Note 25 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Several kinds of palm-leaves are used for this purpose, and whichever was most easily procurable in the district where the house was built would be used by the tribe. Hardenburg mentions the leaves of the Phytelephas macrocarpa, the vegetable ivory-tree, as in use among the Witoto, and the Bactris ciliata or Chonta palm for the posts and rafters (p. 135). The leaves of the Bussu palm, Manicaria saccifera, will make a thatch that lasts for ten or twelve years, by some accounts (cf. Waterton, p. 479).