. They are necessarily nearly parallel, but are
placed so as to allow air currents, and to bring into near contact the
ends of several sticks in the middle. Lighter wood is placed above, and
kindling splinters are sprinkled on top. If kerosene is available, a
little is splashed on the wood. The splinters are lighted by a match.
They fall burning down among the sticks until the whole mass is set
afire. Pots are ranged along the fire, the two heavy logs serving as a
frame. By the time the cooking is over the logs themselves are burning
well enough to preserve embers until the morning.
A cane lean-to can be put up in about twenty minutes if necessary.
Canes are stuck in the sand at about a forty-five degree angle. Their
fan-shaped leaves are interwoven into a canopy, under which the Piro hang
their mosquito nets. The bed roll is spread out on the sand. Often they
fina tunnel-shaped palm-thatched tambos left by travellers who made a
longer stop-over. Neither type of shelter is rainproof, but both serve
to keep off the heavy dew of early morning. If they hear a rain beating
across the Jungle or over the river toward them, they Jump up, roll up
their beds and nets and stuff them in rubberized bags. When the rain is
past, they change their clothes, remake their beds, and sleep on until
morning.
When rain overtakes them enroute, they make for any roof nearby, or
lacking shelter, cut big leaves and hold them as umbrellas. Often each
cuts a different kind of leaf. The tiny kiddies crouch on all fours and
leaves are laid on top of them. One mother told with amusement how her
two little girls knelt facing each other with their heads together and
wailed, "We're going to die of cold. We're going to die of c6ld," as
31
PLATE III
Piro Scenes and Objects
(a) Dryirg a peccary hide. Shamboyacu village on the Urubamba
River. September, 1953.
(b) Piro cane basket, Huau village. December, 1952.
(c) Preparing manioc, Censa village, Urubamba River. August, 1953.
(d) Piro objects: Palm basket w-th tump line for carrying produce
from the field; mat for straining banana drink. Huau village,
1952.
(e) Woman weaving. Urubamba River. August, 1953.
(f) Drinking bowl and cotton bag. Huau village.
b
a
d
c
f
e
their canoe was poled upstream in the rain.
Occasionally the going is rough. On a hurried trip with vaccine we
were trying to keep fresh, we made our way for d.ays against a swollen
current, and finally resorted to skirting islands in the narrower channels
and cutting across the overflows. Finally the water dwindled so that we
had to carry our cargo and drag the canoe three quarters of a mile across
the burning gravel. On such occasions the Piro exclaim, "Wsalewnapotuta'."
'We are suffering very much', but when the next trip is suggested, all
are eager to go.
Travelling downstream we float easily in mid-channel at the rate of
about nine miles an hour with the river at average height, and much faster
in high water. As in the trip upstream, the woman steers at the stern,
directed by her husband. The man paddles lightly from time to time. On
a long clear expanse of water he may stretch out for a nap. There are
usually no nights spent on the beach in travel down river, since the vill-
ages are not more than a day apart for downstream travel. When the canoe
was overloaded with the goods of the whites on one trip downstream, balsa
logs were lashed to the sides of the canoe to increase the bouyanc;y.
There is considerable travel by raft. The most frequent raft trip
is that of the lumberman taking mahogany or cedar to the town of Pucallpa
on the Ucayali River into which the Urubamba flows.  The trip has been
made in six days, and again, in forty days when the heavy logs partially
submerged stuck in shallow water and the men had to wait until the river
rose high enough to dislodge the raft. The raft is equipped with a
raised platform, a shelter and a clay hearth. Sometimes when a man is to
make a quick trip downstream alone, he binds balsa logs together, sets up
his oars in the crotches of two branches, and travels without accomodations.
A raft on which a family is to spend several days is an agreeable
dwelling. From fifteen to forty balsa logs may be used to form the raft.
One raft on which we travelled had seventeen balsa logs, the longest
outer logs being about thirteen meters long. Three outer logs on each
side were about forty-five centimeters in diameter, and the intervening
logs about thirty centimeters in diameter. The logs were spaced from
fifteen to thirty centimeters apart. At each end was a cross-piece
fifteen centimeters in diameter and four and a half meters long, of hard
wood resting in shallow notches on the balsa logs and pegged in place by hard
(pona) palm wood pegs measuring about two and a half by two and a half by
twenty to thirty centimeters. The pegs were driven obliquely into the
balsa logs, so that the pairs of pegs met or crossed above the cross-
piece. Against the outside of the cross-piece at one end was a similar
cross-piece only 2.3 meters long with pegs forty-five centimeters high
supporting a small (ten centimeters in diameter) balsa trunk which served
as a brace for the men handling the long oars. The pegs supporting the
balsa brace were bound with bark for additional security. Upright palm
wood (pona) sticks about sixty centimeters high were driven into the outer
balsa logs and braced by diagonal palm sticks. Upheld by these sticks,
cross-pieces running parallel to the balsa logs and bound by vine
supported the oars.
33
Heavier posts and braces supported a platform a little less than
sixty centimeters high, running about three and a quarter meters length-
wise of the balsa logs, and 2.6 meters across the raft, leaving two or
three logs as a passageway on each side.  At the back of the raft where
the oars were placed., less than two meters of opun space was allowed.. On
the front the logs exter'ed from about four to se;ren meters, but some of
the logs were slightly s abmerged, leaving about haw.f a oozen logs,to
serve as a kitchen in dry weather. A shade of banana leaves was set up
over the clay hearth.
Seventeen of us were aboard the one raft, ten child-ren and seven
adults, but small as the raft was, there was plenty of r "m booause of
the unselfishness and oongeniality of the Piro. Everyorc)>o- c4,3-,red the
time aboard.  Trips ashore were made from time to time  '.' .iall canoe
tied to the raft, and the Indians fished from the canoe. B; )-;e lea'ing,
the raft had been stocked with about ten big stalks of plantains, beans,
rice, oranges, and papaya. We travelled from Huau on the Urubamba into
the Ucayali River and on down to Pucallpa. Nights during the first pait
of the trip were passed on the beaches.
The men spent a good part of the day at the oars. One day a strong
wind whipped the Ucayali into rough waves that made the raft shiver and
drove us into the bank in apite of the laboring oars. Twice we were
caught in whirlpools and actually went upstream by raft. In a small
spinning pool we went around four tias before the men could catch Just
the right eddy at the right moment to pull us out into the current. The
last two nights of the Journey we travelled by starlight. In one dark
place we struck rough water, and the slighter of the oarsmen had to lit-
erally leap upon his oar. Each time he leaped shouting and came down
laughing with delight at daring the river. In the little leisure time
allowed them, the men told tribal stories, sang, or read.
For travel by raft or canoe, signal horns are used. This may be a
deer horn saved from hunting, or a cow's horn procured from Peruvians;
or a bamboo horn is improvised when needed. About two Joints of bamboo,
less'than thirty centimeters in length, are used. A notch is cut through
about five centimeters below the nd.. It takes about two minutes to back
out a bamboo signal horn, but it takes more breath than most whites have
to give the blast which will notify villages hours ahead of the approach
of a canoe and set the village astir with anticipation. If only Indians
are ceming, the signal is intended to keep anyone who might be expecting
company from absenting himself froa the village* If Indian peons are
poling the canoe of a white, the blast of the horn is to alert the vil-
lage to get choice livestock out of sight, and for anyone who does not
care to transact business with the white to be occupied away from-the
village.
Airplane travel is becoming familiar to the Piro. At least fifty
of them have traveled by air. It is cheaper for a patron to send back
his lmsbermen from Pucallpa by air than to send them by launch, paying
their board from a week to three weeks enroute. Also, the usimer
Institute of Linguistics has provided air transportation for the Piro
on several occasions   The airplane is of course preferred by the
Ind4ans to long laborious trips by canoe or raft, but there never is
34
the bouyancy of anticipation before a plane trip that there is before
a canoe or raft trip.
Subsistence
Not only is travel delightful, but it is essential to life in the
jungle.  Agriculture, fishing, hunting, and gathering, all involve travel.
The supply of plantains and fish is basic. It would be hard to say
which is more important. No one would willingly pass a day without the
boiled plantain beverage, whereas there are many substitutes for fish.
On the other hand, after a day or two of vegetable diet children cry with
hunger and bananas do not satisfy. Given plenty of plantains and fish,
the Piro do not feel any lack, yet they provide for themselves a great
variety besides.
They are very successful agriculturists.  TEe jungle growth, includ-
ing the giant trees, is out away by machetes, supplemented by a very few
axes. The cleared field is burned, the ash being supposed to counteract
the acid of the leaf mold. Seed-planting is by means of a plain dibble
stick. The Piro know but do not use the more elaborate taclla of the
Quechua. Weeding, cultivation, and harvesting are done with the machete,
and occasionally with a similar large knife with a curved blade. Usual-
ly the plantains and bananas are planted near the Urubamba or the large
tributaries, partly because that is the most suitable soil for plantains,
and partly because it is convenient to have the plantains nearest the
house. Fifteen varieties of plantain and banana have been noted.
Next In importance is manioc, of which eleven varieties have been
listed, including the bitter manioc used only in times of scarcity. The
manioc field may be adjacent to the field of plantains, or may be far
back in the junle. Not only do the villages move, but planted fields
of manioc and other secondary produce are moved from time to time about
the village. Sites formerly planted close by the large village of Huau
are now overgrown and -many of the present planted fields are far back
in the woods.
In the manioc field is planted a great variety of minor crops: sweet
potatoes, of five distinct colors-black, white, red, yellow, and purple;
a coarse wild potato and at least seven other tubers; yams; okra; three
varieties of squash; peanuts; and a couple of coarse grains. There are
also condiments such as seven varieites of pepper, the onio, coriander,
and vanilla. The medicinal herb0 planted in the field include sweet
basil, elder, castor oil plant, verbena, saltwort, mallow, rib grass,
datura, te limon (or hierba Luisa), and mint. The red dyes for the skin,
annato and lancetilla are also planted. Seven varieties of gourds are
planted. The tall cotton plants (some as high as ten feet) with their
large yellow blossoms, are scattered through the field among the manioc
and other plants. A few coffee trees may be found. There are usually a
few tobacco plants.  Occasionally a coca plant is seen.  Children's
favorites in the field are the ground cherries.
35
In the field and about the home clearing are planted various fruits.
The more familiar ones are the orange, lemon, limon dulce, tangerine,
zapote,  uava,  a      mango, star apple, cashew (the pungent fruit, not
the nut, is eaten), avocado, and the chocolate, of which the Piro observe,
"We eat the fruit and throw the seed away. The white makes chocolate of
the seed."  There are twenty-three planted fruits in all. The walnut is
also planted. The Piro are sometimes criticized by the whites for not
planting more fruit trees. Their comment among themselves is that if a
site is made too attractive it will be taken away from them by lawless
settlers.
Around the house may be plaated four-o' clocks, rosos, African mari-
golds, cox tomb, bougainvillea, and plants of varicoloresd leaves. T' -ere
are no flo.o-.  aro-nd most of the homes, but many ville,jes h.a-e one Or
two i  tdc     1- A:o  0't oJt decorative plants.  Some of t?LO me>cines zre
also >Loacc near Lhe hznae, anPl often a f'ew legumos. One such is a very
large bearn called in regional Spanish pallares.
Apart from the main planted field of rnanioc, and the plantains and
variety of p.L.ats ,n the home clearing, there are crops raised in special
locatt                                         an..s .
Rico fields are of course in low, level sites. It is the chief con-
cern of the village from March through May to keep the birds from pillag-
ing the crop. FrOn daybreak to dark a continual bedlam of shouts goes up
from those scattered through th.e rico field fighti- ng off the bVrd.s.
Soarecrows are used but ia,'3 iniff,f'icient. Little boys 'rIth sling shots
are mor3 effective. Mo-i'hers oi.-;en carry their babies to the f?eld and
statio.n the older childc-i at some distance, where they a'l sho);t them-
selves hoarse.  Fortunat-:'y not more than two or three families attumpt
to raise rice at the same time.
Tephrosia toxicana, sugar cane, a large coarse grain, and corn
usually have separF`e plots nea.r the main planted fielde. Waternelon is
planted on t>e sanc beaches at-Jer hirrh water has reoeded. suffILcientLy in
the &sring. The p: antirq of th; waer-melon amounus to a spor`. of cen-
sider*ble interest, becau9se eaech wanr-s to b,ave the first watermelon of
the sea.son, bnlt if the pLanting is premature and the river rises before
the crop has been harvested, all will be lost.  Four varieties of water-
melon are planted.
Other crops of the sand beaches are the chiclayo (a small white bean),
and the brown bean. Whern a bean crop of cos ds   6 ?e extent is planted at
a greet dislance from the vill.a"e, the fa'll.r bu2.'. s tenmporary shelteors
on t'.e beach eiid remains there to care for thle croo. Mr:-;s  -ry be mo'de to
the home in the village from time to time but the family spend3 weeks on
the beach.
The main harvesting is not seasonal but continuous. A family with
five or six. 3iild.re uses about six ve-r sc,e  3      of plantoins in a
week. The pIzitains are cut green, the mai4i staZX of the banana plant
36
being felled, and the fruit is stored in the house, usually hung by vines,
to ripen. The Piro consider that one of their chief differences from
their neighbors is that they like their plantains yellow and soft. In
fact "a ripe one" is a common synonym for "plantain". The women, almost
exclusively, carry the heavy stalks of plantains. A tump line is passed
across the forehead, and tied to the end of the stalk. Little girls
carry small stalks or half stals. One day a grown brother walked be-
hind his little sister about nine years old, and glowed with pride as she
carried half a huge stalk of plantains. He helped her put the burden down.
When the manioc fields are separated from the village by a stretch of
Jungle, a woman will not go alone to harvest the produce for fear of the
Jaguar. Often all the women of the village go together, or a whole family
goes, carrying food for a meal. The outing is generally regarded as a
picnic, and anyone left behind feels quite abused. Produce is brought
back tb the village in large baskets suspended by tump lines. The whole
family works in the seasonal rice and bean harvests. Usually only men cut
the Tephrosia toxicana.
Fish is the main protein food. The Piro have given at random the
names of forty-six kinds of fish beside shrimps and crabs. Favorites
among them are the zungaro, paiche, bou   co, sabalo, and corvina. Best
liked of all is one not-identified in Spanish but called kolyo by the Piro.
When the new leaf shoots of the cetico tree come out each year, the child-
ren shout excitedly and point to them, because the sheaths falling in the
water attract an abundance of kolyo.
There are six principal words for fishermen, referring to the fishing
method: the one who uses rod and line; a general term for fishemen, but
used specifically of the one who uses only bow and arrow or harpoon; the
one who uses hook, line, and balsa float; the one who uses a net; the one
who uses Tephrosia toxicana or a machete; the one who builds a cane weir
in a small stream and uses Tehrosia toxicana.
'Metal tooth' is the word for a fishhook. It may be beaten from a
nail, or mae of a needle heated and bent, or carved from hard wood, or it
may have been bought from a patron or trader. The hook for the favorite
bovichico is only about a centimeter and a half long; that for the zun-
aro is over seven   d a half centimeters long. The cord is of finely
twisted bark of the cetico or other tree. A roll of bark is frequently
kept on hand for the purpose. Pitch is used to secure the cord to the rod
which is usually about 1.6 meters long and .75 centimeters thick. Minnmows
from the rivulets, worms, ripe plantain bits, 'orickets, and a cricket-lile
creature living conveniently in the sand of the beaches, and grasshoppers
serve as bait. A certain vine called sumasha with black berries and white
blossoms is trailed in the water to attract fish. HoQk-and-line fishing
is of course the kind practised most by the little boys. Often little fel-
lows of ten or eleven take the responsibility of providing for the family
quite seriously, and when they are not too busy shooting lizards with bow
and arrow, spend many profitable hours out in their little canoes.
37
For harpooning or fishing with bow and arrow a man' s wife or his
little son usually maneuvres the canoe. The man stands up on the point
of the prow scanning the surface of the water, often able to spot and
name a fish many yards away by the type of ripples on the surface. The
canoe is deftly brought into line and the arrow or harpoon let fly.
A harpoon is hauled in by cord, but the canoe must be swung round to
catch a drifting arrow with or without a flopping fish. Many shots are
missed, but on the whole fishermen usually come hoae with abundant pro-
vision. Loitering half an hour at sunset in the middle of a two hour
trip the men with us harpooned eight fish, each about a meter long.
Three escaped wounded. The others were landed in the canoe and slugged
with the handle of a machete.
The arrow for shooting fish is unfeathered. It is of cane with a
chonta point rounded or pointed. The arrow may be as long as 1.6 meters.
The total length of a harpoon is about 2.1 meters. It may be all of
hard black palm wood, or for smaller fish there may be a 1.3 meter cane
from which a 60 cm. foreshaft of black pifayo or other palm protrudes.
The cane is 1.25 to 2.54 cm. in diameter. The handle end of the cane is
bound for about 1.25 cm. with fine cotton cord or cord from the bark of
the cetico. The same type of cord is attached to the cane and neatly
wound around 7.6 cm. of it and 12.7 cm. of the pifayo foreshaft from which
it passes to the point. The double-barbed point, about ten centimeters
long, is beaten from chonta or from a nail with a stone, unless the fisher-
man is wealthy enough to purchase a metal harpoon. The joining of the
foreshaft and cane is pitched. The attachment of the point to the palm
wood foreshaft is the same. When the harpoon sinks into a big fish, the
cord is unwound to allow five or six meters of play, and the fish wears
itself out dragging the canoe.
The hook and line used with the balsa float are usually heavier than
those used with the rod. The cord may be three millimeters thick,
and the hook 7.6 cm. in length.
The fishing net is woven by the men or women of 00 size cord. It is
the shape of an inverted cone, with lead weights around the circular
bottom edge. The fisher may wade into knee-deep water and cast the net
beyond him, or he may stand in the prow of the canoe. Often in fishing
the men poise easily with one foot on the point and one on the rim of the
canoe. When the river rises and the fish are leaping among the willow,
fishermen often wade out among them with machetes and lunge at the fish.
Tephrosia toxicana may be used with or without a weir. The preferred
method ds to build a cane weir across a small stream, and throw the
crushed Tephosia toxicana root into the water above the weir. Most of
the men and boys of a village join together in such an expedition because
the catch is too great for a few. Little boys dash along the bank, bend-
ing under the weight of fish draped across their shoulders. All rush to
load the canoes with a variety of choice fish, but still they are not able
to avail themselves of all the drugged fish floating on the surface and
38
there is a great waste. The Piro have responded with interest to the
suggestion of game preservation, and say that if they are granted land
as a reservation they will prohibit the use of Te  ia toxicana and
actually breed fish, but that so long as the whites fish their streams
with Tephrosia toxicana they may as well do likewise. Fish are stunned
also by ground huaca leaf, or a vine called in Piro malapitsa, which is
beaten and thrown into the water.
Next to agriculture and fishing in importance is hunting. Close
behind the village presses the jungle growth, a heterogeneous forest
overgrown with shrubs, vines, and parasitical plants so numerous that
some of the giant trees look like hanging gardens. The forest is criss-
crossed with trails kept open by constant hacking with the madhete as
the Indians seek out the resources of the jungle. They hunt for monkey
of several species, tapir, various kinds of peccary, armadillo, deer,
various rodents, rabbit, squirrel, land turtles, and numerous fowls for
food. The Jaguar, ocelot, otter and boar are hunted for pelts to be sold.
