Blow Darts

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Our next trail today we came up the matapalo. It is a strangler fig. Its vines wrap around another tree and ‘strangles’ it until it kills it. Then the vines surround the tree. The tree finally decomposes and the vines become a new tree. We got to go inside the matapalo. Later in the day a few of us asked Ima to show us some of the things the Huaorani use in the jungle. He took us out in the jungle and then grabbed a vine and rolled it into a circle. He used the vine around his ankles for leverage as he climbed the tree. He climbed really far up. We each then attempted to climb the tree. He made it look really easy. It was not. Then Ima taught us how to use the blow dart. He showed us how the Huaorani made the arrows using cotton and sharpened twigs. We made a target from paper and each of us got to try it several times. Pauline was the best at it. I rarely hit the paper.

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Photos

Matapalo
Looking up into the Matapalo