FABLE AND FOLKLORE 107 



engulfed in a flood that left exposed only a hilltop where 

 grew some tall cocoanut palms. The heavenly leader, 

 Sigu, conducted all the animals to this hill and made such 

 as could go up the trees, while others were placed in a 

 cave sealed water-tight with wax. (It was during that 

 long, distressful waiting in the palm-tops that the howl- 

 ing-monkeys perfected the agonizing quality of their 

 terrific voices.) Finally the waters subsided and the 

 agami (the trumpeter, Psophia crepitans) ventured too 

 soon upon the ground in search of food ; thereupon hordes 

 of starved ants, issuing from their half-drowned nests, 

 swarmed upon its legs, then of respectable size, and so 

 nearly devoured them that only the sticklike shanks now 

 characteristic of the bird remained. Sigu rescued the un- 

 fortunate agami, and then with infinite trouble kindled a 

 fire with a spark that the maroodie (or guan, a fellow- 

 bird with the agami of South- American barnyards) had 

 snapped up in mistake for a shining red insect. The guan 

 tried to shift the blame for this sinful error upon the 

 alligator but failed to do so, for his own guilt was be- 

 trayed by the glowing spark that had stuck in his throat, 

 as one may see by looking at any guan to-day. 



Another instance of the misfortunes of the trumpeter 

 is related by Leo Miller 53 as he heard it among the 

 Maquritari Indians who live on the headwaters of the 

 Orinoco : 



In the very beginning of things a trumpeter and a curassow 

 [a near cousin of the guan] decided upon a matrimonial 

 alliance, but domestic troubles soon broke out, and there was no 

 possibility of a reconciliation; it was thereupon decided to lay 

 the case before the gods who live on the summit of Mount 

 Duida. The wise gods ordered them to fight it out. In the 

 course of the combat that followed the curassow pushed the 

 trumpeter into the fire, burning off the feathers of the latter's 