The pelts of the anller animls are utilized in various Ways, such as
for drums   Among the favorite game fowl  are the partridge, wild turkey,
"chicken of the woods", duck, trumpeter, toucan, guan, and various waders,
parrots, and doves. Even little birds are eaten if meat is wanting, or
if children have brought them proudly home as game. The plumes are val-
ued for ornaments and arrows. Pelts of especially beautiful birds are
much sought to be hung up in the house, perhaps with a hope of selling
them in some cases. The Piro have given the nanms of a hundred and
twenty birds so far in a very superficial study.
The commonest form of hunting is to "beat the woods" with dogs, so
that the game, routed through fear of the noise, will come out of hiding.
HIowever, if a traveler catches sight of an animal or fowl, he slips
stealthily along under cover until within easy range. Knowledge of the
habits of wild creatures, as of the attraction of certain large game birds
or monkeys to certain fruit trees, i8 a real asset in hunting.
The main hunting weapons are the shotgun, and the bow and arrows.
Often not one in a whole village possesses a shotgun, but it is usually
preferred if available. However, the hunter usually takes along his bow
and arrows with the gun. An arrow is considered entirely adequate even
for the hunting of the ferocious Jaguar which has killed three people in
our region in the past six or seven years. The bow, though effective, is
not at all impressive in appearance. Seldom more than 1.6 meters long and
3.2 centimeters wide in th6 middle, tapering to 1.5 centimeters near the
ends, it is made of black pifayo wood about 1.5 centimeters thick. The
ends are carved to blunt points leaving shoulders to engage the bowstring
of cetico bark fiber. The bow is unadorned.
The arrow is of cane, about 1.6 meters long. The arrow for small
birds has a top-shaped knob for a head. A corn-cob may serve as an impro-
vised substitute. The head of another type of bird arrow has two prongs,
and still another has three diverging prongs curved so that the tips in
croas-section are arcs of a circle. One such arrow has a crude point with
39
one set of opposite barbs set in the center of the pronged head. The
pronged heads are made of cane, The arrowhead for large fowl is me
of hard wood such as the caimito, not so hard as the black palm woods.
This arrowhead has twelve notches on one side, none on the other.. The
arrowheads for anls are in the form of two-edged flat blades of
bamboo. That for the peccary and Jaguar is 23 centimeters long; that
for mller animals, about fifteen centimeters long.    At the other end
of the arrow are two feathers, set opposite.
Traps and snares are used rarely for birds. One type of trap is
a cage woven of cane, supported by two sticks which the bird trips.
Some children made mouse traps by stretching cords on which corn ker-
nels had been strung, between two stakes, and leaning a wooden basin
on the cord over the corn. When the mouse would eat the corn, he was
expected to cut the cord, letting the basin down over him. Before the
traps were made, one little boy caught a mouse in his hands. The child-
ren ran outdoors and gleefully trampled it with their bare feet to kill
it.
Gummed splinters of the shebon palm are used for catching birds
which fly high In the tree tops.  The splinters, about an eighth of an
inch thick and one and a half feet long, are gummed with boiled rubber
on all but the last four inches or so. A six-inch bamboo joint is
used for a quiver. In the woods, the hunter places the splinter high
in a tree, balancing it horizontally. A bird flies against it and be-
comes entangled so that it cannot fly. It falls, and the hunter, hid-
ing nearby, catches and kills it or brings it hme for a pet. One of
the Piro songs celebrates the catching of a bird in this manner:
Hail, you who are caught in the pitch'
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Hail'. It is you there, is it?
You who belong in the heavens
are now in my hands.
I will never let you go.
Gathering, though not so essential to existence as agriculture,
fishing, and hunting, still provides many luxuries. More than sixty
varieties of wild fruits and nuts, besides hearts of palms and mush-
rooms, are eaten by the Piro. Some are available only when the tall
trees are cut down, as in clearing a field. Others are sought out
in their season. When a palm with a cluster of ripening fruit has
been noticed, the people count the days until the fruit should be
ready, and make a group excursion to the tree with baskets and ma-
chetes. Children climb high for their favorite fruits or the boys
shoot them down with arrows. They go out in their canoes to gather
shimbillo, pods with pulp like moist white plush on small black seeds,
from the trees which frequently overhang the water.  Probably an im-
portant source of vitamins in the diet is the inconspicuou's habit of
snipping off and nibbling bits of plants.  Certain snails, beetles,
flies, and worms are eaten or used as' food flavoringz The little stresm
of the forests yield crabs, crayfish, and tiny minnows which are gath-
ered by the children.
40
The main yield of the forest, however, is not the food. The forest
supplies material for houses, furniture, canoes, rafts, weapons, ornamen-
tation, and medicine. Over a hundred and fifty useful trees have been
noted by random obseration, to say nothing of the numerous vines, shrubs,
and herbs which serve the Piro.
The house
The Piro house is constructed entirely of material from the forest.
Not even a nail is needed from the outside world. First the upright cornm
posts are sunk in the ground; they are made of a very hard wood, the black
chonta palm being the favorite. The posts may be up to a foot in diameter.
The length of the post depends upon the plan of the house. If the house
is to be without flooring, as a kitchen, the posts may be only about two
meters high. If there is to be a palm-bark platform a meter above the
ground, the posts must be a meter longer, etc.   If the house is to be
more than the length of one beam, more uprights are spaced between the
corner posts, lined up by a cord passed from one corner post to the other.
The tops of the uprights are grooved to receive the beams, which are
long poles, not so hard a wood as the uprights, but still usually too
hard to reoeive a nail. The builder may select his beams and timbers from
more than thirty varieties of hard woods, among them being the espintana
(which the  Piro say will never rot), cumala, Dab  de s        pajaro bobo,
genipa, and several trees of differing Piro names but translated by the
Piro as qLuinilla. The beams may have shallow notches where they rest on
the upright posts, to prevent slipping. If the length of the house is
more than that of one beam, then two beams may be used, being shaved down
to fit snugly together where they overlap above an upright post. They are
tied in place by vine or bark. The preferred vine for this purpose Is
tamshi.
On these beams rest the crossbeams of the house, placed over the up-
rights and at intervals between, usually not more than about three and a
half meters apart. Rafters run from the long beams up to the ridgepole at
intervals corresponding roughly to those of the crossbeams. The rafters
are called 'scissorst . The pairs of rafters cross, extending 30 cm. or
less beyond their intersection, and are tied together, providing support
for,the ridgepole. The ridgepole of a small house is a single team; that
of a long house is made of two beams joined as are the beams resting on
the uprights.
Lengthwise of the house runs a thin pole resting on the ends of the
crossbeams. It is above and outside of the beams and its purpose is to
support the cane "ribs" of the house. Parallel to this and half way up
the roof is a similar pole bound to the rafters. Thirty to sixty centi-
meters toward the center of the building may be a parallel "companion"
pole. Tied to these poles are horizontals running across the gable ends
of the houBe, and to these in turn are tied additional poles running the
length of the house. To the ridgepole and the horizontals are tied the
41
canes upon which the thatch rests, and to which it is .lashed. The beams
and rafters are not squared or dressed.
There is a great variety of palms which provide thatch, among them
the shaaJia,     na, shebon, qg2ajillo, and palmichi.  The common way to
prepare thatch is to bend the opposite leaves so that they run parallel
and interweave the leaves of two or three fronds together.
Among the Urubamba Piro two houses with rounded gable ends have been
noted. The rest are of the basic construction described above. The de-
tails of arrangements vary. The palm bark platform may be from three
meters high to flat on the ground. It may provide barely space enough for
the bed mats to be spread out, or it may serve as the floor of the entire
house. It may occupy a half or two thirds of the house, leaving some
e&rth fwoor ti) serve as a kitchen. The house may be without walls; half
may be walK.1 4n; the entire house may be walled and divided into small par-
titions.. Each is built according to the taste of the builder and his
,wfe.
A few board ladider-like stairways have been built up to the platforms.
More often a 1--chc)(1 ?cc, o-' two loge close togethor and notch.'i ae
Used. to :;mo-  t  -e -          An  f te  of t.e tcr  azile do not even
bot-'aer to notch the thin ice, but clirg with their toes and. run up and
down easily even when the log is wet with rain.
A common arrangement is to have a separate small hut without plat-
form to serve as a Litch-n. TJ3v^' y tho 1kitchen is enclo.edW and a low
barrice.'o is kept aceo th,e do(;1,ire.y as ,LAotection against pigs and chick-
en-i (dc>s and other nets o.e adri-';Jed). In a few homes cruide earthen
hearxths have been fcraed on the I pLtforns.
The home is equipped mostly with materials taken from the jungle.
The man of the house mr.akes the wo:den f1urn.t-Ire for his househo, usually
by carV-ng. The cedrir-c, the mak.o{oany, a t:roo said. to be ax aiiad, an;i
the : ;ode sr.-ri,e arie herdwoods of choice for furni-ure.  Other furnish-
ings c;!re made by the women.
Mats of palm or cane serve as beds, often covered with a bark cloth.
The be rk of t,hi lianchar  is used.  The tru-k adri.i g lI.fDz are ooune-ed, to
loosen ;,i?e aar:-. I  .s theon peeled off in a 3=.rge sheet. The iuter layer
is removed. It is rouaded again, washed and si-nned, The bark provides
quite a soft cover for the bed.
The family may have a cheap blanket or two, or may have only the
heavy homespun cloth and racs for cove-Jng. 0ii cold nighr,s the,; hud)'!e
togsther,, or .T,t rp aid bu_ld. 1:-U.`es to 1r2C.. tbh'U.3I .   L'71 ; h  7 5V
t,he bedv!ntug is ro. led un  the nao q.t;? net, iJid. set up o0I the beas of
42
the house. Mosquito nets of material thick enough to give privacy to the
occupants are used by all the Piro of the Urubamba.   Children six yeafs old
and upward have nets apart, either individual nets or nets shared by two.
The smaller children are taken under the big family net. The mosquito net
is rectangular. A large net is about 1.8 by 1.2 by 1.2 meters. A fold of
the netting extends beyond the top edge of each end of the net, and a
stick is passed through the fold to spread the net. Through an eyelet in
the middle of the fold a cord is tied to the stick so that the net can be
suspended.  Thus a net can be hung up in a moment.
Hammocks are usually improvised for babies. A hammock for the older
members of the family to rest in during the day, or for the aged and help-
less, is frequently woven and beautifully designed. It is simply a large
rectangular homespun cotton cloth, perhaps fringed, and gathered and tied
near the ends with the rope by which the hammock is suspended.
Near the place of the bed in most homes is a quaint little trunk of
ancient make, or a heavy wooden chest in which the few treasures of the
family are kept: trinkets, new cloth, almost any type of paper, and money.
By the trunk is the lamp, which gives an open kerosene flame. Some of the
lamps are purchased from traders; some are made by punching a hole in the
top of the acxw cap of a can or small J4r, and inserting in it a tube of
rolled tin through which the homespun wick is passed. One family displayeS
an unused lamp of clay, made on the same general plan, which is the kind
they say they used to use. Suspended vines serve for clotheslines, those
inside for storage, and those out-of doors for drying.
Against the wall stands a flat wooden basin, seventy-five centimeters
in diameter, and having two little handles. It is carved by machete and
chisel from a single big plank. The basin may represent a borrowing from
the whites. It is not found in all the houses. Men who can obtain nails
make crude tables and benches which are little used except in social
gatherings. The usual type of seat is the low turtle-shaped stool. There
is also a crude wooden reel for making rope. This reel has the only wheel
noted in Piro culture.
Shelves are frequently hung indoors. High, out of the babies' reach,
are kept the baskets of cotton, spindles, and parts of the loom. In many
houses a shelf or platform of palm bark rests on the beams overhead. If
the household is crowded, the beds of a couple of the boys may be up on
the platform. Drums, bottles, gourds full of seeds, and even the chest or
trunk may be kept overhead. Feathers to be kept for ornaments or for
arrows are stuck in the thatch of the roof. Surplus supplies of cotton,
beans, rice, or other imperishable produce is kept stacked or suspended in
loosely woven baskets lined with banana or biJao leaves, or rolled in bark
cloth with the ends twisted and tied.
The kitchen may be completely separated from the general living quar-
ters, or may overflow into it. Frequently the supply of plantains is too
great for the kitchen. Stalks are hung or stacked in the living quarters.
Outaide the kitchen is usually a high shelf on which food can be kept out
43
of the reach of animals. It is often so high that the housewife climbs
up on a stool to reach it. A pole passes from one forked upright to
another, supporting the palm bark or canes which form the shelf. Over a
post hang baskets used in transporting produce.
Usually J'it outside the kitchen door stands the mortar and pestle,
used chiefly for mashing boiled plantains to make the beverage. The mor-
tar is made of a log about forty-five centimeters in diameter and less
than a meter long. It stands on end, the upper part hollowed out with a
cone-shaped hollow, leaving an edge of from 2.5 to 3.7 cm. in thickness.
The hollow reaches a point about two thirds of the way to the bottom.
To form the mortar, the log is set upright on the ground, and a small
hole is carved in the center of the top. Coals are placed in the hole.
The shaping of the hollow is accomplished by blowing through a reed on the
coals where the wood is to be removed, and dampening the rest of the wood.
-As ashes accumulate they are cleaned off, and fresh coals are put in the
hole. The burning requires about five days. A woman tends to the burn-
in'g. The man shapes or smooths the mortar on the outside with his machete.
The wooden pestle is about five centimeters in diameter at the handle end,
and increases to seven and a half centimeters diameter at the base of the
conical end which is shaped to fit into the mortar. The pestle is about
1.2 r.r<>ers long.
The center of activity within the kitchen is the hearth fire. The
firewood, which may be from five to fifteen centimeters in diameter, and
from .6 to 2.7 meters long, radiates from the glowing embers. On the fire
is usuatl'ly a big black clay pot, its contents covered with banana leaves.
Againm. a stick of firew?ood leans a fan. It may be of even-trimmed black
c.mickon feathers with qvif1ls impaled on a splinter of hard wood. and kept
in place by tying, or it may be of feathers whose quills are woven into a
palm-'eaf handle, or the whole fan may be woven of palm Jeaf.
Beside the fire are seats - the low turtle-snaped wooden stool, an
actual turtle shell, or a small palm mate Within reach is an ornate wooden
paddle thirty-eight centimeters long, which is used for stirring. About
the room are several black clay cooking pots, and at least two waterjars,
full of water and cover&r. with bowls made from globular gouris cut in two.
On a shelf a-e half a dozen serving bowls: red ones with the design in
white for drxinking bowls; and  ivory-colored bowls with the design in
black for food to be eaten by hand. There is also a shallow clay bowl or
grida.le fortv-five centimeters in diameter. It is used for toasting, and
somet:Lmes se-ves as a pot cover.
Thrust into the thatch above the fire are the arrows of the man of
the house, and a coil of bark from which cord is to be tin.(Ae, e.nd a fi3hing
rod. The fishing rod is snatched down many times a day for chasing chick-
ens and animals from the hut, and seems to be a very important piece of
household furniture when not in use out of doors.
There are wide, flat hanging baskets littered with the few metal
kInives and spooins which the family poasesses, bits of peppers and other
44
condiments, soap wraped. in leaves, a gourd full of seeds, and a grater or
two. One type of grater is a section of thorny branch or palm trunk with
the thorns truncated to serve as a rasp. This is used chiefly for manioc
and sweet potatoes. Another type of grater is a flat paddle somewhat re-
sembling the big wooden spoon, but having rows of one-centimeter cuts of
wire driven into the wood of one side.
A tiny woven basket of peppers hangs by a bit of vine from the ceil-
ing. Beeswax wrapped in leaves is similarly suspended. Hanging from the
roof or stacked in the corners are half a dozen stalks of plantains of
different varieties. On the floor near the wall is a stack of manioc
roots, a few sweet potatoes, a couple of squash, and a few papayas and
other fruit.
Against the wall stands the broom, either corn cobs lashed to a rod
with the husks turned down, or a bundle of palm stem splinters about
fifty centimeters long and tied near the top. Woven palm brooms with
short ends extending to form a brush are made as gifts, but never found
in use. Beside the broom is a mat of yrina or other palm, about seventy-
five centimeters square and slightly depressed in the middle. It may be
woven with design or plain. It is used for straining, especially for
straining boiled plantains to make the popular plantain beverage. Some-
where in the kitchen or Just outside is a clutter of tall, corked bottles.
In a few homes some contain liquor purchased from the whites. Others con-
tain kerosene, or cane syrup, or salt.  Many are empty.
An article of great interest to the whole household, but belonging to
the community rather than the individual, is the sugar-cane press. It is
usually centrally located. Two types of preas are in use. One has two
wooden rollers turned against each other by revolving crosses. There is
a wooden spout which receives the Juice from the rollers. The other type
is simpler. An upright stake has a hole carved in the middle. A smaller
pole passes through the stake. The cane is placed in the hole under the
pole, and the pole is brought down upon the cane like a lever. The Juice
runs down carved grooves into a tin-can spout. A bowl is placed on the
ground underneath.
Housekeeping
The preparation and preservation of food is the first task of the
woman, even as the provision of it is her husband4s first responsibility.
As has been stated, the most important vegetable food is the beverage
made of the ripe plantain. The plantains are boiled until soft, mashed
in a hollowed-log mortar, passed through a palm mat, and then scooped by
hand into a bowl of cold water and stirred in with the water. Once the
housewife was seen grating green plantains into the pot of boiling ripe
plantains.
45
fluring fiestas and on special occasions other beverages are prepared.
Dry corn husked and 8helled with the fingers is boiled about three hours.
Raw ripe plantains are mashed in the mortar with the boiled corn, and the
mixture is cooked. The ripe plantains sweeten the corn drink. Masato, th1
fermented manioc drink, is used very little among the Piro of the Urubamba
now. Its use probably was co oner a few years ago. However, an unfer-
mented or slightly fermented manioc drink is common. The manioc is cooked
into a soft thin mash.  Raw sweet potatoes are grated and pressed into
little balls from which the juice is squeezed into the manioc drink. The
mixture is kept in-;the clay pot overnight.
Roasted plantains are eaten daily. Again the sweet, ripe plantains
are favored, though it is not uncommon to eat roasted green plantains as a
substitute for bread with meat. Green plantains are always peeled for
roasting. Ripe plantains are roasted either in the skin or peeled. They
are laid in the coals, and snatched up and turned by bare handB. Most of
the fruits are eaten raw. The fruits of the aguaje, pifayo, and sometimes
of the shanaja pa    are soaked for an hour or two in warm water.
Boiled or roasted manioc is served nearly every day. The manioc root
to be boiled is peeDd with the machete and cut into chunks. The manioc to be
roasted is sometimes peeled before being placed in the coals, but more
often is placed in the coals for a while with the skin on, and then
peeled and browned when it has begun to soften. Only in times of scarcity
is the bitter manioc made into cakes.
Rice is not a favorite food of the Piro, though it is eaten when
manioc is scarce. The rice is considered ruined if boiled until soft.
While still quite hard, oil is poured into it, and it is eaten. Beans
are even less favored in the diet than rice, but are kept on hand when corm
*vbnient.
Fish and game for immediate use are usually boiled in a sort of stew
with manioc as a base. Other roots or vegetables may be substituted. One
stew consisted in caiguas, red pepper, and onion leaf with meat. Occasiomr
ally small choice cuts of meat or tiny fish are roasted to be eaten fresh.
Children sometimes wrap giblets or entrails in leaves and roast them.
Meat and fish are preserved by salting or by smoking. Salted meat is
said to keep for months. The meat is salted and dried. The following day
it is washed, and dried again. Smoked meat keeps for only about five days;
however, smoking is much more common than salting, especially for fish.
