282 Indigenous Strategies Used to Domesticate Plants in Brazilian Amazon The Discovery of Useful Plants and Acquisition of Interesting Varieties In the eyes of ‘‘civilized’’ society, it is difficult to understand the process of discovering uses for plants The Indians experiment with almost everything new that they find in the forest or that is brought to them by white people As presents, they like receiving new plant species and varieties, such as the exotic plants that have recently been introduced in their cultures The Kayapo´ Indians are very fond of mango, an Asian tree, and plant the seeds everywhere (Kerr and Posey, 1984), as the Nambiquara Indians Some Indians describe methodologies for discovering the usefulness of plants by employing concepts that are difficult to understand; for example, an Indian explained to me that the discovery of papo-de-peru plant (Aristoloqia sp.) served as an antidote to snake venom because of the fact that ‘‘its flower looked like the skin of a snake.’’ It is common for them to risk their lives for discovery Among the Hahaintesu group of the Nambiquara the ingestion of the aril of seeds of a Philodendrum sp (Figure 3), the latex and fruit of which they recognized as very poisonous and capable of causing death was witnessed They would split the fruit and with tweezers carefully remove the seeds so that they were not contaminated by the latex and then place them in their mouths to suck the arils, doing so carefully so as not to bite the seeds, which were later discarded These Indians eat tarantulas (Setz, 1991) after singeing them to remove hairs that can cause irritations to the skin (in this case, in the mouth) They also cook and eat the tuberous stalk of a plant of the genus Zamia, which if eaten raw causes a strong headache (Figure 4) Apparently, the process of discovering a plant’s usefulness is by trial and error since the analogies between aspect and use are not logical From the amount of information existing on edible and medicinal plants, one may imagine how many lives were lost and pains felt by these intrepid researchers Domesticated plants are generally described as having ‘‘appeared’’ through some myth Among the Hahaintesu group of the Nambiquara there is a myth that describes the origin of man, whose head was the gourd (Crescentia cujete L.), whose teeth were the corn (Zea mays L.), whose ear was the lima bean Figure Philodendrum sp., a poisonous species whose seeds are removed from the fruit with the aid of tweezers and the aril is sucked carefully so as not to bruise the seeds, which are also toxic (Phaseolus lunatus L.), whose bones were the manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz), and whose scrotum was the cara´ yam (Dioscorea trifida L.) (Figure 5) In the Kayapo´ myth, corn was acquired from the stomach of a rat that lived in an enormous tree in the middle of an area that was being prepared for planting; the strength of the entire tribe was needed to fell the tree (Lukesch, 1976) Another Kayapo´ myth mentions that sweet potato, macaxeira, and banana were brought by the ‘‘daughter of the rain’’ who came down from the sky, became an ordinary Indian, married, had children, and during a time of hunger returned to the sky and brought back these species that were then cultured so that the tribe never again went hungry (Lukesch, 1976) Others describe useful plants as being inherited from conquered people The Tikuna recognize that many of the obviously domesticated fruits were already present when they arrived, possibly derived from the Omagua Indians, whom they expelled (Ailton Krenak, Unia˜o das Nac- o˜es Indı´genas, personal communication), or they negotiated with other tribes (among the Hahaintesu group of the Nambiquara there is a variety of manioc called the ‘‘manioc of the Wassuso,’’ a tribe from the same linguistic group that became practically extinct – in 1985, there was only one elderly woman of this tribe) Figure Indian boy of the Hahaintesu group of the Nambiquara showing a plant of the genus Zamia, whose tuberous stalk can only be eaten cooked When ingested raw, it causes a strong headache