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Day 9:

We spent the night in another Piaroa village. On the next day we got a special honour. A few Piaroa took us to cave with old symbols painted on the stone. It had been eight years since their last visit of this cave (eight years ago their shaman has been died because of an overdosage of Yopo). Image View
We couldn't measure the age of the paintings but we think they look very old- maybe back to the beginngings of the tribe. You could recognize some different animals (some showed turtles) and human beings. Mostly painted in a red colour.

An important animal for the Piaroa -as well as in their mythology- is the tarantula. The tarantula is chased with a stick which is used for imitating an insect. Then the spider is put on the stick, fried and eaten. We could also observe the Piaroa hunting some small birds with their old weapons. Besides our being impressed by the accuratness of the blowing, the indians didn`t have much luck for hunting on this day. They only shot three very small birds. And they found one tarantula which unfortunately was too small for chasing.


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