Usually a wooden frame is built over a fire, and a rack of sticks not
easily flammable is laid on them. One rack, however, was composed of
three sticks laid across a large clay pot on the fire. The fish is
cleaned and wrapped in leaves tied with vine. The leaves are folded over
the heads of the fish, but the tails are left exposed. Banana or bijao
leaves are often used, but the leaves of the cordoncillo are said to give
the fish an excellent flavor. The leaf of the mishui paga is also used
to wrap fish. They are set on the grate over a slow fire and baked an
everi taowxx all over. No more delicious fish is served anywhere.
46
Some effort is made to preserve vegetable foods. Raw green plan-
tains are sliced and spread .out on high racks in the sun to dry. When
they are crisp they are pounded to a fine powder in the mortar and
sifted through a coarse cloth. The banana flour which results keeps in-
definitely. Fresh plantains are much preferred for the beverage, but for
trips or other occasions when scarcity of food is apprehended, plantain
flour is prepared.
Manioc is preserved in the form of farinia, which is very well liked.
Children, especially, like to take up a handful of fresh farfina to eat
as they go out to play. Men poling canoes find it satisfying too, and
do not fail to take it along when available. It is prepared less fre-
quently than might be expected, considering its popularity. Perhaps the
reason is that surplus manioc is not often available, or perhaps the long
process of preparing farinfa discourages its use. The manioc is peeled
and soaked four days in water in a canoe, until it smells sour. The
water is drained off, and the manioc is kneaded by hand. To press the
water out of the mashed manioc before cooking, it is packed in baskets
set on a board shelf. Bijao or banana leaves are put over the manioc to
keep it clean and protect it from rain. Stones or logs are placed on top
as weights to press the water out. After the water is pressed out, the
manioc is passed through a mat. It is toasted in a large clay pot, being
stirred constantly with a wooden paddle.
In the harvesting of rice, the heads are cut and carried home in
baskets. Usually they are dumped into old canoes pulled up beside the
house. The kernels are flailed from the head with sticks. Hulls are re-
moved by grinding with mortar and pestle, a process which breaks almost
every kernel without cleaning off the hulls very well. Rice is usually
raised for sale to the whites, though a small supply is kept for emergen-
cies.
Pods of beans brought home to the village are spread out on mats or
blankets in the sun. When dry, the beans are shelled by beating with a
stick. The shelled beans are again spread out in the sun until well
dried. During the frequent showers they must be carried indoors. When
the beans are dried they are packed in big baskets lined with leaves.
The more enterprising take raft loads of them to Pucallpa for sale.
Sugar cane Juice is made into syrup by boiling for fourteen or fifteen
hours. When possible, rock salt is bought in fifty-kilo sacks. It is
pounded in the mortar, and stored in bottles. Lack of salt is considered
a great hardship, not only for the sake of the diet and flavor, but also
because of its use in the preservation of meat.
Meals in the home are served at six or seven in the morning, again at
about eleven, and in the evening at sunset. However, the plantain beverak
is always available and snacks between meals are common, especially as the
various fruits are in season. Dishes may be rinsed by splashing the water
from the waterjars over them, or they may be taken down to the river and
washed.
47
The gathering of firewood is the responsibility of the woman, though
a man will occasionally bring wood for her if she is busy. In a new
village where fields nearby have recently been cleared and the fallen
trees in the woods have not been used up, the wood is specially selected
for each particular use. The wood for smoking fish or for toasting pea-
nuts or farifia should be of a kind that will burn slowly and steadily,
but a quick hot fire is preferable for preparing the meals. A heavy,
slow-burning log will preserve embers through the night, but light, easily
flammable wood is wanted to start the blaze in the morning. If embers are
lacking they are borrowed from the neighbors. New fires are started with
matches and a splash of kerosene.
The woman carries the water for her household in a waterjar on her
head. Usually a hand steadies the waterJar, probably because of the
steep banks. Most hcs are not far from water.
Clothing is washed in the streams by beating with stones. Whenever
possible soap is bought from patrons or traders. There is a crude soap
made by the Piro. The fruit of the avilla has pithy white sections which
are grated, and put in a pot. The pulp is covered with about five centi-
meters of water, and cooked. When the avilla has softened, ashes are
added, and the mixture is cooked again.  It is strained through a mat,
and then through a cloth, and cooked again. Each &ay the process is re-
peated for nearly a month. During the last week of boiling., lemon.cjuice
is added. Still later the pulp of the papaya fruit is added, and the
mixture is boiled again. Finally the leaf of an herb, called in Piro
chawayli, is boiled separately, the Juice is added to the soap, and the
mixture is reboiled. The soap is sticky and does not harden, but is of
considerable aid in washing clothes.
The house and yard are ordinarily swept each day except during a
rainstorm. The ground of the clearing is scraped bare weekly with ma-
chetes. This is usually, though not always, the work of the women, who
prefer to do it in the cool morning hours, beginning before sunrise. An
unused part of the village clearing may be allowed to become overgrown
until the village is cleaned up for a holiday. Then the men make sport
of clearing it all together, shouting and racing in their work. The river
is the- chief means of garbage and sewage disposal. Scraps which the live-
stock will eat are tossed out of the house and quickly gobbled up. Often
in eating fruit the peels are thrown carelessly on the floor or on the
ground by the house, but they are never allowed to remain very long.
Little children help with the housework, washing, sweeping, and caring
for the younger brothers and sisters. A little boy or girl, hardly too
old to be carried in a sling, goes around with the baby of the family
dangling almost to the ground in a sling.
A day' s activities must often be determined by the weather, and once
or twice in the year by the water level. When a village floods, the dis-
comforts seem to be. offset by the excitement of the swirling waters, the
novelty of living in the stream, and anticipation of the gay stories to
be tol 4 af Ckward. A cljy base for the hearth fire is improvised on the
platform of the house, or in rarer cases when the waters rise above
the platfonm, in the canoe. Sometimes a section of the platform is
raised and tied higher on the posts of the house to provide sleeping
quarters. Otherwise the occupants of the house make their beds in
the rafters. Domestic animals and pets must share the emergency
accomodations or be carried to higher ground. Game animals trapped
on narrowing islands provide an unusually abundant supply of meat,
adding to the festal spirit. Only in an exceptionally high flood is
there a considerable loss of plantings to cause regret, since the
Piro anticipate high water. The floods are brief, usually of just a
few hours duration.
Dress and ornamentation
Many of the Piro now copy the dress of the whites around them.
The women cut out dresses, shirts, and trousers without even a pattern
to guide them, and the results are quite equal to that of their white
neighbors in most cases. Often the men are able to purchase shirts
and trousers ready made. The Piro have a word which means 'to exact-
ly fit'. Sometimes their clothing fits a little more closely than
that of the white, but more often, when the type and color are suit-
able, one is inclined to comment that the Piro know how to dress.
However, there are still a few features amusingly primitive. One
is a predilection for pink. I have seen a grave and very muscular
chief dressed in a pink shirt, and wearing football shoes. Colorful
little caps with visors are also in great demand. In the haircuts
which the men give one another, they most successfully imitate their
white neighbors, even though the task is often performed with very
old and broken scissors.
Even though most of the adult Piro now possess clothing of
European type, one still sees the native costume frequently. The
men's robe is worn in cold weather and at night. It is of heavy
homespun. Two 2.6 meter lengths of cloth a little over sixty centi-
meters wide are sewed together lengthwise, leaving about forty-five
centimeters unsewed in the middle for the opening for the head.
The cloth is then folded double. Beginning about thirty centimeters
below the fold on each side to allow for armholes, the side seams are
closed. Women take great pride in the weaving and painting of the
men' s robes.
The woman' s skirt is similar in material and painting to the
robe of the man. It is of a single piece of cloth, with the ends
sewed together. The seam is folded underneath as the skirt is wrapped
tight around the body, overlapped and tucked in on the left side.
This is the only garment of native weave provided for the women.
However, with purchased material they make blouses of a quaint gypsy
type, long in the back and short in the front so that five or six
centimeters of bare skin show above the skirt. The sleeves are long
and full, being gathered above a ruffle at the wrists. Around the
49
PLATE I V
Piro iBody Decoration
( a') Face paintinLg of a g3irl about eight years old going on a tri p
to vis8it relatives . Covered eye is blind . Shaboyacu v'illage,
Urubamba River. September, 1953.
(b,c) Body painting Of a girl for a puberty celebration. Censa
villlage, Urubamba River. August, 1953.
[ Drawings by Joyce Nies ]
0
neck and shoulders, across the swallow-tail, and at the wrists are
bindings of contrasting colors, or of prints. Sometimes zigzag de-
signs are embroidered or appliqued down the front of the blouse.
For everyday wear palm hats are woven by the women. The woman' s
hat has a wide brim that slopes downward. The brim of the man's
hat is narrower, and rolls upward slightly. Women do not too fre-
quently wear their hats. A cloth over the head, or in the hot sun
a bundle of rags balanced on the head seems to be more convenient.
At least it serves a few extra purposes when babies are being tended.
Many of the Piro have shoes which they wear for a few hours on
Sunday and other special occasions. They take them off to walk, and
often inconspicuously slip their feet out of them even while seated.
For work in the fields or on the river, old ragged clothes that are
more than half patches are worn. New clothing is very carefully kept
for occasions worthy of it.
Only in his efforts to imitate the white is the taste of the Piro
ever gaudy. Black and white are basic to the native Piro design, and
the added touches of color are restrained.
For a dance a Piro girl dressed in the native costume wears the
wrap-around skirt with a fringe of tinkling seeds or small nuts.
The standard coloring of the skirt is a black geometrical design on
white cloth, with certain figures of the design dyed mahogany. The
girl wears a collar and bracelets of beadwork of the typical geometri-
cal design. A heavy twisted cord of the white beads serves as a belt.
She wears a crown of white bark painted with the same design in ma-
hogany or black dye, or a woven crown stitched with the design in
black cotton thread. At the back of the head two tall macaw feathers
rise from an ornate wooden base in the crown. Earrings are used, and
an ornament beaten from a coin or delicately carved from wood is thrust
into the pierced lower lip. The face, arms, and legs are painted
with geometrical designs in fine lines of black genipa, applied with a
seven and a half centimeter cane splinter.
The man wears his long robe painted with the geometrical design
and carries a baton of black palm wood topped with the black and white
plumes of the blue heron, with flame-colored feathers of the guaca-
rmayo or toucan at the tip. He wears a head band of short broad-tipped
black feathers, as of the guan, which make an even fringe across the
forehead. The feathers are held in place by a woven cotton band.
Around the throat is a bead choker, three to five centimeters wide.
Men often have bead bracelets for everyday wear. Both the men
and women frequently paint themselves with genipa without the stimu-
lus of any special occasion. Various explanations of the practice
are offered. "We paint our feet so that the water will not crack
them." "I painted my scalp to get rid of the lice." "The genipa
keeps the insects off." "We do it just for adornment." "We don't
51
know why. It's just a custom." No superstitious motive has over been
admitted. The everyday painting is usually not in the fine lines and
geometrical designs applied for a fiesta, but in wide bands or splotches.
Often the feet and legs, hands and arms, are dyed completely black.
Smstimes the entire face and scalp are dyed. Most often a band over
2.5 cm. wide is painted across the forehead.
Most families possess one or two combs purchased in Atalaya, but
homemade combs of bamboo serve when other combs are lacking. Girls
who care to copy the whites turn the black hair back from their faces
in a very pretty upsweep. Others let the hair hang as it will from
a part in the middle. Mirrors are common in the homes nearest Atalaya;
very rare farther upriver.
All Piro have lice. There is a single word which means 'to pick
and bite a louse'. Lice picking is a real form of fellowship among
intimate friends and relatives.  However, apart from the lice, and
stains and marks of toil and soot, the Piro are a very clean people.
Unless it is raining, all go down to the river or streams at dusk to
bathe, but that may be the fourth or fifth bath in the day for many
of the people. Little babies are given frequent baths by splashing
the water from clay bowls over them. Clothing is soon darkened from
washing in the muddy streams without soap, and from mildew, but it
is frequently washed.  Children play for hours at a time in the water.
Handicrafts
Unlike the daily routine labor in which all share a part, there
is specialization in the handicrafts. Many women know how to spin
and weave, to make baskets, pottery, and fine beadwork, but certain
ones are considered the specialists in each line of work.
The most painstaking work is the production of cloth for robes,
skirts, baby slings, bedding, hammocks and bags, and of cloth straps
for shoulder bags, tump lines, and belts. The cotton is brought in
from the planted fields, seeded and carded by hand, and spun by
whirling a spindle between the thumb and first two fingers of the
right hand while the left hand holds the tuft of cotton at just the
right tension. The spindle usually spins in a clay bowl or gourd.
For weaving, the warp strands are looped back and forth over two
polished sticks, which for the weaving of a man's long robe are two
and a half meters or more apart. One of the sticks is tied to a post,
the other to a rope about the weaver's waist. She sits on the floor
or on the ground. Draw threads are attached to a beam in such a way
that by turning the beam up on edge a series of threads is raised,
allowing the shuttle or ball of cotton to be passed beneath them.
Each time after the shuttle is passed, the woof threads are pressed
firmly into place with an old blunt knife, or with a polished wooden
blade.
52
The weaving is done with white cotton except for two lines of
black or occasionally red dyed thread near the outer edges of the warp,
so that the cloth has two vertical stripes.  The geotrical designs
are painted on with a smal  stick.  For black dye the juice of a vine
called in Piro tlipi is used, and it is covered with a black mud which
is afterward washed off. The colored dyes used for filling in figures
of the design may be from mahogany juice, or may be any of several red
or yellow vegetable dyes.
The basketry of the Piro provides mate for beds, seats, and
strainers, hats, fans, broom handles, and a variety of baskets:  the
round carrying basket, of very open to very close weave, to be suspend-
ed from a tump line; the rectangular basket of fairly close weave used
to store spinning and weaving supplies; a rectangular cane basket with
cover of equal depth; a variety of carrying and storage baskets of
very loose weave, often improvised at the mment needed. The women
make the mats and hats. Men make most of the baskets, but women
occasionally make baskets also. The most important materials used in
basketry are the fibres of the shapaja, yarina, ungurahui, and bombonaje
pals, cane, the tamshi vine, and barks, especially of the carahuasca
tree.
The cane-leaf mat used in the bed (averaging 1.6 meters by 1.3
meters) is the simplest weave. Cane leaves are laid parallel on the
ground, and flexible bark strips are interwoven. The bark of the
carahuasca is preferred. The bark strips nearest the two ends (7.5
to 10 cm. from the end) are in pairs, one below the other, with the
lower wrapped over the upper at the crossing of one or two cane leaves.
In the central portion of the mat the bark strips are passed under
one and over one cane leaf, curvi'ng at :the edge and recrossing the
mat at intervals of about fifteen centimeters.
The mat used as a strainer is up to a square meter in size. It
is of twilled work, often in two shades of palm, and is lashed by the
palm fibre to a rigid cane frame. Mats for seats, carrying baskets,
and miscellaneous woven items are of twilled work, varying in detail.
The cane baskets are built over rectangular frames. Parallel canes
run up the inside of the basket, double back against themselves,
cross the bottom, pass up the outer opposite side and are doubled
back against themselves again terminating at the bottom inside of
the basket.  The canos which form the.other two sides are placed
similarly.  Meeting at right angles on the bottom, the two sets of
cane are interwoven. The first cane passes under all but the first,
middle, and last of the perpendicular canes. The second passes under
all but the first two, middle one, and last two of the perpendicular
canes, etc. The canes are stitched in place by a cotton cord running
horizontally around the basket halfway up tho sides.
When an unexpected supply of some desirable commodity is founld,
such as some fruit, or a quantity of excellent clay in the woods, or a
nest of turtle eggs on the beach, a basket is improvised out of material
53
available: vine, bark, palm fibre or big leaves. One secure con-
tainer was make of banana leaves. The leaves were torn from tho
edge to the stem in opposite two and a half centimeter strips, the
ends of which were tied together as the leaf wrapped the bundle.
The beadwork of the Piro generally exhibits good taste, though
occasionally a clashing color is added at the edge of the beadwork.
Seed beads are used.  The geometrical designs typical of all Piro
handicraft are worked in contrasting colors, usually white, black,
and one other color. To a 15 cm. by 1.3 cm. board is attached a
loop of thread which is hooked over the big toe to hold the loom in
place during weaving. To a larger loop of thread from the board are
tied the desired number of strands. The ends of the thread are stiffen-
ed with beeswax. Consecutive strands are intertwined at intervals of
one, two, or three beads by passing the thread of one strand through
a bead in one direction, and the other thread through the same bead in
the opposite direction, and by twisting converging threads together
with a half turn.
Tho pottery of the Piro is considered by themselves to be inferior
to that of the neighboring Shipibo, but although the Piro recognize
certain differences in technique (as the Shipibo custom of mashing the
ashes of a certain bark and mixing it with the clay), they do not care
to change their methods. The Piro mix crushed old pottery into the
clay to temper it. The base of the clay vessel is molded by hand.
Strips of clay are rolled to be coiled upward from this base. The
pottery is shaped and smoothed with a fragment of a gourd or a stone,
and dried in the sun before painting. Drinking bowls are "painted"
with a red clay, and serving bowls with a white clay. On the red
surface is drawn the geometrical design in white clay. On the white
bowl'is drawn the geometrical design with a chunk of black clay.
Water jars may be of eithor red or white clay, or a combination of
both. The cooking pot and toaster are not painted but are blackened
by burning. The pottery is baked in an open fire. It is well covered
with ashes, and small pieces may be covered by large pioces of dis-
carded pottery. After baking, the pottery is varnished with the sap
of the lacre tree, or of either of two other trees. The making of
pottery, as well as the other handicrafts of the Piro, are being taught
to the children of this generation. Two little girls of less than
thirteen years have showed me very excellent water jars which they
themselves made.
The making of rope, and of cords for the bow, fishline, fishnets,
etc., is an important handicraft of the men. They also secure rubber
from the woods, and rubberize bags. The rubber troe is felled, and
is bled by cutting gashes half way round the trunk at intervals depend-
ing on the length of the tree. Gourds are placed in small hollows
excavated in tho ground beneath the gashes. The sap drains in abov&
half an hour.  For rubberizing one bag, a sapling providing two gourd
bowls is sufficient. For more extensive projects of rubborizing, a
larger tree yielding up to two waterjars of sap is felled. The sap is
54
carried home and strained through a rag.   Two tablespoons of sulphur are
mixed with one clay pot of sap. The bag is stretched over a frame, and
the sap spread on with a large feather. The -bag on its frame is set out
in the sun during the dAy for five days, after which it is washed and is
ready for use.
The frame which holds the bag is ingeniously made. A two-meter cane
is stuck upright in the ground.  From the ground and for a meter upward
the cane is wrapped with tamshi vine. From the termination of the vine
the cane is split into four. About ten centimeters above the vine is a
hoop of horizontal plane, about sixty centimeters in diameter formed of
a vine 2.5 cm. in diameter tied into a circle with the overlapping ends
tapered to conform to the curve of the circle. The hoop is supported by
two straight pieces of the same vine passing through between opposite
forks of the cane so that they form four spokes, tied to the hoop with
bark, and supported where they pass through the split cane by a spiral of
the tamshi vine. At the top of the diverging forks of cane is a hoop of
split cane a centimeter wide. The hoop is about thirty centimeters in
diameter. It is tied to the forked cane with bark. A rectangular board
about 86 cm. wide, and 2.5 cm. thick, rests on top, secured with bark
which passes around it and the hoop.
