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‘The Adventists teach, for example, that you should not eat rabbit. Of course, there are no rabbits here but a large rodent called a labba is roughly equivalent. Unfortunately, labba-meat has always been one of the favourite foods of the Indians and forbidding it was quite a blow to them. There is a story that a missionary once came across one of his Indian converts cooking a labba over a fire. He told the Indian how sinful it was.
‘“But this not labba,” the Indian said, “this fish.” “No fish has two big front teeth like that,” replied the missionary crossly, “you speak nonsense.” “No, sir!” said the Indian. “You know how, when you first came this village, you say my Indian name bad name, and you sprinkled water over me and say my name now John. Well, sir, I walk in the forest today, I see labba and I shoot ’im, and before he die, I throw water over him and I say ‘Labba is bad name, you now fish.’ And so now I eat fish, sir.”’
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Although we had not actually set eyes on the beast, we had at least spoken to a man, who employed a logger, who had met an Amerindian, who had eaten one. It was really, I insisted, quite a narrow miss and there was every chance that the rewards I had asked the German to tell the Pole to mention to the Amerindians, would be enough to persuade them that a giant armadillo could be converted into something more valuable than a few pounds of rather tough stewing steak. We might get one yet.
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Adventures of a Young Naturalist by David Attenborough
(a 2017 republication of an 1950s account of a "Zoo Quest" expedition)