Yagua Blow Gun

[Tam]

Again great

[Carolina Hunter]

That’s an awesome piece and a great story!!

[Tam]

Yes that is not something you see every day . Great artifact . The meat eater ( Netflix ) actually has a segment on going down into an area and the blow guns . More about fishing but the locals did get a monkey and it shows the preparation.
He said he found it a bit hard to eat a primate but all in on these shows . Worth watching .

[antmike915]

I would've done the same thing

[Narrow Way Knapper]

I find it interesting what different cultures find acceptable or repulsive when it comes to food. A friend of mine said that he enjoyed eating dog meat when he was living in the philippines. I think if you get hungry enough, your palate changes.

I was visiting my Ashanika friends one time and they had a pot sitting in an open fire. I walked over and lifted the lid and there were a bunch of fish heads staring back at me. I put the lid back and told them that I had just eaten and was quite full. They had a good laugh about that.

[antmike915]

Hearing all this monkey meat talk reminded me of that scene in Temple of Doom where those people were eating Monkey Brains, Beatles ect... As a child I was highly disturbed by that. I saw that movie again a few years back and fast forward through that part and if I ever see it again I'll do the same.

[painshill]

Side note: Capybara is a deliciously large guinea pig looking creature. We ate it a lot when we lived in Venezuela. It's usually dried and salted, and then pounded and cooked so it's not too different than some dried cod/bacalao or cheap canned tuna if it's doctored up. Fresh it's a bit like pork, but can be really gamey if any of the greasy fat under the skin is left on.

It's a popular Easter/Lent meal in many Catholic countries where they are supposed to avoid meat during certain celebrations. In the 1600's people described the animal to an Archbishop, and since it lives in and around water & has webbed toes, it was classified as a fish and therefore edible during lent! (I think beavers were classified as fish in Poland for Catholics for a while.)

Big Anacondas are built to eat them, where you find one you almost always find the other. (Most kids on cattle ranches know not to swim in ponds where there are capybara.)

Yes, historic decisions from the Catholic Church were often driven by necessity rather than zoology. The dispensation that eating beaver meat was acceptable on Fridays in Lent first arose in the 17^th Century in Canada when Francois de Laval (the first bishop of Quebec) put the question to his superiors in Paris.

There have been numerous other ‘local’ decisions, including for capybara, but also reptilian animals with a predominantly aquatic lifestyle such as alligators and also things like muskrat and birds such as the puffin. The decision on capybara was later ratified (perhaps a poor choice of word) by a Papal Bull in 1784 and still stands today, as does the decision for beavers. The Pope only had a second-hand description to go on.

Stretching things a little further, when St. Patrick’s Day happens to fall on a Friday in Lent there have been dispensations that the traditional Irish Corned Beef & Cabbage is acceptable, albeit in some cases with a requirement for a day of penance.

[SDhunter]

I’m with Marshall. Going to start dumpster diving.

[Sugaree]

Very cool NWK thinking I need to include trash cans on my hunting excursions.

[clovisoid]

Side note: Capybara is a deliciously large guinea pig looking creature. We ate it a lot when we lived in Venezuela. It's usually dried and salted, and then pounded and cooked so it's not too different than some dried cod/bacalao or cheap canned tuna if it's doctored up. Fresh it's a bit like pork, but can be really gamey if any of the greasy fat under the skin is left on.

It's a popular Easter/Lent meal in many Catholic countries where they are supposed to avoid meat during certain celebrations. In the 1600's people described the animal to an Archbishop, and since it lives in and around water & has webbed toes, it was classified as a fish and therefore edible during lent! (I think beavers were classified as fish in Poland for Catholics for a while.)

Big Anacondas are built to eat them, where you find one you almost always find the other. (Most kids on cattle ranches know not to swim in ponds where there are capybara.)

[redrocks]

Cool post knapper!

[Narrow Way Knapper]

Well, so much for my plans to open a chain of Monkey meat restaurants. 😉

[Josie]

That's a great artifact! I'll pass on the monkey, lol.

[Narrow Way Knapper]

Thanks for your input Painshill. I was hoping you would chime in. I actually found a total of three blowguns in the trash can. The other two look quite different from the one I recognized. One is very short I was guessing a child's. I'll try to get some decent pictures some time.

[Narrow Way Knapper]

I'm guessing that the missionary either died and family members chucked it in the trash, or they were moving to a nursing home and figured it wouldn't be allowed.