The tools with which the men make furniture are nothing more than
the machete, a crude knife, a chisel, and an adze. The previous genera-
tion used split bamboo for knives, and axes with stone   heads.  The axes
were little used in woodwork, serving rather for cracking open turtle
shells, and for weapons. If a Piro lad acquires a large nail, he beats
it into a knife blade between stones, and binds it to a handle with cotton
threat hardened by pitch. In the last five years two or three hammers and
saws and one plane have been brought to the Piro, and have been loaned
from village to village and very much used. However, the furniture de-
scribed in this paper is nearly all carved with the machete. A certain
stone called 'the sharpening stone' is used to grind machetes. The stone
has a smooth light green top. The 'man squats over the stone, pours water
on it, and rubs the machete back and forth upon it, gently pressing the
blade down with the left hand.
Spoons have carved ornamentation. Paddles often have the geometrical
designs carved or painted.  There are two forms of paddle. One is a long
blade. The other is shaped like a broad leaf.
The biggest item in-woodwork is the dugout canoe. The selection of
an appropriate tree for the making of a new canoe is very important. The
preferred woods are cedar (kanawa, the word for canoe), mahogany, and
catahua, the tree whose white sap causes sores and blindness. The cumala,
copaiba, lagarto ca      palo de cruz, cedro blanco, and another cedro with
a distinct name in Piro are also used for canoes, as well as two trees not
identified with names in Spanish. Canoes made of one of the latter are
said not to last long. Not only is the type of wood important, biXt also
the size, shape, and health of the tree. Often the tree selected is at
such a distance from the village that the maker and his wife, and perhaps
55
friends who are to help in the work, live in a temporary shelter near the
tree. When the tree is felled, it may not lie with the desired side up,
and must be rolled over. If it is a very big tree, the whole village must
be called to roll it-men, women, and children.    Poles are cut for levers,
usually used by the men, while the women push directly on the log. Little
boys get smaller poles and imitate their fathers. Timed by a grunt word
used only in pushing ('mmm'), the row of workers rock the log back and
forth and then with a big heave roll it over.
The outside of the canoe, called its "bosom", is shaped first, and
then the canoe is hollowed out. The greater part of this work is done
with the adze. If in the course of hollowing the canoe a serious flaw
is found in the wood on the inside, the objectionable part is cut away
and a closely fitting block inset. One to several weeks may be spent in
shaping the canoe, depending upon its size, and upon the number of helpers.
The canoe, having been shaped where the log fell, must now be dragged
to wabter. The same poles used as levers in rolling the log may be laid
across the path.  If the canoe is large, the whole village is again called
to help, &nd again they grunt 'In' and push together until the canoe is
on the poles.  It then slides easily as the poles revolve.   The young peo-
ple snatch up the poles as the canoe pesses them and run to replace them
in the path ahead.  With a great deal of shouting and laughter the canoe
is brought down to the river. There dried thatch is stacked against the
sides and set afire. This is called "tempering the canoe". The saps of
the caucho mash, lechecaspi, and another tree called   o4YOJ  in Piro, are
USed to repair cracks in canoes.
Usually every family has at least one good large canoe. The young
fellows have in aMdition small, narrow canoes for hunting and. fishing.
Little boys of ten or twelve may cross the wide river in their pn     ttle
canoes five or six feet long.
Livestock and pets
The domestic animals of the Piro are dogs, pigs, chickens,. and ducks.
The dogs are much better kept than those of many American Indian tribes.
Some are thin enough so that the ribs show, but.most of them appear quite
well fed. They are used in hunting, and also serve to guard the settle-
ment from nocturnal prowlers. Most of the women have learned to cope well
enough with the dogs of their own families, but many of them fear the
neighbors' dogs and often pick up heavy sticks to defend themselves in
passing. The attitude of these women, in turn, provokes the enmity of the
dogs so that there is continual barking and beating. If a dog is not con-
sidered a good hunter, the owner forces him to drink the irritating sap of
the catahua or either of two varieties of saanngo0. If the dog survives the
ordeal, he is expected to be a good. hunter. If the results are not satis-
factory, the treatment may be repeated. In spite of the general antagonian
between some women and the dogs of other households, families usually are
Very fond of their own dogs. They frequently yield to the dog' s pleading
56
to get into the canoe and go along on a trip, even though they had plamned
to leave the dog to guard the house. Hunters especially talk   proudly of
a good dog' s successes, and in all the stories of their activities they
talk of the dog as if he were quite a member of the family.
Chicks are treated with real affection. Often they are carried about
like pets under the woman' s dress in the bosom. While we were waiting to
roll a log for a canoe in the woods, one young woman pulled out two baby
chicks and entertained herself by letting them walk up and down the log,
catching them up and kissing them as they went by. The Piro commonly chew
up hard corn and raw manioc to soften it, and spit it to the chicks or
ducklings. Fhll grown chickens are moi'e-often exasperating than pleasing,
since the livestock live so close to the family. It is always a struggle
to protect the food from them. One old woman became so annoyed with her
hen that she caught it up and spanked it with a stick.  Corn is raised
especially for the chickens, and they are also fed manioc, and scraps.
Chicken houses are of pona and thatch, or are low tunnel-like structures
of cane and thatch. When chickens or ducks are to be transported by canoe,
split-cane cages tied together with bark and shaded with banana leaves are
often made.
While the people are fond of eggs and of the meat, it is so hard to
raise chickens that both are kept for special occasions and for the sick.
Pigs are easier to raise, though in a period of a year, the Jaguar killed
four large pigs from one community. The pigs are more often sold than
butchered for the Piro themselves.
In 1950 one family decided to experiment with cows and turkeys. Up
to that time, only the men who had travelled had ever seen cattle of any
kind, but the people have tasted milk from cane and have a great craving
for it. The family, who bought the cows had moved to an isolated spot in
the village of Belen so that no difficulties-would arise with the neighboxs
over the innovation.  It was most fortunate that they had. moved., because
the initial problems of having cows around the home were almost insurmount-
able. The cows walked through the cane walls of the kitchen, ate up the
family's food supply, sma-shed the pottery, terrified the children, and
trampled the baby chicks. As the cows grew, they became more and more de-
structive. At the same time, their increased size made transportation by
canoe almost impossijle, so that the owner could not dispose of them. He
could not afford to kill them and lose hi  heavy investment. There was
nothing to do but learn by experiment how to keep cows in the Jungle, He
first cleared sufficient land so that the cows did not lack pasture nor
water away from the dwellings; then he moved the kitchen up 'into the house,
making a clay hearth for the fire. That solved the problem until the cows
reached such a size that when they walked under the houses, their backs
scraped the palm bark floor and shook the whole building. He has now en-
closed a yard about the dwellings with a fence of cane lashed to heavy
posts. The cane bas to be replaced frequently, but the family now lives in
ppace. They have had very little milk due to a defect in the bags of the
two mature milk cows. The defects were not apparent at the time of the
purchase. However, calves are being raised and there may eventually be a
supply of milk.
57
The raising of turkeys has been a much more agreeable experiment,
though the turkeys are somewhat belligerent because the saPll boys, living
so close to them, cannot resist the temptation to keep them gobbling. So
far no brood of turkey chicks has been successfully raised, though the
eggs hatch well.
Three or four cats were bought by the Piro during the past six years.
They were greatly prized as a means of eradicating bats, but the cats do
not live long in the Piro villages. Evidently they have not sufficient
resistance against intestinal parasites to survive among the Piro.
The Piro take great delight in capturing and taming wild creatures.
The most successful method is to kill the mother, and take home her young,
or, in the case of birds, to rob the nest. Among their pets, the Piro
have had various types of monkey,, a rabbit (short-eared), a jabali,
peccary, tapir, turtles, and a great variety of birds, including the owl,
the wild turkey, the guan, the trumpeter, the toucan, various doves, two
varieties of macaw, parakeets, and som eight other types of parrots.
Even more affection is lavished on these pets than on the domestic animals.
Little monkeys are frequently called eshte', the form of address used for
relatives of a younger generation. Great pains are taken to procure the
right food. One old grandicother caught grasshoppers, pulled off their
whiskers, and poked them whole down the throats of her newly hatched
birds.
Wild creatures are taken for pets, not to be raised for food, ex-
cept for the turtle. The tortoises of the forest and the various river
turtles are captured and penned in circles of upright palm-bark stakes,
where they are fattened to serve as food.
Predatory animals and pests
Poisonous snakes are a continual menace. No death from a snakebite
has been recorded in the last six years, but three serious bites were
noted. One by the snake called jergon resulted in the loss of a hand and
half the forearm. An older man in the tribe had previously lost an arm
in the same way. Another bite in 1950 by the same type of snae was
treated immediately and for over fifteen consecutive hours with a suction
snakebite kit. It resulted in two weeks of inability followed by com-
plete recovery. Another snake less than a foot and a half long, not iden-
tified by name in Spanish, caused severe vomiting of blood, but the
patient recovered. The Piro take pains to hunt out and kill a poisonous
snake that has been glimpsed, even clearing land in order to rout it.
Snakes recognized as not having a deadly bite are allowed to escape even
when it would be quite convenient to kill them.
The boa, while not actually a serious menace to safety, is consid-
ered to have supernatural power, and especially to be the cause of whirl-
pools. "The boa draws down the canoe....Deep in the water he leaves it.
Outside the water appears good, but down in there is a great hole from
58
which nothing can go up to the surface. If the medicine men are called,
then the people who live in the water are seen. They talk. They are like
those who live in the outside air, but they stay far off. A strong medi-
cine man could seize them, but now they are not accustomed to the outside
air. They are accustomed to be within the water. In two month8 one who
has been seized is acclimated.  They say it is very good.  When children
go down into the water, in five months they are grown big6......" Stories
of the ancestors involve monstrous boas, and heroic feats against them.
There has not been an opportunity to observe an actual encounter between
a Piro and a boa.
For waders the ray fish is a constant danger. It grows to a meter
in diameter, and the barbedaspineof the tail cuts a gash several inches
long on the feet and legs., The ray fish are struck and killed with the
poles as canoers notice them. The piranha, which bites, and the canero,
a fish which penetrates the body, are a menace to swimmers.
*   The Jaguar has already been mentioned as the enemy of the Piro.   It
is not only a man-eater, and the subject of many terrifying stories of
actual experiences, but is also the object of superstitious fear.  A girl
described the encounter her older brother had with a Jaguar while she sat
petrified with fear in the canoe. Finding himself without shot for his
gun, and his axe out of reach, he took up his harpoon and advanced toward
the beast who was coming to meet him. Before letting go the harpoon the
man spoke respectfully to the Jaguar, "Grandfather, where are you going?"
When 'grandfather' did not answer, but continued to approach menacingly,
the harpoon was hurled into his side. The Jaguar took off, and the
Indians, equally. frightened., shoved the canoe out into the current.
When a Jaguar has been heard at night in the forest nearby, or when
his tracks have been found near slaughtered pigs, the men take time out
for a Jaguar hunt. These hunts are very often unsuccessful, probably be-
cause the Jaguar covers such great distances in a comparatively short
time, even ewimming the river back and forth in the course of his wander-
ings. The Piro seek to obtain poison from the whites of Atalaya, but say
the whites are very reluctant to furnish them with it. When the poison is
obtained, it Is put on the flesh of a pig that a Jaguar has killed and
left, in the hope that the animal will return to finish his meal. On one
occasion a Jaguar. attacked a pig within a hundred meters of the village.
The squeals of the pig-attracted the people, and as they all ran shouting
into the forest the Jaguar escaped. Two men with shotguns hid for hours
behind a screen of leaves by the pig, which lay on its back complaining.
However, the Jaguar did not return to its prey. Shortly before dark the
men gave up, killed the pig, and returned to the village with the meat.
A more frequent, though less fearsome, thief of the livestock is the
ocelot.  The Piro say it can kill a dog, but no one seems to particularly
fear it.  In fact, women with their babies in slings at their sides, and
without even a stick to use as a weapon, ran into the woods to frighten
one away from the chickens.
59
The zorro (similar to the opossom) kills chickens by night. When a
zorro is detected in the henhouse, the little boys are called for practice
with,their bows and arrows.' Hawks perch on the high tree tops around the
clearings, watching for chicks to stray from the houses. If they remain
long enough within bowshot they are killed.
Within doors, bats are the most annoying andl filthy of the pests.
Brambles are frequently hung from the ridgepole)near the opening at the
top of the gable ends, since that is a favorite entrance for bats. No
amount of effort keeps a home entirely free from them, but they provide
targets continually for the boys' arrows. No one risks sleeping without
a mosquito net, and some even keepr lamps burning throughout the night be-
cause of the bats. The cows in Belen are often bitten and bled by the
bats.  Rats also are numerous, and in spite of the crude traps made for
them and the constant effort to seek out and destroy their nests, no vil-
lage ever seems to be free from them.
The most common insect pest is the cockroach, which overruns the
food in every dwelling. Spiders preying on the roaches flourish. Their
eyes can be seen gleaming all through the thatch by lamplight. Little
effort is made to eradicate roaches and spiders. Wasps, which in turn
prey upon the overgrown spiders, also seek to hang their mud daubs under
the shelter of the houses. Swarms of wasps on wax nests are burned out
by a bit of blazing thatch on a pole. The tarantulas are not numerous, but
do occasionally invade the living quarters. They are smashed with poles.
Mosquitoes are thick in certain villages. Babies cry with annoyance
from them, and ali who are old enough keep moving constantly while out of
the net in the evening. Many of the Piro, however, refuse to live where
mosquitoes are numerous. Gnats and a small triangular gadfly with a
vicious sting prevail all along the Urubamba. In seasons when the swarms
are most numerous, the legs of some are a mass of sores. The smoke of
certain leaves gives momentary relief, but no real solution to the prob-
lem has been found.
Termites fight tenaciously for their share of the buildings which
they choose. The most effective treatment noted for them was that of
pouring boiling water down the holes which the insects make at the base
of a post by which they have chosen to invade the house. This treatment
must be repeated several times in order to eradicate one swarm of ter-
mites. There are besides other wood borers which penetrate and hollow
out the beams and rafters of the houses. These leave holes where they
have entered, and the Piro attempt to plug up all of the holes by pound-
ing'hardwood splinters into them
Out of doors the most troublesome insect is the izula, an ant-like
creature more than 2.5 centimeters long. The bite is so painful that
even an adult cries with pain. The bare feet are frequently bitten on
the trail. Haids grasping branches for support, or contacting plants in
the labors of the field are exposed to the poisonous bite.
60
Disease and medicine
The Piro have native words for malaria, whooping cough, tuberculosis,
influenza or colds, asthma, oxyuriasis, anclostomiasis, rheumatism, paraly-
sis, pinta, dysentary, yaws, leprosy or syphilis (one word), gonorrhea,
tropical ulcer, boils, and burrowing of a worm under the skin. They have
borrowed words for smallpox, chicken-pox, and measles.
While grateful for medical help from the outside, the Piro have con-
siderable confidence, not only in their own medicine men, but even more
in their herb remedies. No attempt is made here to evaluate the medicines.
Boiled datura is taken for tuberculosis*-and also to produce visions.
Guava shoots are boiled and given to children for whooping cough. To
limon, a grass, boiled with sugar-cane syrup is given for   aria.  The
raw sap of a climbing vine is rubbed on the splotches of pinta. For vener-
eal diseases a drink is made by boiling any of four kinds of fern, or by
boiling the root of the herb cortadero, or the bark of the cascarilla tree.
For retention of urine a drink is made by boiling hataco root. The hataco
resembles pigweed.
For worms a drink is made of the juice of boiled saltwort, or the raw,
strained sap of the oj  tree. The latter, taken also for any abdominal
pain and for anemia, seems to be drastic treatment.  The patient is in bed
for days or even weeks afterward, and loses weight.
To reduce fever, the leaves of different herbs and trees, including
the elder and the sananUo tree are boiled and the juice given. The bulb
of the lanaetilla is grated and boiled, and also the seed of the piri   n.
For fever with jaundice, the bark of the catahua (avoiding the sap) is
boiled for a drink.
The leaves and roots of the sanango tree are boiled to provide medi-
cine for various stomach ailments and the wood is grated and mixed with
water. "When one feels weak, he grates the wood and drinks it in water.
He vomits and for two days he is weak and has no appetite." The seeds of
the castor-oil plant are ground and allowed to dissolve in water for a pur-
gative. For distress from eating too much of the uvilla, the old woman
who was serving as herbalist first administered. the juice of boiled leaf
buds-of a wild potato, and when that was not effective, the juice of boilel
cetico leaves. Severe abdominal pain, resulting from the eating of a pine-
apple with unwashed hands after working with tebhrosia toiai    was
treated by striking the abdomen with nettles until it was covered with a
rash.
There are several medicines given for diarrhea. Copaiba seeds are
boiled and the juice taken.  The seeds of the cacehuillo tree are grated
and taken in cold water.; The bark of the palo de cruz is ground, boiled,
and eaten. The trunk of the ipururu bush is scraped, and the scrapings
are given in water to babies.
For influenza and colds, the leaf of either the llanten or nucno
pichana is cooked and the juice given, or the seed of the okra is mixed
with urine and given as a drink. The bark of the pucacuro caspi is
shredded, and the juice pounded out for a drink.
Headache may be treated by crushing sweet basil by rubbing it be-
tween the hands; then dipping it in water and applying it to the face and
head. Castor-oil leaves also are put on the head for headache. For
sleeplessness day or night the eyes are covered with the leaves of a cer-
tain herb.
Wild garlic is grated, mixed with water, and drunk to increase the
possibility of conception. There is also a contraceptive commonly used,
but not identified by name in Spanish. The juice of boiled cotton leaves
is supposed to prevent abortion.
Broken or dislocated bones are bound with the itini      vine.  There
are many remedies for wounds, which are supposed to hasten the healing.
The sap of the patquina blanca or of another herb is rubbed on the wound.
The bulb of a plant not identified in Spanish, is grated and heated with
a little water, taken up on a stick while still warm, and spread on the
wound. The trunk of the chiris ango is grated and put in warm water with
which the wounds are washed. The bark of the cascarilla is powdered and
put directly in the wound.  The bark of the coral-blossomed amasisa tree
is ground, burned, and put in wounds to stop hemorrhage.
The sap of the castor-oil is smeared on sores. For boils, plasters
are made of the boiled leaves and stem of three varieties of minch, and
of an unidentified herb, and of the grated wood of genista. The brush-
like spikes of a certain grass or foxtail are used to remove the core of
a boil.
The sap of the patquina blanca is rubbed on spider bites. For snake
bites, the juice of the huaca bush (used to stun fish) is boiled and given
repeatedly as a drink. White blotches, probably fungus, on the skin are
rubbed with the sap pressed out of the yanacaspi.
Saltwort leaves are sometimes put in the water for bathing. The leaf
of the Santa Maria herb is put in warm water for the bathing of infants,
and the fruit of the anuje huasca is grated and rubbed on the baby.
Eyedrops are made from the juice of the piripiri, and of the tobacco
plant. Also, the shoot of the cane is heated in the fire, and the juice
squeezed directly into the eye. The pith of the oquera herb is wrapped
in biJao leaves and heated in the fire. The juice is squeezed out for
eye drops.
The Piro say that they chew the raw stalk of the cordoncillo to
blacken their tee2tN h:owever, the practice has not been observed and must
be very uncomon nowadays. It is probably done for ornamentation rather
than for medical purposes. When toothache becomes intolerable, the sap
62
of the catahua tree is boiled and put in the tooth.  This greatly hastens
decay, so that the tooth is soon removed. The Piro suffer a great deal
from toothache.  One young woman told how her mother, maddened by the pain,
held a nail against a tooth and insisted that she pound the nail with a
stone until the tooth broke off.
Some of the medicines have definitely magical purposes. One is the
mashu shillo, a clinging vine.  "It causes madness. It has 'fingernails'. is
The huachasananco sap is taken by men, and also given to their dogs, to
make them good hunters. One vine is named "That which causes deceit".
The "viper's herb," a plant with large soft leaves with dark mottling, is
'dipped in hot water.  With the crumpled leaves the baby's knees are patted
so that the little one will learn to walk early.
The cure for the bite of one specific snake is to scrape an alliga--
tor's teeth, or scrape the skin off the under side of an iguana, and roast
the scrapings. From either source, the scrapings are to be put in water
and-drunk. Otherwise the snake bite may be deadly.
Knowledge of natural phenomena and intellectual interests
The Piro have a fair knowledge of human anatomy. Their list of ex-
ternal members of the body is about equivalent to ours, and they nam at
least two dozen internal organs, probably more. They name the bones by
specifying the part of body and adding the word for bone, a system that
should make it easy to designate any bone in the body, by adding appropri-
ate form or location words, of which there is a large class. The trunk of
the body is divided into three parts: from the throat to the breasts;
from the breasts to the umbilicus; from the umbilicus down. There is also
a word for the waist. There is a word for taking the pulse, but what the
significance of it is to the Piro has not yet been learned. There are
words for 'right' and 'left', and the 'right-handed' method of working is
recognized as normal.
Directions are not oardinal. They are principally designated as
'up river', 'down river', 'this side of the river', and 'across the
river', With regard to hunting 'entering the woods' refers to leaving
the river, and 'going out of the woods' refers to returning to the river.
Knowledge of geography is very limited. Three or four of the men
have been to Lima, but evidently the strangeness of the sights and sounds
left such an impression of bewilderment, and the trips were so brief, that
they did not give very informative reports to their fellow tribesmen.
Interest in the outside world is very keen, though their conceptions are
limited.  All water must be conceived of as flowing, unless it is a small
lake or swamp. Those who have travelled say that "there are not two peopJB
in Pucallpa", the superlative Piro expression for a great number. They
cannot imagine a crowd of more than two or three hundred. Those who have
not travelled as far as Pucallpa  have never seen wheels turning on the
ground. Machinery in general is called 'metal', and one girl asked, "Do
they pick up metal from the bottom of the very big water (sea)?"
63
Knowledge of the universe is even less. The men thought they were
being quite foxy to guess the size of the stars to be an armsbreadth, in-
stead of calling them tiny chips such as they appear to be. The sky is
generally thought to be solid. The sun and moon are said to travel, and
there are legends personifying them.
The heavens at night appear smewhat different to the Piro'.s eye
than to ours. They see and name the dark spots in the milky way. A
morikey has his head to the south, and there is a devil in the northi.
A number of strings of three or fQur faint stars each, east of the north
end of the milky way, are named for a feature of the common geometrical
design. The magellanic clouds are noticed and called 'the tomb'. There
are also constellations named, but most of them do not coincide with the
constellations which we see. The Piro point out a cross in the north.
It includes Denab, Sadr and two other stars of Cygnus. There is a very
big constellation called the 'anteater' which sets in the southwest.
Another combination of stars is 'the turtle coop'; another (including
Altair) is the 'Jaguar's paws'.  The 'crocodile's chin' is a triangle in-
cluding Markab (in Pegasus). The Pleiades are called kachkegirin6; Arc-
turus, kolupa; and a morning star, gonsagi from gogi 'day' and sagi, a
form word used of a ball or a large fruit.
The phases of the moon are noted and used in fixing dates. The day
and the night are each divided into three periods with corresponding
names: sunrise to eleven a.m.; eleven a.m. to about four p.m.; four p.m.
to sunset; sunset to about eleven p.m.; eleven p.m to earliest cockcrow;
cockcrow to morning'.
All the Piro, including w men and children, czn count up to three.
Beyond that women indicate the numbers by naming fingers, and by holding
up the appropriate fingers in a set order. "This day I'm going" (first
finger held up); "This day I'm coming back" (fourth finger held up).
Many of the men, however, using the names of the fingers for the numbers
from four to nine inclusive, and 'one person' for ten, form higher num-
bere by compounding, and fluently discuss large figures. The Piro had
previously used 'ocho' and 'nueve' from the Spanish for 'eight' and
'nine', but in 1947 they deliberately standardized names for the ring
and little fingers, and established their use as 'eight' and 'nine'.
The Quechua words for hundred and thousand are borrowed in the form of
pacha and waranka. Formerly, the main use of counting was to report the
number of logs cut in a particular location.  Now, since the Piro are
becoming literate in their own language, they are learning to keep ac-
counts and interest in arithmetic is at a high pitch.
Determined efforts to master the principles of mathematics had
brought them little results in the past, and an effort to utilize Spanish
numbers with Piro terms for add, subtract, etc. was also unsatisfactory.
We discovered by experiment that the literate reacted to the figure 4 by
saying "cuatro" in Spanish, and to the idea of four objects by saying
"gepkoxamkoJe" in their own language.  Assumine'that it would be easier
64
to associate their own word with the figure than to develop number concepts
in Spanish, we transferred entirely to the use of Piro words for numbers.
The results have been most gratifying, though discipline was required at
first to keep from reverting to Spanish in tables memorized in Spanish. Pt
present several of the men are beginning to learn long division, and prob-
ably will continue to make progress indefinitely.
Money is called 'big disc' (a sol);'Ilalf disc' (fifty centavos);
'a little bit' (ten centavos); and 'the very little disc' (five centavos).
Gold is called kori from the Quechua word.  Silver is money.   Copper is
'cent'. Tin is 'can' * All other metal is grouped together under the word
for iron.
The ability of some to read Spanish was mentioned earlier.  It indi-
cates an intense desire for learning and progress, since the advance mde
was in Spanish-speaking schools where the Piro appeared stupid, and were
ridiculed and scolded. They persisted until many of them could sound out
the words quite fluently, but in a majority of cases without very full uno
derstanding of the content. One young woman was found poring over a paper,
sounding out the words and muttering them to herself. The paper was "The
International Journal of American Linguistics." She had not discovered
that the language she was "reading" was not Spanish.
In 1947 under the auspices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics,
a Piro orthography was prepared and primers and booklets were presented to
the people. They were received enthusiastically.   Well over a hundred and
fifty have undertaken to le&rn to read, and of them about forty read well
at present.
In January of 1953 the government of Peru established a training
course for Indian teachers, and appointed those who successfully completed
the course to teach in experimental schools in their own villages. The
courses are conducted in the Indian language but with an ultimate goal of
bringing the Indian children to a mastery of the Spanish language. Seven
Piro teachers have been appointed, and the schools are now in session.
The Piro' s knowledge of the flora and fauna surrounding him is exhi-
bited in his ability to avail himself of the natural resources. That has
already been described. Beyond the practical knowledge, however, is a de-
lightful play of fancy associated with objects of nature. Where the fancy
is closely linked with the serious system of superstitions or with the
mythology, it will be treated under those headings, but fancy, recognized
and enjoyed as such is as important a part of Piro culture as of our own.
The very names of the objects are often highly fanciful. A vine
which grows in natural links is 'the turtle' s stairway'; a tiny wild
gourd is called 'the mouse' s gourd'; the blossom of the gjanadilla, re-
sembling the passion flower with its pallid tendrils, is called the
'fish' beard' . One little red bird is the 'sun's pet'; the daddy long-
legs is the 'devil' s clutter'; a coal black midget monkey is called the
'aunt of the maquisapa', a big monkey.
65
banciful habits are ascribed to wild creatures. While a baby is be-
ing born, the owl out in the woods is saying, "It's going to be a girl....
It's going to be a boy....It's going to`.be a girl.... It's going to be a
boy...."  Otherwise the owl simply says IpOBl, The bird which they call
*'wapra' is said to sit on a branch facing the sunrise and stare and stare
at the sun without shifting its gaze. As we sat in the house singing one
rainy evening, we heard the hum or rattle of the viper Jerign. "He' s
asking for our blood," they said. "He sings, 'Uncle, uncle, uncle, Feed
me honey,' because our blood is honey to him." Animals and birds are fre-
quently personifie'd. Their moods and emotions are interpreted.
The Piro discuss the subject of intelligence. They have a word shini-
kanu which means 'soul, emotions, memory, mind, love, intelligence'.
Kshinikanu 'having a soul, etc.', is the standard expression of high appro-
val of a person. Not uncommonly, the negative is used even of members of
the tribe, although the Piro feel that they differ from other tribes in
being more thoughtful. Without real acquaintance with the surrounding
tribes, one might guess that they are right.
Art
For the natural beauty surrounding them, the Piro have a keen appre-
ciation which is reflected in their art. When possible in the selection
of a home site, consideration is given to a sweeping view of the river.
Trips to the woods and out on the water are anticipated for the beauty
that will be seen. The design on the fur of the ocelot or the skin of a
snake, the mottling of a fish, and the markings of a leaf are noted appre-
ciatively, and likened to the geometrical designs with which the Piro de-
corate pottery, cloth, woodwork, and even their own bodies.
The geometrical design of the Piro i.s distinguishable to them from
the similar designs of neighboring tribes such as the Shipibo. There
does not seem to be a systematic difference, unless it be that the angles
of the Piro designs tend to be more open than the angles of the ghipibo
design. The distinction seems to be rather in the inclusion of certain
favorite features, such as the particular curve mentioned previously as
compared to the curve of certain strings of stars, and the "double", as
they call it, a parallel of 'M' forms, usually one a thin and the other a
wide line.
The music of the Piro is described by Lucile Altig of the Suinmr
Institute of Linguistics in an unpublished article:
The Piro are a musical people, having many traditional
compositions and at times creating new ones. Melody maintains
more prominence than rhythm. Both are intricate.   Range is great,
averaging about two and a half octaves. The singers are able to
reach all registers. The Europ.ean ear senses changes in key in
soMe songs.
ot
A five-tone scale is used, corresponding to the first, second,
third, fifth and sixth tones of our major scale. Infrequently an
additional tone, the flatted seventh, is employed also.
Word content touches on many phases of the daily life of the
tribe. Mood changes, but is generally mild.
Flutes are used, playing melodies more simple and of smaller
range than those sung.
Whereas the music of many jungle tribes is predominantly
rhythical, the melodies being monotonous, that of the Piro is
melodious, varied and more pleasing to the European.
The musical instruments are the flute, panpipes, musical bow and drum.
The flutes are made of the hollow cariso stem or of the leg bones of an
immense wading bird, called in Piro 'yawuro'. Panpipes are of closed
joints of cariso cut in tubes of graduated length and diameter, and are
bound together by vine. The musical bow is made of cane or palm strung
with a fine fiber. The bow is held betreen the left hand and the teeth,
string up, and is played with a palm straw. The drum is usually small;
one a little over a foot in diameter is the biggest drum noted so far.
The drums are usually of monkey hide stretched over a bark cylinder.
All Piro music and songs are supposed to have been derived from con-
tact with the gods. Sometimes a witch doctor in a trance hears the gods
sing praises to the god.esses, and answers. Sometimes the medicine man
with frenzied rhythm pleads with a god to embody himself and appear.
Only the simple lullaby Wa wa wa wa wa ... 'Go to sleep', is not assumed
to be associated with the supernatural and with drugs or liquor.
Each song has a number of lines which are in themselves almost invar-
iable. IoVever, the order of the lines, and even the total number of
lines in the song, vary at the pleasure of the singer. The following
simple song of three lines has several variations:
1. Be careful of that which is my very own,
2. My own dove.
3. Ke is now my own.
The same singer asked to repeat the song, sang it with the following
arrangement of lines: 3-2-2-3; 1-2-2-1; 1-2-2; 1-3-3-3.
A few sample songs in Piro with free translations follow:
Sergakaka chinini                    When the water was red,
Sergakaka chinini                    When the water was red,
Rujrukamtanatkale                    He fell then,
Mapchiri wgene jiji                  The boa's little baby.
67
Ge ge ge ge ge,ge ge ge
Ge ge ge ge ge ge ge ge,
Kayonmenmaklano,
KayQnmermaklano,
Nwugenene, nwugenene.
Kigle gapowaka.
Nuchrishikalenanumta,
Nwugenene, nwugenene.
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho,
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho,
Doubtless this beauty (painting)
is for me.
Doubtless this beauty is for me.
My children, my children,
It is a beautiful path.
I reel along, singing.
My children, my children.
(Alternate lines:)
Kayonalu nogapo
Nuyakatya.
Pjemshikaletanno.
Walako tumuknu
Tyopyokamta,
Goyakaloli,
Goyakaloli.
Mgenoklulan gita,
Mgenoklulan gita.
Giyagni wa xawakni
Piklewanatana
Tye pshini nanuko
Pyaplewanatyana.
Xawaknikle xawakni
Gita metyakanyi
Nachpetanatyanatka.
Sato kocharitapje
Puranatyanatka.
My path is painted,
That from which I have come.
Hear my song.
Her own beautiful figure
Comes into view,
The dear goddess,
The dear goddess.
I am a Jaguar,
I am a Jaguar.
Therefore now
You are afraid of me
This very minute
As you are going along.
From today on, today,
You will be where I cannot see
you.
You are going to see hunger now.
One little teaspoonful
Now you are going to drink.
(of feeding the plantain
drink to a pet bird).
In the last song above, notice the Spanish loan-word tkocharital
from 'cucharita' 'a small teaspoon'. Both in their songs and in their
folktales loan-words from Spanish, Quechua, or even Campa are featured.
The Piro have a form of drama which they call 'yimlu'. It has not
been performed on the Urubamba for some years, and so cannot be described
in this paper. However, an opportunity to study the Piro drama is expect-
ed in the future.
The dramatic recital of folktales is an art in itself, making the
old familiar stories as fresh and vivid as the imagination of the
teller. I have seen an old woman sit cross-legged on her palm-bark
platform, and by the light of a flickering little kerosene flame act out
the Thgends as she told them. Grown sons with their wives, and a grown
68
daughter lay about the platform, raised up on their elbows and watching
with sparkling, laughing eyes, as though they had not heard the same
story over and over from childhood.
Incidents of the day are told with equal zest and artistry. Here
is an example from an old man' s conversation:
....When the sun was here, the day cleared; so
again. We arrived at Pagoya and slept there.
had fever.  We slept right there.   Late in the
thundered and the day became dark, very dark.
the rain came. "Look, it's going to rain hard
we went on up river
The next day my son
afternoon the rain
In the late evening
tonight."
At dawn the river rose. We were in a flood. Here, up high
(on the beams) we went in the house. There was a platform. There
we would have slept in the evening. Our companion told us it was
a flood. "We're in the big water," she said.
Therefore my son said,"Let's climb and sleep high up." So we
climbed up. First they climbed up, and afterward I did. I climbed,
and when I got there I looked down. It was threatening, very dan-
gerous. Then I spread out my bed, and lay down, and shut my eyes.
Just a moment I lay there.  Suddenly "Tooooo,  toooo."
Then, "Boy I believe the house is going to go," I said.
"Haa," he said, "Haa, maybe the house is going to go."
Just as I would have gotten up, it went.
We landed in the water, and the house arrived
"Mpooooo." We were inside the water. It was
was no place to go.
I felt it going.
with us in the water.
dark, very dark. There
My son grabbed his machete and cut away the thatch. There we
climbed out.
The bag was wet. All
There was no dry clothing.
nothing to put on. It was
our beds were wet. We were soaked.
Every piece of cloth was wet. There was
cold, very cold.
We Jumped into the canoe, and there met the dawn.
daylight we went on up river. In a high place we cut a
ourselves. There we built a fire and cooked plantains,
The woman had put matches in a bottle.
When it was
clearing for
and ate them.
The translation is insipid compared to the vivid picture given by the
old man in his own language. His hearers shriek with laughter, especially
as they see him drenched with nothing dry to put on and no place to go.
69
Joking is a literary art with the Piro. Certain standard jokes are
told along with the legends, One is about a girl questioned carefully by
the man she wanted to marry concerning her ability as a cook. She assured
him she was an excellent cook and he trustingly married her, but when he
brought home fish she was so dumb that to cook it she made a little fire
on each of its eyes.
Another is about a cricket being roasted by a bird. "Are you done,
little cricket?" "No, I'm just turning myself." "Are you done now,
little cricket?" "No, I'm just turning over on the other side."  The bird
swallowed the cricket and asked again, "Are you done now, little cricket?"
"Oh, I don't know," said the cricket. "Here I am."
A great Joke that will keep the whole village laughing throughout an
evening is the longer story of a glutton who went hunting, brought home a
big supply of game to smoke, and promptly ate it all up. He still was
desperately hungry; so he ate hia wife. Her sister replaced her, and he
repeated the performance. The third and youngest sister was taken, but
she suspected him and hid. The poor glutton was so desperately hungry,
after his voracious meal of game, that he finally sliced a piece off his
own side and ate it.  It tasted so good that he cut off a leg and ate it.
Then, when he discovered he could not walk, the little wife came and
killed him.
Certain forms of obscenity are considered hilariously funny. Buns
and real wit also delight the Piro. An example of the latter was provided
atsmy expense. A Piro girl travelling with me was afraid to go out of the
house were we stayed. She said, "There's a waka (cow) out there." I
looked, and seeing that it was a mule decided to have some fun with her.
She was an excellent language informant, and used to repeating conversa-
tion I had missed. Eventually the mule brayed, and I asked her, "Hote,
what did he say?"  "Oh, I don' t know," answered Hote.  "Maybe he was
speaking English."
Mytholosy
The Piro myths begin with the birth of the god, Tsla, hero-trickster,
and creator. His mother was marr1ed to a tiger with three younger bro-
thers. The tigers demanded of her the wifely service of picking and bit-
ing their lice. She obliged, but since a human being cannot swallow the
bug-sized louse of a tiger, she choked to death. Thereupon the tigers
pounced in and tore her to pieces for a meal. Under the pretext of want-
ing her share, the old tigress mother-in-law snatched away the uterus and
hung it up in an annato tree.  Ten days later out came Tsla and his three
younger brothers, the 'muchikajine' who performed lesser feats and
miracles.  Tsla revenged his motherSs death by killing the four tigers,
but his effort to snare the wary old tigress failed, and from her tigers
multiplied upon the earth.
70
Tsla, served by the muchikajine, created the Indian from red clay and
the white from white clay. He "blew" the breath into them, a significant
expression as will be noticed later in the description of the medicine
man' s incantations.
Many of the legends tell of Tsla and his enemy, the hideous devil
Scha with his blind helper, and his man-eating pet, the 'jijiya'. Often
the legends tell of their cruelties to the 'Kochmalotone', a race of
women only who live in the forest, fragile women who could be killed by
the falling of a bijao leaf.
Metamorphosis of human beings to creatures of the forest, and of
beasts to men, is coxmmon. A recurrent subject is the belated discovery df
a young woman, that the husband she had married was a deer, tiger, bird,
reptile, or some other creature.  Usually the discovery is made when her
baby changes before her eyes to animal form, or when the formerly loving
husband sudderly bare s hi s teeth and prepares to devour her.
The boa fathered the child who brought the flood on the earth to
punish his grandmother for pushing him in the fire in the horror of her
discovery that he was niot human.  The child spared his mother, by advising
her to built a platform in a magical genipa tree which rose above the
water as she struck it.  Others sought to escape by climbing up on their
houses, but the houses were swept away by the raging waters.  Some tried
to keep afloat in their canoes, but giant crabs cut up the canoes and they
too were drowned. As the waters of the flood receded, the depth was
tested by dropping the genipa fruit into the water. It came to the sur-
face muddy, indicating that the water was shallow.
