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Updated: June 23, 2025
Many have doubted the strength of the wourali poison. Should they ever by chance read what follows, probably their doubts on that score will be settled for ever.
The two ends proposed have been obtained. The Portuguese inland frontier-fort has been reached and the Macoushi wourali poison acquired. The account of this excursion through the interior of Guiana has been submitted to thy perusal in order to induce thy abler genius to undertake a more extensive one.
They rise eight or ten feet from the ground, in a spiral form, impenetrable to the rain and strong enough to defy the severest tornado. The wourali poison procured in these last-mentioned huts seemed very good, and proved afterwards to be very strong. There are now no more Indian settlements betwixt you and the Portuguese frontiers.
You are now within the borders of Macoushia, inhabited by a different tribe of people, called Macoushi Indians; uncommonly dexterous in the use of the blowpipe, and famous for their skill in preparing the deadly vegetable poison commonly called wourali. It is from this country that those beautiful paroquets named kessi-kessi are procured.
In the neighbourhood of the Lake Parima, the Macusis, as well as other tribes, have their homes. The former are noted for being the manufacturers of the celebrated wourali poison described by Waterton. Numerous other tribes, or sections of tribes with different names, exist in the far interior, both westward and to the north and south.
Salt it undoubtedly was; and we now first learned that salt is an antidote to the wourali poison. People, indeed, who eat salt with their food are but little affected by it; while it quickly kills savages and animals who do not eat salt. We had seen as yet no signs of habitations, when Duppo stopped and pointed through an opening in the trees.
Having thus found the necessary ingredients, he scrapes the wourali vine and bitter root into thin shavings, and puts them into a kind of colander made of leaves; this he holds over an earthen pot, and pours water on the shavings: the liquor which comes through has the appearance of coffee. When a sufficient quantity has been procured, the shavings are thrown aside.
The act of preparing this poison is not considered as a common one: the savage may shape his bow, fasten the barb on the point of his arrow and make his other implements of destruction either lying in his hammock or in the midst of his family; but if he has to prepare the wourali poison, many precautions are supposed to be necessary.
The wourali and other poisons mentioned by Humboldt have, since the publication of this work, been carefully analysed by the first chemists of Europe, and experiments made on their symptoms and supposed remedies. I had myself no direct and sufficiently convincing proof of the action of this specific; and the experiments of Delille and Majendie rather tend to disprove its efficacy.
But this was its last advancing step: life was ebbing fast though imperceptibly, nor could this singular production of Nature, which has been formed of a texture to resist death in a thousand shapes, make any stand against the wourali poison. First one fore-leg let go its hold, and dropped down motionless by its side; the other gradually did the same.
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