Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10904
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Picture-writing of a mandiocca-oven and quiver
Date
13 December 1853
Creator
Richard Spruce (1817 - 1893, British) , Explorer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 222mm
width (drawing): 176mm
width (drawing): 176mm
Subject
Geography
> Exploration
Art & culture
> Archaeology
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
> Exploration
Art & culture
> Archaeology
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
Description
Two picture-writing figures or pictograms labelled 'E' and 'G' found carved into rock at Laja de Capibara, River Casiquiari.
Reproduced as Figure 16 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace, volume II (London, 1908).
Of the many picture-writing or rock-pictures Spruce observed on his travels the origin of 'G' seemed clear to both himself and his guides. 'G' represents a mandiocca-oven, a large circular dish of fireproof pottery, supported on a wall of mud masonry which has an opening on one side ‘a’ into which the fire is put, and another at the opposite side ‘b’, which serves as the flue. ‘c’ is a brush of piassaba (a palm) used to sweep the oven before a cassava cake or farinha is spread out to bake, ‘d’ is the palm-leaf fan for blowing the fire, and ‘e’ is a stage or shelf. ‘f’ is either the mandiocca-grater or, more probably, a flat piece of board used to raise the edges of the cassava cake to turn it over. Spruce notes these articles are in use throughout a vast extent of country on the Orinoco and Casiquiari.
Figure 'E' was thought by Spruce's guides to be the quiver for holding the darts of the blowing-cane.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent some fifteen years studying and collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849 and 1864.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Reproduced as Figure 16 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace, volume II (London, 1908).
Of the many picture-writing or rock-pictures Spruce observed on his travels the origin of 'G' seemed clear to both himself and his guides. 'G' represents a mandiocca-oven, a large circular dish of fireproof pottery, supported on a wall of mud masonry which has an opening on one side ‘a’ into which the fire is put, and another at the opposite side ‘b’, which serves as the flue. ‘c’ is a brush of piassaba (a palm) used to sweep the oven before a cassava cake or farinha is spread out to bake, ‘d’ is the palm-leaf fan for blowing the fire, and ‘e’ is a stage or shelf. ‘f’ is either the mandiocca-grater or, more probably, a flat piece of board used to raise the edges of the cassava cake to turn it over. Spruce notes these articles are in use throughout a vast extent of country on the Orinoco and Casiquiari.
Figure 'E' was thought by Spruce's guides to be the quiver for holding the darts of the blowing-cane.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent some fifteen years studying and collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849 and 1864.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Associated place