Immensebca constrictors with insatiable appetites for human beings,
and voices like the blast of a great horn, make shuddering stories.  So
do the depredations of the many grotesque demons.
Some of the legends are of historical Interest, showing previous
endogamous divisions of the tribe into the Nachineru (Hungry People),
Gimnuneru (Snake People), Koshichineru (Bird People), Geteneru (Perhaps
Seeing People); Manxineru or Jemaneru (Tapir People); and Kosopane (not
translated).
The Hungry People had nothing to eat, while the bird people stuffed
themselves all day long, and so the Hungry People kept begging the Bird
People for food. It was not that the Hungry People lacked plantings. It
was Just that their king, himself one of the Hungry People, was stingy
with the produce. He wouldn-t let them cut a plantain, not even a plan-
tain leaf.  He would not even eat enough himself, nothing but thin plan-
tains, while the good plantains spoiled. All the people had to eat was
the eggs of the pwapwa (a fictitious bird), and when they quit laying the
people were hungry a long time.
They hated their king, and wanted to kill him. They watched for a
chanoe to steal his excrement to, mix with poisonous herbs so that he would
71
die, but he did not eat enough to make that possible. Finally the Hungry
People pled with the king of the Bird People to war against their king and
kill him. The two kings had never visited, but the king of the Bird People
was so sorry for the Hungry People that he agreed to try.
The kings met, each with his macna (club with sharp blade), and a
small knife. The king of the Hungry People was a big man, and the king of
the Bird People was small. All day long they fought. Finally the king of
the Hungry People died. The king of the Bird People was so exhausted he
fell on one ear, bleeding. After that the Hungry People were his subjects.
They rejoiced, and ate abundantly, and began to multiply.
Religion
As indicated by previous reference to the gods, the tribal religion
is a polytheism with innumerable gods and goddesses living in heaven. The
words 'heaven' and 'sky' are synonymous, meaning 'the upper expanse'.
Tsla, the creator-god so prominent in the mythology, receives neither hom-
age nor petitions. Rather, invocations are addressed to the general name
goyakalu (from the adjective goyaka 'lasting'),, 'an eternal one', A syno-
nym for 'god' and for 'ghost' is kashichjeru 'the one who seizes (us)l)
because the gods are conceived of as those who snatch away the life of a
human being.
Any individual whose sins are comparatively few, and all powerful
witch doctors, go to heaven and become gods. They receive their goyaknu
'eternity', which carries the added thought of splendor and majesty.
If it is known quite surely that an ordinary individual has gone to
heaven, then his spirit is not feared. Indications may be clear weather
for the funeral, or better still, faint thunder directly overhead on a
sunny day.  Otherwise the village shudders in dread, especially throughout
the night after the burial. The ghost of any witch doctor is dreaded, be-
cause the witch doctor is supposed to go back and forth at will from hea-
ven to earth, embodying himself in whatever form he chooses.
The Roman Catholic religion, first introduced to the Piro in the
seventeenth century, has never been very fully accepted. Semanez aAid
Ocampo, 1885, reported that in extreme cases the medicine man resorted to
'holding mass' in the woods, mixing a little ritual with the smoking and
sucking usually practiced. There is no indication that such 'mass' is
held anywhere on the Urubamba today. Apart from the group living on the
premises of the Dominican Mission on the Sepahua River, there is practi-
cally no apparent influence of Roman Catholicism on the beliefs and cul-
ture of the Piro. Practices of witchcraft are unaffected. Neither pic-'
tures nor figures of saints are found in the homes, nor is the baptism of
children comon practice.
The Seventh Day Adventist missionaries have exerted considerably more
influence. Their abstinence from certain meats, and observance of a
72
period of inactivity fit in well with the taboos of the Piro. The chief
contributions of this group to the tribe have been a definite decrease in
drunkenness, and instruction in Spanish in the mission schools. A few
years ago a group of Piro were visited by a representative of the indige-
nous Evangelical Church of Peru and some sort of affiliation was initiatedL
Since 1949, translations of portions of the Bible without sectarian
teaching have been supplied them. This has met with enthusiastic recep-
tion on the part of some 300. In fact, most of the Piro of the Urubamba
relate their recent marked advance in education and economic status di-
rectly to this source. Without-question it has had far Slore effect on
the Piro culture than the superficial religious influences previously
mentioned.
The suprnatural
Apart from the supernaturals religiously regarded, there are a great
number of demons and powers with which the Piro feels that he must cope.
The commonest is the soul of the dead, already mentioned. The soul,
which is considered to live in the heart, goes wandering and has the ex-
periences of dreams at night. The soul wandering about during sleep cannot
be seen, but it becomes visible in human form at death. If the Piro hear
the sound suu suu at night, they know a ghost is abroad. "We say to each
other, 'That's nottjust an ordinary little ghost. He has a real soul.'
Maybe we hear it touch the dishes, or a dog barks at it. If you see it,
you will surely die. If it points at you, the next day you will be sick.
No one knows a remedy. There is no devil medicine. You will die. If we
don't hear the ghost's 'suu suu' at night we say, 'Maybe he''s gone up.
God has received him above.' Then he won't be a troubler. He will be
quiet." The word 'demon' is used as a synonym for 'ghost' or 'soul'. The
expression 'his soul went out' Is used of death.
Uglier than the soul ghost is the ghost of the bones, a clattering
skeleton in rags, which suddenly appears gleaming white to terrify those
who go out in the dark with its cry, "Yooooooomm' Yoooooooomm'" "It
is very dangerous to see a ghost of the bones."
Among the demons particularly named is Ginkanro. By day he appears
to be a stone in the water, but at night or in a low morning fog he comes
up out of the water in the form of a red-eyed dog, or of a Jaguar. A
person who meets him will die. Another demon is Matsotso, the heart-eat-
ing demon.  "The young man, Feliciano, slept in a canoe at night.   The
Matsotso blew in his mouth. Feliciano did not see him, but others heard
it happen. The next day Feliciano was sick, and he died." The matsotso
is supposed to fly whimpering overhead at dusk.
The demon mamyotu is sometimes mentioned, but is supposed to have
left the Urubamba River. One of the Piro' s ancestors cut off the -water
demon's white hand, as the d-emoii reached up and grabbed a canoe.
,        .                 .~~~~~~~~
73
The demon moved off down river leaving a wake of foaming water.  Another
demon, reputed to be no longer feared, is the pagotko. At a certain
stream farther down the Urubamba than any Piro now live, the demon used to
emerge from the forest to spank children with nettles, and to steal women
who went off alone for firewood. This demon is now impersonated for
holiday sport.
Besides the named individuals, innumerable demons inhabit the forest,
and water, and air. The boa, crocodile, manatee, iguana, frog, lizard,
and chameleon are classified as demons. Once as we were being poled up
river we went in among the reeds to keep out of the current, and passed a
tiny lizard swaying on a reed. The man poling on the front started, and
then bent on the pole with all his might to push rapidly past the tiny
creature. "That's not a lizard," he said in a low voice. "That4s a witch
doctor."
A little boy explained that the abused dog that used to howl under
the house was really an embodied ghost prowling around to bewitch someone.
Therefore a man bound the dog and threw it into the river to drown.
There are supposed to be demons that live in the water. They come
out in the form of human beings, and deceive, saying that they are men,
but they give a person a demon or a sickness.
"Anything that whistles 'fii fii fii' in the night is a demon and
will harm a person. When one who has met the demon returns to the house
he -vomits and wants to die."
Asked why she made her children sit motionless in the house, a young
woman answered, "The day is dark. If they walk in the darkness a demon
will eat the child's heart. Then he will be sick. There are many demons.
They are invisible, but there they are in the wind. We do not see them,
but they eat out the heart of the child."
An old woman visiting blew out the kerosene flame because it was
attracting insects. Then, half afraid In the darkness she began to talk
about the demons. "In darkness such as this they come up close and shoot
sicknesses. (Here she gestured as though holding a tiny bow and letting
fly an arrow.) A ghost threw mud at Gustavo and hit him on the chest with
it; so he thinks he is going to die soon. Also the ghosts have been    irg
noises under his :platform. He looks to see what has made the noiae and
finds nothing."
Children born with deformities are called 'devil' all their lives.
Usually they are treated with the same affection as well children. How-
ever a girl told how her little mute sister becam very sick with a
fever, and the mother shoved her into a corner crossly, saying, "Die.
You're a demon." In contrast, there is a little cross-eyed girl with an
impish expression who is the delight of all her relatives. When showed
a snapshot of her they remarked affectionately, "It's the little bird of
bad omen."
74
Sickness is frequently ascribed to a demon in a particular form.
"A tiger bewitched me," or "a manatee caused his death" or, even more fre-
quently, "A Campa (Indian) shot an arrow at him."
There is a word kagonchi which refers to a man to whom is ascribed
supernatural power, both with regard to his function as a medicine man,
and with regard to his function as witch doctor, causing sickness, death,
or disaster. There is another word kayinretakleru which refers only to
the malicious witch doctor. Either word may be used synonymously with
"demon" and with "ghost", or it may be stated that a demon has entered the
body of the witch doctor. The spirit which enters or accompanies the
witch doctor is said to protect his person.   A medicine  man of less
power than a kagonchi, a sort of lay practitioner, is called a monchi.
Any of them may be also called 'one who sucks' or 'one who blows'. A po-
lite way to speak of bewitching is to say that the witch doctor is making
a god of his victim.
The practice of drinking ayahuasca is supposed to make a witch doctor.
The juice of other vines, called gorowa, kawniri, and waytonori in Piro,
or the juice of datura is also taken by the witch doctor. The Piro say
the gorowa is chachrona in Spanish. After the witch doctor has drunk aya-
huasca, he drinks tobacco juice.
Tobacco is used, as far as I have been able to observe, exclusively
for superstitious purposes. The juice of the cashew fruit is mixed with
wine, and with this mixture the leaves of tobacco are sprinkled bes-fore
being rolled. Also the bark of a certain tree called 'tobacco mixer' is
powdered and mixed with tobacco. The pipe which the witch doctor smokes
has a bowl about five inches long, carved in the form of a cone from hard
black palm wood.  The stem is a monkey' s leg bone, about the same length
as the bowl.
When the sick one is supposed to have been shot with sharpened splin-
ters or thorns by a demon or by another enemy witch doctor, the medicine
man sucks to remove the cause of the sickness. An old woman on the plat-
form of a hut had diarrhea and abdominal pain, and a baby on another plat-
form of the sam  hut was sick. The medicine man came at dusk. He was
dressed in blue overalls (rare among the Piro), and smelled of tobacco.
He spent about three quarters of an hour with each patient, in the semi-
darkness. He lighted a match in his pipe, puffed, and exhaled the smoke,
puffed again, rubbed the abdomen with slow, rhythmic, downward strokes,
bent over and sucked once loud and long, and spit over his shoulder.
While he treated the baby, he talked with the mother and laughed. In
the morning improvement was c.laXmed for both patients, though the im-
provement was not evident.
If the patient's soul has been seized, the medicine man hunts it
among the demons of the woods, water, or air, and when he has found it
he returns and puts it back in the patient's nshinikanu 'mind, emotions,
etc.'. The patient is expected to regain ztrength at once.
75
Not only does the witch doctor suck, blow, and practice magic, but
anyone may attempt it, though with less expectation of success than a
qualified witch doctor. A young girl with no special power stood on her
platform overlooking the river and blew toward some suspicious looking,
gloomy clouds. There was no tobacco involved. A man explained his ab-
sence from the evening gatherings of the. village by saying that he had
been staying home to suck the demons out of the abdomen of his sick little
daughter.
Exuvial magic is practiced. Reference was made in the mythology to
the mixing of poison with exuviae to cause death. At the death of a
woman, the mother of a large family, imediately she had breathed her
last, the favorite daughter took a knife and pared off bits of the cal-
ouses on her feet, and of her toenails and fingernails, and put them with
her spittle and clippings of the hair from her temples, in a bottle. The
son later told the purpose of gathering the exuviae. The bottle was kept
two days within the house. In the meantime the woman was buried. The
clay in the grave was trampled down firmly, but that on top was pulverized
and spread smooth so that the faintest footprint would show in it. The
family waited a night or two until a print was found on the grave, a foot-
print they knew to be that of the demon which had oaused her death. The
clay containing the imprint was lifted up carefully and added to the con-
tents of the bottle. With the bottle, a cooking pot, and material for a
fire a member of the family then went into the forest. Close by the side
of a catahua tree he kindled the fire, and put on the mixture from the
bottle to cook. When it began to boil, he heard high up inside the tr'ee
a shriek of the demon. Abandoning the pot the man fled home as fast as he
could run, because he knew he had killed the demon which had bewitched his
kinswoman.
A regular schedule of taboos is observed by fathers in order to pre-
vent stated sicknesses from overtaking the children. The taboos apply
both to eating and also to killing. If the father of a child less than
four months old kills a peccary, the child' s abdomen will become rigid,
and it may die. If the father of a child under one year of age kills a
tiger, the child will start and cry out as if frightened, showing signs of
anxiety, and will very quickly die. If a father eats land turtle, the
child will have diarrhea, but will not die. If he kills a lizard, the
child.ts arm and body will swell and he will be sick, but will not die;
however, if the father kills a chameleon the child will die of diarrhea.
Until his child is four years old a father must not kill a rattlesnake,
or the child vwill die.
There are certain birds of omen which seem to be regarded merely as
signs, not as demons which cause disaster. The cries of certain birds
are a warning of death or sickness. In fact, the god Tsla was supposed to
have left the Urubamba and moved off permanently down river because he
heard the call of a certain bird. There is cnle bird which is said to Sing
at night to warn the people that a whiAlLe wil.-. reach the.- village the next
day. Weather is frequeni2y con3idered portortOus, but since the darkness
of a cloudy day is considered to be due to the presence of demons in the
76
air, it is difficult to determine whether the weather conditions are ever
regarded as signs rather than as active agents. A sudden clap of thunder
followed by silence is taken to mean that someone has died.
The life cycle
Children are greatly desired, and to have no children is a heavy
though not uncommon sorrow. Economic security depends upon the growing
family, and, moreover, family ties are so stressed in forms of address and
in designation of an individual that it is awkward to be without children.
There is an herb which is supposed to encourage conception.  It i8 not
thought to cause conception, the true cause being understood.
A contraceptive, a bitter brew, is smetimes given by mothers to
their daughters who have had extra-marital relations. However, even in
those cases the children are wanted.  The father often rorcibly takes the
child from .the mother as soon as it is weaned, and though mother and child
never cease to seek each other's company, the child grows up in the
father' s home. When a couple separates, the father usually claims the
children, unless the couple is still residing with the bride's family,.
in which case the family may defend the woman' s right to her little ones.
Women with many children sometimes take the contraceptive through fear of
pain. It has not apparently been effective.
Details of delivery vary.  According to the account of a young woman,
the mother may go out into the woods alone and kneel. After the baby is
born she calls her mother, who comes with another woman called 'her
watcher', The 'watcher' cuts the cord, and takes the baby to the house
to bathe it. Stories picture mothers bathing new-born infants in the
river.  The informant explained that the mother may prefer to stay in-the
house under her mosquito net with her mother and the 'watcher' present in
the hut. If delivery is difficult, the midwife may grasp the mother
arowud the waist and lift her up, and may massage the abdomen heavily.
According to this informant the father sleeps in a hammock and does not see
his wife or baby for five days. This is contrary to the details observed
during five births.
On only one of these occasions the father absented himself. He and
nearly all the men of the village with him went off on a fishing trip.
A little boy and girl, six and four years of age, were asleep under the
mosquito net where the mother passed the earlier hours of labor. Toward
the end she spent some time sitting outside. Finally she slipped around
behind the net where she would not be seen, and knelt. Before the cord
was cut she roused the two little children and called them out of the
net to see their baby sister. The mother-in-law, who had not been present
before, came in when the baby cried. She brought a heavy stone and set it
on the end of-the cord. Banana leaves were brought for carrying the
placenta. The mother-in-law dug a hole about a foot in diameter and a foot
and a half deep under a tree. I was holding the placenta, and when she
was ready, plumped it unceremoniously into the hole. The old woman picked
77
it up respectfully, turned it, and spread it out carefully before
filling the hole. The mother rested in bed until the next day,
when she went down the steep bank to the river alone to bathe and
wash clothes. Her own mother was not in town.
The men do not always leave the village. One night about
twenty men, women, and children all sat around in a walled house
conversing, as they awaited a birth on the other side of a cane
partition. A young father who had been working away from home
was careful to return to his own village well ahead of time, ex-
plaining that he wanted to be present at the birth of his child
lest "something should go wrong."
Three times I have seen a new-born infant lie shivering on the
floor, while a relative went to call a cord-cutter who had not been
invited beforehand. The baby and placenta were lying on a mat on
the floor, the baby half wrapped in rags. The mother-in-law in one
case, and the father in another, hunted up a ball of homespun cotton
thread, hooked a piece over the toe, aad twisted it to make a strong
enough string with which to tie the cord. Old scissors were picked
up off the floor, and the cord was cut. The mother-in-law soused the
baby all over with warm water and then asked, "What shall I wipe him
with?" Someone found her a rag. After the baby was wrapped it was
put into the net shared by the mother, father, and a two-year-old
brother. The birth took place in a partition of the house divided
by palm bark from the space where other members of the family were
sleeping. They did not came out of their nets, but the fatherts two
sisters came from a house about thirty meters away when they heard
the baby cry.  The family said the baby did not breathe at first
until the mother-in-law "sucked his mouth".
Labor in the cases noted lasted from about four to twenty-four
hours. The mother is very quiet, at the most complaining softly
under her breath.
Either a man or woman may cut the cord. The term 'cord-cutter'
indicates a relationship like that of a godparent to the child.
'Co-ma' and 'co-pa' are used between the parents and the cord-cutter.
The cord-cutter has a responsibility to provide gifts for the baby
from time to time, and to watch out for its general welfare, ana has
also considerable authority, even to the extent of takirg the child
away t'rom relatives who are considered to be mistreating it.
Some babies are given both Piro and Spanish names at birth, al-
though the names are not recognized officially until the naming cere-
mony or festival which occurs during the first year. At that time
another friend of the family acquires formal relationship with the
baby by holding It during the ceremony. Often parets claim that the
baby hes no name un.til after t.he ceremony, althougih. activi.'2y names
may be in use. Nr.es of objects are trequontly giveri, es clf trees,
animals, birds, andi fLsh. A name may be based on personal appearance
78
as Long String, Blacky, Kidney (for a little red fellow curled up), No
Intestines, and Not Big. The name may be humorous as The midget moa-
key' s pet , or Fish' s Tooth. Frequently more than one nickname is
given, each of several relatives using the name of his own choice.
Puberty rites and the accompanying festivities used to be one of
the most colorful features of Piro life, so much so that whenever it
was known that such a ceremony was to be held, local whites would try
to be present. This intrusion, together with the general condemnation
of the rite and festival by civilized neighbors, has resulted in its
discontinuance in the villages nearest civilization. Recently in a
town where whites prevented the usual puberty practices, a girl wearing
European dress painted geometrical designs on the dress over her breasts
to celebrate 'being ready'. No apecial puberty practices for boys were
noted.
Weddings in the past were much more colorful festivals than now,
having been reduced for the same reason as the puberty festivals were
discontinued. However, marriage festivals are still important occa-
sions in which the whole village participates in the preparation of the
yuca, corn, and plantain drinks, the provision of abundant game, and
a night of merry-making with drums and flutes.
