Manioc-stick Anaconda is one of the ancestral serpents of the He world, named for the pointed stick with which manioc cuttings are planted and so joining the imagery of the snake to that of cultivation. Like the other primal anacondas it travelled the rivers of the Vaupés and, retracing its journey, deposited the founders of the descent groups at particular waterfalls, rocks and stretches of bank that became their ancestral homelands. In this way the serpent's body maps directly onto the human community: the segments of the anaconda correspond to the ranked clans that emerged from it, and the places of emergence anchor each group to the land.