Note 42 — Chapter I · PREAMBLE: ON THE ORIGIN OF WEAPONS.

The French sarbacane, the Italian and Spanish cerbotana, the Portuguese gravatana, and the German Blasrohr (blow-tube) is, according to Demmin (p. 468), arbotana, or rather carpicanna, derived from ‘Carpi,’ the place of manufacture, and the Assyrian (Kane), Greek and Latin κάννα (canna), whence ‘cannon.’ This tube, spread over three distinct racial areas in Southern Asia, Africa, and America, is used either for propelling clay balls or arrowlets, poisoned and unpoisoned. It is the sumpitan of Borneo, where Pigafetta (1520) mentions reeds of this kind in Cayayan and Palavan Islands. The hollow bamboo is still used by the Laos of Siam, and is preserved among the Malagasy as a boyish way of killing birds. Père Bourieu notes it among the Malaccan negrito aborigines, whom the Moslem Malays call ‘Oran-Banua’ (men of the woods); the weapon they term tomeang. It is known in Ceylon, in Silhet, and on both sides of the Bay of Bengal. Condamine describes it among the Yameos (South American Indians); Waterlow and Klemm, in New Guinea, and Markham among the Uapes and other tribes on the Amazonas head-waters. In the New World it is of two varieties: the long heavy zarabatana, and the thinner, slighter pucuna. Finally, it has degraded to the ‘pea-shooter’ of modern Europe. The principal feature of the weapon is the poisoned dart; it is therefore unknown amongst tribes who, like the Andamanese, have not studied toxics (Journ. Anthrop. Inst. p. 270, February 1882).