After a couple has reached an understanding, the boy asks the con-
sent of the girl's mother, who, according to a text, pretends reluc-
tance, criticizing the girl and predicting that each will throw the
other out. The fellow then makes his request of a male relative, the
father or an older brother, and is referred to the mother. When told
that she has been consulted, the relative remonstrates, criticizes the
girl, and gives a grudging suggestion that they try it out. The boy
then returns to the mother with a stronger request, to which the mother
responds, "We'll make masato." There is usually matrilocal residence
for an indefinite period.  It seems to be a matter of protection of the
bride and of mutual help, rather than of actual bride service. The
son-in-law does the hunting and more active work, and the families hav
fields adjoining if possible. The wife seems to consider herself bound
more to her parents than to her husband.
There is no mother-in-law avoidance, but there is special respect.
The word 'kpashiro' which means 'holy' in religion and 'prohibited' in
marriage relations is said, with an air of reverence, to apply to the
mother-in-law. When a young man took back his wife of whom he was very
fond but whom he had put away for repeated offenses, he explained that
he was taking the girl again because his mother-in-law still loved and
wanted him'.
Extra-marital relations are common both before and after marriage,
though jealousy is intense. Separation and remarriage have been very
common. A list of ten previous husbands or wives is not a unique
record.
79
There have been a few cases of bigamy. Wives are usually success-
tve. In the cases noted, the wives appeared to live together as sisters,
each enjoying the cmpany of the other. Never a sharp word was heard
between them. They cooperated fully in the housework, and went visiting
together, laughing and joking week after week. Then, one day the husbend
and younger wife went hours back into the woods for vine to tie the new
house they "sre building. Sitting on a turtle shell and&stirring the big
black rot of boiling bananas, the older wife suddenly dropped her laugh-
ter like a mask and recounted with great bitterness the woes of being
the older, less-desired wife. From the picture of home-life which she
gave, the lot of the younger woman must have been equally trying. The
serenity of the household was in outward appearance, only.
Marrie-ge of parallel cousins is prohibited. When it was suggested
that a boy marry his paternal uncle' s daughter, his mother said to him,
"Why, would you marry your little sister, your younger father' s child?
You are a very dog. You are not a person at all." A man cannot marry
the daughter nor granddaughter of his parent' 8 parallel cousin. The
grandchildren of parallel cousins are permitted to marry if the two
parents who are descended from the parallel cousins are of opposite sex.
If a man' s wife dies or is separated from him, he may not marry his
step-daughter nor niece by mar,riage, but may marry his wife's sister.
Similarly, if a woman's husband dies or she is separated from him, she
may not marry his son nor his nephew, but may marry his brother.
Many of the customs concerning death have already been described
under the sections on religion and the supernatural. Death seems to be
dreaded less for oneself than for others who may return as ghosts.
"All the dead are evil". A baby in its mother's arms becomes an object
of terror the moment it is dead. However, natural sorrow outweighs
even the fear of the dead. The Piro are not unduly demonstrative, but
family ties are strong and the grief and longing for the dead last
through the years no less than among us.
Burial is necessarily hastened in the tropice. If death occurs
in the night, interment is completed during the following day. If one
dies during the day, the body is usually kept overnight, surrounded
with candles or open kerosene flames to keep off the insects. A rag
is passed under the chin and tied above the head to keep the mouth
closed, and the eyes are pressed shut by hand. The body is wrapped in
a cloth.
When the body is kept overnight a wake is held. A relative by
marriage usually officiates, leading in games and in the serving of the
various beverages. When it is known beforehand that one is about to
die, the women hurriedly make a trip to their fields for manioc, and
all the big pots are put on the fires to boil manioc, plantains, and
corn for the feast. The members of the immediate family withdraw from
the festivities. If a wall separates them, they sit about the corpse.
Otherwise they may hide their grief under their own mosquito nets.
80
One mother sat by the body of her little girl and for hours kept .p
an intermittent chant, "Cholene chur- cholene chun, - cholene chur.."
The words are not Piro, and are in fact contrary to the pattern of Piro
word formation. They may have been carried over from contact with some
other tribe.
If possible a canoe is split up to make a coffin, sometimes closed
only with slats as a crate. If a canoe cannot be spared the body is
bound in a cane mat.
The grave is dug in the woods away from the village. A family or
a couple of related families may have a common burial plot. High
ground that will not be overflowed by the rising river is selected. The
grave is dug about six feet deep. Usually the earth is loosened. with
the machete and tossed out by hand. The immediate family is often left
alone to dig the grave and bury the dead, though the burial of a popular
adult may be attended by most of the village. There is no ritual at the
burial. The body is placed in the grave face-up. The earth is shoved
into the grave by hand, and the near relatives trample it down firmly,
smoothing the top of the heap as has been previously noted. At the
burial of an older woman, mother of a large family, those who went to
the cemetery carried fragrant stalks of sweet basil and stood them
around the grave. This was not done at other funerals. Sometimes a
shelter is erected over the graves, and clay pots and serving dishes
are left by it.
The personal effects of a deceased adult are thrown in the river.
The planted field, canoe, and house belong to the immediate family.
Clothing of a baby who had died were preserved as keepsakes In a closed
can.
The life span is divided by the Piro into six periods. There is a
special term for a new born baby, which may be used up to five months.
Another word designates a baby from five months until the time when he
learns to walk. Childhood is considered to last until puberty, youth
till about the twentieth year. Thereafter the term man or woman is
used until signs of old age appear, and then the respectful but pitying
term 'elder' is employed.
The home
Under one roof may be housed from a single individual to an extended
family of more than a dozen. Usually not more than one young couple at
a time shares the home of the bride's mother. However, a daughter may
stay in her parents' home until she has half a dozen children of her own
growing up with her little brothers and sisters. However numerous the
family may become, they appear to live together in harmony, pleasant-
spoken and considerate of one another. The intimacy and affection amonig
members of the family is very great, probably due in part to the economic
necessity of sharing together the few possessions of the home as well as
81
its labors. There is not a member of the family from the toddler to the
grandfather who does not have a part in caring for the baby, and who
does not watch all of its developments proudly.
Tiny babies spend a good part of each day in hammocks, either the
regular family hamock, or Just a meter of cloth tied at both ends.
If the mother is busy at handwork, she ties a cord to the hammock so
that she can keep it swinging without getting up. When not in the
hammock the baby is usually carried in a painted homespun cotton sling
which passes over one shoulder and under the opposite arm. Activities
are carried on freely by the mother while the baby dangles in the sling.
It is common to see a mother vigorously paddling a canoe while the
little one clutches at her and nurses. Children are treated with affec-
tion, but sometimes with little gentleness. For example, a mother with
a load often catches a baby by one arm to haul it up the notched log to
the platfom.
The baby is fed when it cries or soothed with spanks. After a year
the weaning begins. The plantain drink is substituted for milk. How-
ever, a crying child of more than two years may still be given the
breast as a pacifier, and even a grandmother smetimes offers such com-
fort.
Adults laugh at crying children and otherwise ignore them unless
they are in real need of care. Anger and disobedience are.punished.
Disputes between children (as sometimes between adults) are almost al-
ways examined with the same question - "Who started it?"
The chief Jumped up when two little boys, his step-grandsons, came
into view, scuffling. Papisho, the slighter of the two, about seven
years old, held a short thick stick with which he was boating the bare
back of his slightly younger but huskier cousin, raising welts. The
four-year-old brother of Papisho added a few strokes. The chief deman-
ded, "Who began it?", and upon learning that the one receiving the pun-
ishment had started the quarrel, he sat down and watched with amusement,
interfering only to order the guilty one to throw down a machete he held.
The boy carefully threw it clear. His mother had been following, and
she also stood watching with a smile. A grandmother and aunt of the
two, hearing the rumpus, came running with the same question, "Who began
it?" They stood by watching with satisfaction, once they were satisfied
that Justice was being meted, The one receiving the punishment, though
the stronger and tougher, was evidently unnerved by a sense of guilt,
and took the beating with little more than reflex defensive effort, a
pattern found also in the. settling of adult quarrels among the Piro.
Children are ordinarily spanked with nettles; rarely with vine or
sticks. Mothers frequently strike them in the faces and all over their
bodies with nettles, and they cry loud and long, often standing outside
against a corner post or a cane wall. One case of beating was noted.
Blows as of a heavy board, and the screams of a little girl of about
four, were heard. The listening women were visibly distressed, and
82
commented that the mother was angry.  Both the mother and child were hot
tempered. One father was heard threatening his squalling three-year-old
girl with his leather belt in her mother' s absence. He strode over to
her and picked her up sternly, but cuddled her instead of using the belt.
The punishment with nettles is thorough and painful, and until it
accomplishes the intended Improvement in the child it is repeated,
though not Unsympathetically, since the practice is more than a genera-
tion old. One little fellow of about five disobeyed. While his young
mother went to pick the nettles, he took off over the steep river bank.
For perhaps an hour he evaded her, climbing where only practised little
boys could make good time. Inevitably the mother caught him at last.
The nettling was proportionately long. After a while, the mother was
seated with the little fellow between her knees. They must have spent
a full hour in quiet conversation, ending on very good terms. The
little boy' s conduct was noticeably improved. The children of this
family are especially well behaved, and the atmosphere of the home is
pleasant.
Scolding is not ccmmon, though some parents employ a humorous sar-
casm with their children. "I didn't hear you, mother." "Well, maybe
you speak Spanish so that you didn't understand me." Both with children
and with adults the Piro speak of 'counselling' those at fault. A good
many of the views of propriety are considered to have come to them as
the counsel of their ancestors, and they pass it on.
It is the custom in giving a command to a child to end with, "Gwu
pchinanu" - "Say o.k.", leaving the child ccmmitted to obey. One aged
man used the same technique with his somewhat younger wife.
The relationship of stepchildren is usually very affectionate,
though it cannot stand quite as heavy a strain as that of sons and
daughters. Fathers do not always feel as fully responsible to provide
clothing for stepchildren as for their own offspring, especially if the
child's own father is living in the vicinity.
The authority of the home is shared by both the father and mother.
Decisions affecting the eonomy of the family as a whole are usually
left to the father. Both parents seem to feel complete responsibility
for the conduct of the children, even after the children are grown and
do not recognize the authority of the home. Adult sons and daughters
seem to respect the mother' s opinions and desires more than those of
the father.
Etiquette
Basic to courtesy among the Piro is the assumption that they are
all one close-knit family. A guest received is a member of the family
welcomed home. Formalities are few, but practical hospitality is gen-
erous.
83
Whether a traveler stops in passing or a neighbor comes from the
next hut, the women offer big bowls of the plantain drink. Men are
served first, beginning with the elder. Women are given the bowls next,
but hold them to the children' s lips before they themselves drink. Any
special fruit or treat of any kind is shared with the guests.
*One who arrives after a prolonged absence is greeted in plaintive
intonation with the voice raised to falsetto. He replies in equally
querrulous tones, and the conversation may be sustained at such a pitch
for an hour before subsiding to the normal conversational level. The
visitor asks for the vital statistics of the village, and is told in
great detail all that has happened to his relatives since last he was
among them. Whenever a death or serious illnese is mentioned the ques-
tion is quickly asked., "Who blew?" In his turn the visitor reports the
news of his own settlement, and of any others he may have passed in
travelling.
If the visitor's feet are chapped from being in the water, the
women prepare genipa dye' and paint his feet for him. The best food is
served him, and his canoe is filled with supplies for the remainder of
the trip. If he has with him fresh game or fish caught along the way,
he is happy to bring it to his hosts. He is welcome to stay as long as
he wishes in the home which he visits.
One time a woman was away from her house when her nephew and a
canoe load of others stopped in on a trip past her village. The nephew
hunted her and called, but she did. not hear, and so hospitality was
provided in the home of more distant relatives. The aunt, when she re-
turned to the house and learned of the visit was humiliated to tears,
and days later was still grieving and explaining why she had not heard
the call.
Often when there are no guests from outside the village, the resi-
dents of two or three houses join together for meals. The men sit on
a platform apart, and are served first. The women serve themselves and
the children as soon as they have served the men. To eat, they sit
around the serving bowls or lie propped on an elbow, and scoop the food
in their cupped fingers with a motion toward themselves.
Except for a hasty snack the food is not served in the kitchen,
but is carried to the platform. When a family eats alone, the man is
served first but he does not sit apart. Bather the whole family forms a
group about the bowls on the platform. In fact one man and his bride
made a very cozy picture taking turns dipping out of the same bowl.
Smetimes the smaller children of two or three years who find it hard to
wait for the family meal are given their bowls of food before even the
father is served.
Men do not sit on the same benches nor on the floor in the same r6w
with women, unless they are next to their own wives. There is no show
of galltry toward the women, but there is a practical consideration
84
of their comfort and well-being. Piro women carry loads beyond the capa-
city of white women, but there is a definite limit beyond which a weight
is considered a man' s load. So is there a recognition that certain
tasks are too difficult or too disagreeable or dangerous for women. Piro
men have been pictured walking out of the planted fields carrying only
their weapons while the woman struggled under a load of produce and the
weight of her baby besides. The fact is that fathers frequently put the
babies on their own shoulders, and carry the heavier loads; however, on
a trail where there is danger of vipers, jaguars or other beasts, or
where there is hope of sighting game, the man precedes carrying only his
weapons. No doubt the wcman would much prefer that to his stopping to
unfasten and set down a load before settling with a viper in the path.
Often when a woman finds some particularly good firewood which is too
hard for her to cut, or too heavy to carry, she goes home without it
and sends her busband back to bring it for-her.  The woman for her part
performs countless small services for the man. Whatever they lack in
formal manners is offset by practical kindness. No Piro is willing to
see another distressed nor embarrassed.
Recreation
The Piro play as enthusiastically as they work. Occasions for
evenings of merry making are frequent. Birth, naming, puberty, marriage,
holidays, visits of friends, the return of relatives, or any happy cir-
cumstance may be celebrated by the whole village together. Beverages of
various kinds are prepared. Everyone wears his best, whether native
style or European type of dress. Drums, flutes, and panpipes are played
throughout the evening.
If the night is moonlit, there are outdoor games. Most of them ax
adapted from the Spanish. A variation from drop-the-handkerchief is a
game in which the individual who is 'it' throughout the game carries a
lash with which he strikes at the one who has been tapped and must run
around the circle. In three-deep, likewise, anyone caught napping is
given a stinging snap of a piece of cloth. There are ponderous games
of tug of war in which the village is divided by choosing the side of
the sun or moon, usually with enough prompting to keep the sides fairly
even. Cat and mouse is played, beginning with the cat' s questioning the
mouse as to what he is eating, and the mouse' s silly reply that he is
eating rubbish or something else unappetizing. There is a very popular
Jaguar game in which the women are enclosed by benches arranged in a
square where they huddle screaming while some of the young fellows come
up roaring like jaguars andd arag them off. The whole point of the game
seems to be the thrill of Imagining being seized by a jaguar.
If the night is dark, indoor games are played. A favorite is an
adaptation of "El Gran Boneton". Instead of numbers, fiames of plants
are assigned to the players. When his name is called the player feigns
surprise, "I?"  "Yes, you're the one."  "I'm not the one."  "Who is?"
And the player calls the name of another plant. More riotous is a
85
blindfold gam. The master of ceremonies sits on a bench with the bliri-
fold draped across his hands. The one who is it must stoop over so that
his eyes are covered by the blindfold and the hands. Usually the mas-
ter-of-ceremonies grips the temples to prevent peeking. Someone from tide
circle of players slip8s up quietly and pokes the blindfolded one, at-
tempting to give the impression that the poke is from another direction
than that from which he came. After the player has resumed his .position
and innocent expression, the blindfold is released, and the one who is
"it" is supposed to guess who poked him and haul that one out by the ear
to be "it".  If his guess is wrong he himself is returned by the ear to
put his face back in the blindfold.  Another game is "Pige Fly".  The
leader waves his arms like flapping wings and says, "It flies, it flies)
the swallow," "It flies, it flies, the rabbit", etc. The players are
to flap their arms when a bird or flying insect is named, but are out
of the game if they continue to flap when a mammal is named.
An attractive game is sometimes played by a group seated in a very
close circle on the floor with knees drawn up. Usually a young girl is
"it", not being stro'ng enough to avoid the position. All the players
hold out the palms of their. hands flat, toward the center of the circle.
She stands as rigid as a board and falling back against the hands, is
passed from one to another, pivotting on her feet. Whoever lets her
down must be "it" in her place.
The twenty-eighth of July (Peruvian Independence Day) and New
Year' s Day, as well as special occasions are celebrated by one- or
two-day holidays. The popular beverages are prepared in great quanti-
ties to be served in the various homes. All dress in their best and
spend the days visiting and playing.
Soccer has been learned from the Atalayans. Perhaps the skill
with which the balls are bounced from the heads of the players is
carried over from a native sport. The rules of the game, however, more
or less follow those observed by the whites. The gam   is called 'fut-
bol' and there is a 'golkipe'. In one game a 'golkipe' had recently
been appointed to serve as a policeman by the officials of Atalaya. He
had made himself a polished billy-club, and he carried it with official
dignity throughout the game.
Last year basket-ball reached Atalaya, and was promptly introduced
in the Piro village of Belen. The general idea of the game was pretty
well understood, but the players tackled as in soccer.  Once when the
goalkeeper saw the ball about to ring a basket he put his shoulder to
the post and rocked it back with such force that the ball glanced off.
Often on a holiday a man or woman dresses up as a "devil" and
chases the children for their entertainment.  Sometimes the costum  is
Just a shapeless mass of rags with a cloth mask. At other times the
'pagotko' appears wearing a clay mask with a beak-like nose extending
back over the top of the head. Sometimes alligator teeth are set in
like fangs, or the mask may have monkey' s teeth.  Either the geometrical
86
design is painted on the face, or red anato maybe smeared around the
orifices of the eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears. Tufts of corn-silk
may be used for beard, moustache, eyebrows, and tufts under the eyes.
The 'pagotko' wears a shaggy barrel-shaped "dress" of dried banana
leaves tied on with strips from the center of a fresh banana leaf. The
'pagotko' carries nettle and playfully threatens the children. They
alternately follow shouting saucily, and flee.
Sports and games are not reserved only for holidays. Often when a
group of men gather for some community work, they end the day together
with a game of soccer.
Very frequently the whole village gathers informally for an evening
of games or stories such as have been described, or for conversation
which is an absorbing art with the Piro. The form of speech of many in-
dividuals is so distinctly stylistic that for the study of graa    it
is often possible to pick out an informant whose speech will be charac-
terized by the particular gramatical form to be studied. In conversa-
tion for conversation' s sake, the men especially enjoy using stems of
Spanish words with Piro inflection.
Whether several families join together, or each family group is
in their own homes, there is a time of rest in the evening called "the
cooling off". When the evening meal and the chores are all finished
everyone sits down to relax for a while before going to bed. If they
are very tired, they may just sit pensively for a while and then retire.
Otherwise a lively evening of entertainment may grow out of the relaxa-
tion.
Many items of adult recreation have been copied from the whites.
Children' s play, on the contrary, is distinctively Piro, partly be-
cause a large proportion of it is imitation of the adult's routine ac-
tivities. Little boys spend hours with their tiny bows and arrows.
As soon as they can toddle about with the bow in their hands they begin
to shoot at lizards, birds, and minnmowe. They are accustomed from the
second year to have knives and machetes in their hands. Often they cut
down banana or palm leaves and set up tiny play-houses, where the little
girls keep house. The jungle is so damp that no one seems aware of any
danger from fire. Little girls who can hardly walk steadily pull brands
from the fire to kindle their own play hearths. When the mother makes
clay pots, the little ones have modeling clay to play with. While the
mother does the family wash in the stream, the children splash around
her.
