Food is the dominant problem of an Indian's existence. The food quest is to him no indefinite sociological issue of future “food control,” but an affair of every day. Living, it would seem, in the midst of plenty, starvation is a frequent visitant in an Amazonian household. They are an improvident folk, as I have already stated, and if food be plentiful give no thought to make provision for the morrow, when there may be none to be had. “None” to the man of the forest has a different significance, a more inclusive meaning, than it has to the white man, for it comprehends everything that by the widest stretch of the imagination can be considered possible for human consumption. And it is well for the Indians that they are omnivorous, for the uncertainty of food supply is the most certain factor of life in the Amazonian bush.

To run through the details of the possible provision of meat: there is, to start with, the tapir, though the Witoto consider much tapir is bad, especially for women. The print of its three toes, with a fourth on the forefeet, is very seldom not to be found in the damp soil by stream and river. The tapir is in fact plentiful throughout these regions, though, thanks to its protective colouring, it may often not be obtrusively present.