toes on the cords on the ground, and with their left arms gave the proper tension and inclination to the bows which were at least eight feet long.  With a whirr the poisoned arrows shot forth and, while the cords still twanged, sailed gracefully through the air, describing a hyperbola, fell with a speed that made them almost invisible, and plunged into the animal on each side of his neck a little back from the base of the brain.

The hog dropped in his tracks, and I doubt if he could have lived even though the arrows had not been poisoned.  Tying his feet together with plant-fibres we slung the body over a heavy pole and carried it to the maloca.  All the way the two fellows disputed as to who was the owner of the hog, and from time to time they put the carcass on the ground to gesticulate and argue.  I thought they would come to blows.  When they appealed to me I declared that the arrows had sped so rapidly that my eyes could not follow them and therefore could not tell which arrow had found its mark first.

A few yards from the house my friends fell to arguing again, and a crowd collected about them, cheering first the one then the other.  My suggestion that the game be divided was rejected as showing very poor judgment.  Finally, the dispute grew to such proportions that the Chief sent a messenger to learn the cause of the trouble and report it to him.

The emissary retired and the crowd immediately began to disperse and the combatants quieted.  The messenger soon returned saying that the Great Chief would judge the case and ordered the men to enter the maloca.  With some difficulty the hog was dragged through the door opening and all the inhabitants crawled in after.  The Chief was decked out in a new and splendid feather dress, his face had received a fresh coat of paint (in fact, the shells of the urucu plant with which he coloured his face and body scarlet were still lying under his hammock), and his nose was supplied with a new set of mutum feathers.  He was sitting in his hammock which was made of fine, braided, multi-coloured grass-fibres and was fringed with numerous squirrel tails.  The whole picture was one which impressed me as being weirdly fantastic and extremely picturesque, the reddish, flickering light from the fires adding a mystic colour to the scene.  On the opposite side of the fire from where the Chief was sitting lay the body of the hog, and at each end of the carcass stood the two hunters, straight as saplings, gazing stolidly ahead.  In a semi-circle, facing the Chief and surrounding the disputants, was the tribe, squatting on the ground.  The Chief motioned to me to seat myself on the ground alongside of the hammock where he was sitting.  The men told their story, now and then looking to me for an affirmative nod of the head.  After having listened to the argument of the hunters for a considerable time without uttering a syllable, and regarding the crowd with a steady, unblinking expression, with a trace of a satirical smile around the corners of his mouth, which suited him admirably, the Chief finally spoke.  He said, “The hog is mine.—­Go!”