266 BIRDS AND MAN 



Guarani consented, and for many years they lived 

 together in peace and amity like one family, until at 

 last there came a quarrel to divide them. And it 

 was all about a parrot that could talk and laugh and 

 sing just like a man. A woman first found it in the 

 forest, and not wishing to burden herself with the rear- 

 ing of it she gave it to another woman. So well did 

 it learn to talk from its new mistress that everybody 

 admired it and it grew to be the talk of the village. 



Then the woman who had found and brought it, 

 seeing how much it was admired and talked about, 

 went and claimed it as her own. The other refused 

 to give it up, saying that she had reared it and had 

 taught it all it knew, and by doing so had become its 

 rightful owner. 



Now, no person could say which was in the right, 

 and the dispute was not ended and tongues con- 

 tinued wagging until the husbands of the two women 

 became engaged in the quarrel. And then brothers 

 and sisters and cousins were drawn into it, until the 

 whole village was full of bitterness and strife, all 

 because of the parrot, and men of the same blood for 

 the first time raised weapons against one another. 

 And some were wounded and others killed in open 

 fight, and some were treacherously slain when 

 hunting in the forest. 



