cutia

Updated: May 25, 2025

This instrument is used by all the Indian tribes on the Upper Amazons. It is generally nine or ten feet long, and is made of two separate lengths of wood, each scooped out so as to form one-half of the tube. To do this with the necessary accuracy requires an enormous amount of patient labour, and considerable mechanical ability, the tools used being simply the incisor teeth of the Paca and Cutia.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

We breakfasted heartily when our cutia was roasted, and washed the meal down with a calabash full of the pure water of the river. After breakfast the dogs found another cutia, which was hidden in its burrow two or three feet beneath the roots of a large tree, and it took Raimundo nearly an hour to disinter it.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

A Cutia next appeared: this is also a rodent, about one-third the size of the Paca; it swims, but does not dive, and I was fortunate enough to shoot it. We obtained in this way two more Pacas and another Cutia. All the time the dogs were yelping in the forest. Shortly afterwards Raimundo made his appearance, and told us to paddle to the other side of the island.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

He then singed and prepared the cutia, finishing by running a spit through the body and fixing one end in the ground in a slanting position over the fire. We had brought with us a bag of farinha and a cup containing a lemon, a dozen or two of fiery red peppers, and a few spoonsful of salt.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons