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Amazonian Tribes Blowpipe
 


Photograph of a hunter using a Amazonian tribes blowpipe (also called a blowgun or blow tube) in the Amazon jungle.   Studies by scientists have found that Amazonian tribes prefer blowpipes to shotguns while hunting small prey such as monkeys because blowpipes are silent and do not scare away nearby prey, thereby allowing more monkeys to be more successfully hunted.  In addition, poison darts are more efficient in that the poisoned prey falls to the ground as the curare causes their muscles to relax, rather than remaining clinging to a tree branch high in the rainforest canopy.  Another advantage of blowpipes is pure economics; shotgun shells are expensive while poison darts are essentially free.  Interestingly, scientific studies have shown that the harvest of monkeys when using blowpipes is four times that of using shotguns. Because bows and arrow are  distinctly inferior to the blowpipe for hunting arboreal prey, bow and arrow hunters are more likely to abandon traditional Amazonian tribe methods and adopt modern shotguns than are blowpipe hunters.  


 

 
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Photograph © Copyright 2007-2008 Jacek Palkiewicz,  all rights reserved
Text © Copyright 2007-2008 Amazon-Tribes.com,  all rights reserved, Amazonian Tribes Blowpipe