Until the thirties, the only weapon used by the Achuar for the war and the bigger game was the lance of palm wood, nanki. Indeed, the blowpipe is never used to kill men and it seems that neither it has been used in the past. Measuring two meters twenty, more or less, the lance was used in the body-to-body combat or thrown from a distance. In these two uses she was endowed with a tip in triangle or diamond form (patu nanki) cut in the palm wood mass or constituted of a metallic piece. Wrought especially for the indigenous use, the lance's tips were then object of an intense trade in the High Amazons. The lance used in the hunt generally possessed a sharp shard at the extremity to assure the taking. From the Second World War, the firearms that carry out an identical function with a much bigger effectiveness have supplanted the lance.

The Achuar is at the moment located in the point of intersection of two areas of diffusion of different types firearms. The most archaic pattern is the ramrod shotgun with apparent trigger (akaru, of the Spanish arcabuz), handmade in the Sierra of Ecuador. This antique shotgun, which is loaded by the mouth, is obtained from the Shuar in exchange for blowpipes or curare. On the other hand the modern shotguns (gauges sixteen) began to spread from the fifties, introduced in Ecuador by Peruvian Achuar. With very few exceptions, all the Achuar men possess a shotgun of one type or another. In general the ramrod shotgun (shuar akaru) it is used in the western portion of the territory, where regular exchanges exist with the Shuar, while the bolt loaded shotgun (mayn akaru, shotgun of the Maynas") the oriental Achuar who maintain contacts with Peru, equips others. Achuar considers the cartridge shotgun, with reason, to be more reliable and more effective than the ramrod shotgun since the operation of the last one is very capricious at times. Exposed to a rain, a ramrod shotgun runs the risk of not being able to be used in the decisive moment, if the fulminate or gunpowder are wet. Also the need to recharge it by mouth constitutes a very serious disadvantage if one is under the enemy's fire or when a first broadside of pellets disperses a flock of monkeys or pecaries. On the other hand, if the pellets are appropriate to the target, the force of impact of the two weapons differs little, since, in the hunt like in the war, it is always shot closely.

The main inconvenience of the firearms is evidently the difficulty to be supplied in ammunition when one is remote from the center of business and you depend on informal circuits of exchanges. This way, a cartridge of caliber sixteen manufactured in Ecuador, is changed by retailers against a pecari skin; that is to say that it's cost is exactly redeemed, however with the condition of not using it for a commercially inferior or worthless pray. The ramrod shotgun is of more economic use, but also needs a stable source for pellets, gunpowder and fulminates by means of a partner Shuar that lives to vicinity of the colonization front. Confronted with that state of things, Achuar prefers then to use their shotguns mainly for the war, and to save ammunition, in order to not be without firepower in the event of being attacked in their house. Also, the privileged use of the shotguns in the war generates an unexpected consequence about the modalities of its use for the hunt. Indeed is forbidden to consume any pray knocked down by a shotgun previously used to kill a man, According to a taboo called kinchimiartin. The infraction of that nutritious prohibition engenders they say, very painful colic. In other words, when a man has murdered an enemy, he cannot use his shotgun for the hunt; then he should try to exchange it for another, with preference by means of middlemen that will make it go to a distant region where the reasons of the transfer will be ignored. All homicide deprives who has made it of the use of firearm to hunt.

The consequences of this suspension are not dramatic, because most Achuar has perceived the immense superiority of the shotguns over lances in the warlike encounters; on the other hand the advantage provided in hunt is not decisive. The blowpipe is very adapted to the hunt in low forest covering and few animals that cannot be reached easily by means of the arrows with curare. Some Achuar evokes the use, in an uncertain past, of bows and arrows, equally for the hunt and war. Although a term exists Achuar to designate the bow, tashimiuk, its use among the Jivaro will have been very marginal, since the columnists and the ethnographers very few times mentioned its presence. According to the Achuar, the bow have fallen in disuse as a consequence of the multiplication of the blowpipes, which is more effective and easier of use. The blowpipe is very polyvalent that can be used, with the same effect, against the big terrestrial mammals (except for the tapir) as for the smaller birds. The critical factor here it is the degree of toxicity of the hunt poison and not the range of the weapon or its impact power. Anointed with a good curare, two arrows nailed in the loin of a pecari is enough to cause its death in five to ten minutes. An experienced hunter can shoot half dozen of arrows in few seconds and to riddle this way the animal before it escapes.

The density of the forest vegetation and the reduced reach of the ramrod shotguns impose apart from this to shoot as closely with a firearm as with a blowpipe. The shotgun only has a real advantage if the curare available it is of bad quality or when one pursues an animal. Indeed the blowpipe is uncomfortable to use in the moment that is necessary to harass a running pray through the entanglement of overgrowth. Its length is such that it is difficult to point it in the opportune moment to make a quick shot. Also, it is quite heavy when caught by both hands near the end; in a position of horizontal shot, all its weight rests then exclusively on the hunter's arms. The blowpipe is much easier of using vertically, which is to say to reach a climbed hunt, being placed directly under it: throwing the head back, the hunter supports the weight of the weapon with all his body. The other evident advantage that presents the blowpipe for the hunt with climbed shot of a group of monkeys, is its absolute silence that allows to deadly reach several individuals before the alarm is given; it is not the same thing with a firearm.