this is a fascinating topic that keeps resurfacing. As a boy Iremember being read to about the use of curare (also known as "ampi"and many other words) by native peoples of South America. Being at the age Iwas and somehow having landed what was essentially a piece of bathroom copper pipe, Istarted to make paper cones from letter size paper cut in three. These would enter the pipe and briefly thereafter would be shot at great speed at some "moving object" from far away where I couldn't be seen. One of my fondest childhood memories.

Primarily in Colombia, native tribes used to apply Curare to darts that would be shot with bamboo canes. While Ialways wondered about the connection between Prettner's Curare and Matt's Arrow, it struck me later than Matt must have used the mythological Greek connotation of the "poisoned arrow" rather than that from South America. From the little Iknow, Arrow's per se were never used in South America with Curare. In other parts of the world (e.g., Africa), however, derivatives and/or variations of Curare were commonly used with Arrows. Also, the Curare that was used in Colombia was animal (frog) derived as opposed to plant derived.

Here's an interesting Wikipedia extract:

In South America, tribes such as the Noanamá Chocó and Emberá Chocó of western Colombia dip the tips of their blowgun darts in the poison found on the skin of three species of Phyllobates, a genus of poison dart frog. In northern Chocó Department, Phyllobates aurotaenia is used, while P. bicolor is used in Risaralda Department and southern Chocó. In Cauca Department, only P. terribilis is used for dart making. The poison is generally collected by roasting the frogs over a fire, but the batrachotoxins in P. terribilis are powerful enough that it is sufficient to dip the dart in the back of the frog without killing it.

Power to the Arrow build! (I look forward to getting to mine one day...)

David.