Older children spend a good part of a hot day in the streams or
in the river. Most of them swim well. The boys often have small canoes
of balsa or cedar. Besides the canoes intended for the water, children
often have toy oanoes a meter to a meter and a half in length with
which they play about the house. Older brothers and sisters pull them
alone the ground, giving rides to the babies.  The little ones sit in
their toy canoes by the hour playing that they are paddling or poling,
or rocking the Canoes.
87
Children old enough to care for themselves play in the forest, climb-
ing for fruit and flowers, and chasing butterflies, squirrels, monkeys,
and birds. They make whistles of the tubes encasing the pistils of fin-
fin vine blossoms, Play bean crops are harvested from the bolsa quihua.
The fruit of the avilla is brought home, its pithy sections dried and
strung on twigs, which are stood upright in the earth. The pith is
lighted at night and each twig burns like a bright candle for about
five minutes. One vine funishes tendrils that loop to form bubble
pipes, and lathery sap which serves as soap so that the children blow
bubbles.
The boys make ingenious little pop guns from papaya leaf stalks.
A tapering, hollow stalk iL cut in about a 25 centimeter length. A wad
of fiber or pith is inserted in the tube and pushed from the larger to
the narrower end with a little rod. Then a second wad is inserted in
the larger end and pushed through with the rod until enough air pres-
sure has accumulated to cause the first wad to pop out with s    force.
Shuttle-cocls made by impaling nuts on the quills of bright-col-
ored feathers are tossed into the air. Tops are made by driving pegs
through large, heavy nuts. The tops are spun by winding and throwing.
Boys play lassoing and snaring with bark rope.
The cat's-cradle is made by passing the loop across the palm of
the hande, with the thumbs and little fingers outside the loop. With
each middle finger the string across the opposite palm is picked up.
Then with the mouth the lowest outside strand is pulled across the top
of the cradle until it swings down below the cradle. It is brought on
around so that it makes a complete loop and is hooked over the right
thumb. In the end there is a single loop over every other finger ex-
oept the right thumb which has two loops.
Kinship recognition and teknonymy
Relationship among all Piro is designated by kinship terms. In
the few cases in which actual kinship is not traced, as when members
of a distant community immigrate, relationship is arbitrarily assumed
until the families have been sufficiently fused by marriage to provide
real kinship terms.
For each general term designating a relative, there is a corres-
ponding shortened form used as a vocative, and used also in familiar
reference, as in talking to a child about his brother or his uncle.
The following chart gives the general forms in the first person pos-
sessive, followed by the vocative forms in parentheses. In each
horizontal line, the larger figures represent the older relatives.
Brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law are shown on the chart as ad-
dressed by the vocatives 'shte' or 'wwil', used of younger relatives,
or those of descending generation. If those of the ssm generation
88
are actually older, the form yeye (older brother or sister, etc.) may .be
used. The Piro desire to appear young, and sometimes complain that rel-
atives incorrectly use the form of address appropriate to elders. Women
use the same kinship terms as men, except for 'my sister-in-law', which
is nyejewlo (magi), and 'my brother-in-law', which is nomeknatjiru (mek-
natjiru).
The use of names is generally avoided. Parents are called 'shte's
mother' or 'shte' s father'. In case of ambiguity the child' s name may
be substituted for 'shte'. Husband and wife may address each other in
this way, or may use an affectionate abbreviation of either the Spanish
or Indian name. In referring to a family or group of people it is com-
mon practice to say 'they - Pipipi', using the name of the youngest of
the group.
Social organization
Each village or settlement has a chief called 'our big one'. He
has no material advantage over the other men of the village. He directs
activities involving the whole group, or any subgroup of which he is a
party, as the father does his household, but he does not use his posi-
tion for personal advantage. For example, he may assign a group of men
to their positions in a canoe, but in no case has a chief been observed
seated with the paddle in the poop, nor taking it easy if there are ex-
tra men along. Rather he poles and works very hard. However, a chief
has been known to assign a favorite younger brother to the easy place in
the poop.
Chieftainship is not hereditary. Any man who, because of leader-
ship ability, personality, superior education, prominence in treating
whites, etc., can gain a following, may tell his friends that he is
starting a village in such and such a place, and invite them to live
with him. The amount Of authority exercized by the different village
chiefs varies-considerably. In some villages, it would be difficult to
discover by observation which man of the village was chief. They are
ordinarily not addressed by title, but by kinship terms. However, some
chiefs are treated with noticeable deference, and are frequently consul-
ted. Even these chiefs generally issue orders in the same manner that
equal members of a family tell each other what they want done. However,
one chief was definitely commanding, though not unpleasantly so. One of
the milder, persuasive chiefs explained that if a man were guilty of a
misdemeanor, he would order him beaten. No instance of beating by order
of a chief was noted.
Punishment inflicted by the offended party or his family seems to
be the accepted way, A husband beat his wife with a heavy five-foot
pole for suspected adultery. He grabbed her by the hair and beat her
on the back so that she was helpless for weeks, and unable to turn her
head freely for months. The children screamed hysterically, and neigh-
boring women scolded among themselves, insisting that their friend was
89
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C g~. older
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innocent, but no one interfered. A male relative some months later re-
marked that if it were not for certain awkward circumstances, he would
beat the wife-beater. After he cooled off, the husband claimed to have
beaten his wife because she threatened to take poison because of his ac-
cusations. The man was himself severely beaten by a couple of brothers
who had a grievance against him. Their pretext for the beating was that
he had moved a post they set up; however, it was generally assumed that
they had some further, unstated reason.
About a year later, the same woman demonstrated another form of in-
dividual law-enforcement. She heard that her husband had visited a cer-
tain woman across the river, and she said with righteous indignation,
"I went to her, and I pulled her hair." It seems to have been a formal
administration of justice. The wife took witnesses. And it seems to
have been effective. The woman who had offended was still tearful and
half-sick some days later.
However serious offenses may be, and however severely they may b.e
punished, good relationships are soon restored. Life within the tribal
group is too intimate for grudges to be tolerated. "We forget with re-
gard to each other," they say. Incest, adultery, stealing, and anger,
in the order named, are regarded as the most serious crimes. Of these,
only the second ard last are common.
For the one case of incest noted, no punishment except expressions
of horror was inflicted. The guilty chief voluntarily withdrew from his
village and his shame and evident anguish of spirit are a warning to all
the tribe to adhere to the stated restrictions. The girl, his step-
daughter, died, apparently from grief.
Except among very small children, who were punished, no case of
theft has been noted among the Piro who have remained in their own com-
munities. A few who have passed considerable time with outsiders have
been accused of theft. Property rights are rigidly respected. A child
who finds a pin or a dim scrap of mirror will carry it to the chief in
order that he may find its owner.
Most of the family possessions are assumed to be the common proper-
ty of the whole family, but for pleasure the parents sometimes make
gifts of livestock, pottery, or other objects to the children. If the
egg of shte'ls chicken is sold, shte goes along and himself receives the
price.
Only that which has been purchased is paid for in trade among the
members of the tribe.  A Piro can take anything from another's planted
field, though he must first ask the owner. Fish and game are freely
distributed, unless salted, in which case the price of the salt is
necessarily replaced.
Toward the close of the second term of adult education in Huiau,
we saw the first instance of commercial advertising among the Piro.
91
Alexander went from house to house throughout the village posting a hand-
written sign by the doorways. It read:
Tomorrow it will die, a pig.
There will be a price for its flesh.
The price will be S/ 2.00 only each weight (kilo) of its flesh.
(Signed) Alexander's animal
Relationship_with other tribes
The dealings actually observed between the Piro and members of other
tribes have been kindly. The Machiguenga, Shipibo, Campa, and Amahuaca
passing the Piro villages sometimes stop in to ask for food. Whites
would be charged, but the other Indians are given generous supplies with-
out a price because "they also are poor". Canoes of Piro and other In-
dians meeting on the river exchange gifts of supplies. Certain indivi-
duals of the other tribes are well known in the Piro villages, and make
extended visits, enjoying the free hospitality of their hosts. As has
been noted, there is a great deal of intermarriage.
Apart, however, from actual contacts with individuals, the attitude
of the Piro toward surrounding tribes has not been friendly until within
the last three or four years.  There are Campa, Machiguenga, and Amahu-
aca slaves who were stolen in raids. Some are still little children, in-
dicating that the practice has not been long discontinued. These elaves
are actually treated as members of the family. They apparently are
taken by men who lack children of their own. When they grow up they
marry members of the tribe and are entirely free.
One old Piro man told how he stole Amahuaca women:
...There I finished my rubber work. Down on the Shimbillo River
I stole Peccary People. Three women I grabbed. The men fled. We
took them up river. By night we traveled. Then their people fol-
lowed us. All night we kept watch. Their husbands wanted to at-
tack us and kill us, but we watched for them. Four days we tra-
velled up river. There one of the women fled from us. She fled at
night, leaving right while we were watching. We followed her in
the night. She hid in a bamboo patch. It was a dark night. Them
we deceived her. I whistled, and she answered, thinking it was
her people. There I seized her and took her back again. In the
morning we flogged her. Then we went up river again. Two days wa
travelled. On the third day her husband caught up with us and
took her away. She was happy when she saw her husband. Then we
said to her husband, 'Why didn' t you come out? That' s why we took
your wife. Why did you flee?" Her husband said, "I was afraid.
That's why I didn't come out. Now I'm going to take my wife. Now
don't be angry."
92
The Piro are not always the aggressors. They have in the past lived
in fear of attacks from neighboring tribes. One evening in 1949 the im-
aginative chief of our village informed us that he was expecting an at-
tack that night. He had a list of reasons. Some months before a Campa
chief had said that he was fleeing to the Puris because he had seen a
great number of Amahuaca up the Sepahua River preparing for war. The
chief said that he knew personally that there was unrest among the Ama-
huaca, and that Amahuaca ' spies' had been seen in the woods near another
Piro village upriver. Two canoes of Amahuaca had just passed us that
afternoon, and at the same time seven carbine shots had been fired in
the woods. No Piro in the nearby villages had a carbine, and no Piro
would shoot more than once or twice. The chief drew a sketch of a large
footprint with broad toes which he said was an Amahuaca print, and a
much smaller, more slender print which he said was typically Piro. He
assured me that they would be able to identify the Amahuaca's prints in
the woods the next day. In the meantime, he said, they would lie awake
all night listening for the snapping of a twig, and all the men would
be instructed to have their bows and arrows near at hand. The other
men did not appear to be particularly worried. I was not quite at ease,
and lay awake in my hamock until I heard a deep snore from under the
chief' s net, a much bigger snore than his little wife would be capable
of producing. Later we learned that a white hunter had fired the shots
in the wood. The chief made no further comment about the incident.
Tribes less known are regarded with amused contempt, or are the
subject of tall stories. A girl wrote home, "Itm here laughing at the
Shipibos." The Mascho, according to the Piro informant, have no lan-
guage at all. They are extremely cruel. In fact, they pour kerosene
on their children and burn them. Other tribes are described as plunder-
ing and stealing. However, since the outlook of the Piro has broadened
in the last few years, they take a much friendlier attitude toward other
tribes, calling them 'our brothers'.
Relationship with the whites
The attitude of the Piro toward the white in the past has been a
mixture of dread and envy. Their experience had been mostly with those
who traveled up their rivers to exploit them. When explaining a word
for 'affliction' one chief said, "Yes, it is an affliction that my little
boy was born blind. And then again, when a white comes to live in one
of our villages and we can't get rid of him, that's affliction."
Whites are mentioned as ogres to frighten children into obedience.
Martfn was wearing soldier's trousers, a little too sma11, and comical
without leggings or shoes, but he was proud of them. When a little girl
refused to be coaxed into his arms, he said with twinkling eyes, "You're
afraid of me? You think I'm a white in these trousers?"
There are several words which mean slave and were used of the re-
lationship of the Piro to the white even up to most recent times. Rep-
resentative of the words is "a sufferer", "a poverty stricken one",
93
"a bitter one".  Civil guards are referred to as "nettles".   These words
are little used now since debts are being cancelled and the government
is making the-Piro aware of their rights as citizens.
The whole attitude of the Piro toward the white has been undergoing
a change. One of the first reactionseto the,beginnings of education was
the loss of the painful feeling of shame with regard to the use of the
tribal language.  Perhaps the sight of their own laguage written, as
well as the discovery that languages are numerous..-nd varied, has helped
them.  Contact with government officials has provsd..to them that all
whites are not their enemies. Also, since they are now able to handle
their own accounts, they feel at ease in bringing-their produce to Ata-
laya and Pucallpa for sale. Oranges, watermelons, rice,,beans, chickens,
and pigs  have becom  a source of income.
The effect of their happier relationship with the whites, and the
awareness of their own part in their republic, has not inclined the Piro
to abandon his picturesque tribal customs, folklore and art, but rather
to awaken an intense pride in all that is Piro. He has determined to
master Spanish, to know his country, and take part as a citizen, but at
the same time there has been a renewal of interest in the tribal arts.
Drama is being revived.  Children are being taugt the pottery, weavin,
beadwork, and designs of the tribe with much greater pride and confi-
dence than they were a few years back. The aged and young alike are
begging to have their folktales, myths and recent history recorded, and
are reading with great delight all that is written in their language.
94
IENDNOTES
(1) The data on which this paper is based were gathered in eastern Peru
during the periods of January to March, 1947; September, 1947 to April,
1950; and October, 1951 to May, 1953. Various informants of the
settlements on the Urubamba river contributed to the data. Grate-
ful acknowledgment is made to my colleagues of the Sumier Institute
of Linguistics for their many valuable suggestions, and especially
to Miss Joyce Nies who gave editorial assistance and typed the
manuscripts.
(2) Words underlined are in regional Spanish, or in words given as
Spanish by the Piro informant.
95
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carrasoo, Francisco
1901      "Principales palabras del idio  de las tribus de
infieles Antis, Piros, Conibos, Sipibos," Boletfn de la
Sociedad Geografica de Lima, Vol. 11, pp. 205-211, Lima.
Vocabulary made in 1846. Gives about 170 Piro words.
No key to phonetics.
Coriat, G., Juan E.
1943      El hombre del Amazonas y ensayo monografico de Loreto.
2nd. ed., Librerfa Coriat, imprenta, Lima.
Gives extensive material on the various tribes of
Loreto, including some interesting pages on the Piro.
It is a bit misleading because the material may be
assumed to be up-to-date, appearing in a book recently
issued, whereas the greater part of it is copied from
the writingis of Franciscans, 1883 or earlier; Fry,
1890; Samanez y Ocampo,1885; and other early writers.
Comisio6n General del Censo
1940      "Cuadro estad{atico de las tribus de la  monta  del
Peru, seguin los informes enviados a la Comision General
del Censo, por los maestros de escuela y jefes de las
guarniciones militares," Baluarte, Junio, pp. 8-9.
Mentions two locations where Piro have settled. Of
doubtful value, since there is no adequate means of
taking census.
Farabee, William Curtis
1922      Indian tribes of Eastern Peru. Papers of the Peabody
Museu of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,
Vol. 10, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Errors in vocabulary and ethnological detail. Not a
picture of the Piro of today.
96
Fry, Carlos
1889
La ;    region de los bosques; o, rlos peruanos navega-
bles: Urubamba, Ucayali, Amazonas, Pachitoa ;y Palcazu.
Diario de viages Z exploraciones...en 186, 188   y 188.
2 vols., Imprenta de B. Gil, Lima.
Perhaps the most extensive original material found on the
anthropology of the tribe. Fry's home was in the region,
and he travelled quite extensively through Piro terri-
tory, visiting secluded Piro dwellings, and chatting
with Piro guides and canoemen whose confidence he seems
to have held. For about two weeks he stayed in a Piro
village. However, the observations made there do not
represent too well contemporary.Piroculttle traits.
Fry does not'discus-'the tribe consistently;  often the
reader finds that without notiace .e has hifted to a
discussion of. the "iiftdele"1n. gQneral),
Fuentes, Hildebrando
1908
"Apuntes geograficos, historicos, estad?sticos, polfti-v
cos y sociales de Loreto...,"  Colecoi6n.der*!,
decretos, resol uciones y otros documentos oficiales,
referentes al deiartmento de Loreto..., edited by Carlos
Larrabure y Correa, Vol. XVI pp. 139536, Vol." XVII
pp. 3-278, Lima.                       '    .
Fuentes' viewpoint was that of an official and commer-
cial agent, located somewhat down-river from Piro terri-
tory, but interested in all the tribes, both for busi-
ness and for humanitarian r.eaons. He apparently made
few first-hand observations of the customs, but knew the
history of the region thoroughly. His comments are
brief but interesting.
Izaguirre, Bernardino
1922-1929 Historia de las misiones Franciscanas . narraci6on de
..                  .  . ~~~~~~~ie-t   -d l   j r .. ... .
los pr2gresos de -la gogzaf aeneLoriente del Pe
-  vo  .,; Lima..t i    atle -and publisher vary)
Papers of various Franciscans, compiled.by Padre Fray
Bernardino. Izaguitite'. Tomo Decimo Tercero gives' the
vocabulary of Padre Agustfn Alemany, 1883; he lived in
a mission among the Piro for two years and prepared a
vocabulary of about 1,775 words. He gives no key to
his phonetic system. He tells in the prologue of his
97
I
.,
.,I
difficulties with the gramar, which he was not able to
work out. Little anthropological data is given in this
series, the contacts having been made, with few excep-
tions, by the Indian  ccng in to the mission. Material
on the Piro is of 1883 or earlier.
Ortega Ricuarte, Daniel
1940      La o    del Amazonas.  2nd. ed., Editorial Centro,.
The paragraph on the Piro gives only such observations
as are made in passing quickly through the region.
Osambela, Claudio
1897      "El oriento del Peru,"  Boletfn de la Sociedad Geografica
del Perul, Vol. VI, Lima.
Material superficial.
Raimondi, Antonio
1862      Ariuntes sobre la 4vnoia litoral de Loreto. Tipogra-
ifa Nacional, por M. D. Cortesi, Li     Publicada a
expensas del,gobierno.
Raimondi was a highly honored scholar, much quoted in
writings pertaining to eastern Peru. He did not tell
much about the Piro.
Sma nez y Ocampo, Jose B.
1885      Exraci6n de lon rfos Peruanos, A        c, Eni, Tambo,
Ucanj) Z Urubamba: diario de la expecio.        Lima.
Samanez made a voyage through Piro territory, and had
some experience with the Piro. Part of his information
was given him by residents of the district. His material
is extrely interesting, and is much quoted by other
writers,.
98
Schwab, Federico
1942      Bibliograffa etnologica de la Amanonia Peruana, 142      .
Compa7'ia de Impresiones y Publicidad, Lima.
Comprehensive, and conveniently arranged.
Sotomayor, Jose Antonio
1901      "Relacion de los infieles del Ucayali,"  Bolet!n de la
Socieded Geogafica de Lima, Vol. X, Nos. 7, 5, 6,
pp. 171-178, Lima.
One paragraph on the Piro, from observations made on a
trip through their territory.
Tizon y Bueno, Ricardo
1911      La hoya Peruana del Madre de Dios... Tipograffa de
"La Opinion Nacionalf   Lima.
Brief mention of the Piro in a list of tribes.
Uriarte, Buenaventura de: Dominguez, Fernando; and Gridilla, Alberto
1942      En el IV centenario Amazonico y la Orden Franciscana.
Only passing mention of the Piro, as in a list of tribes.
(Editor's note: We apologize for the fact that some of the above refer-
ences do not comply with the usual bibliographic standards for the
Papers. In these cases, it proved impossible to amplify the information
given by Miss Matteson. Authors are urged to follow the bibliographic
method exemplified in previous issues of this publication.)
99