26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



Tho second memoir, by Walter E. Roth, who has long been a resi- 

 dent of British Guiana and a student of its aborigines, treats of the 

 religious and mythological behefs of those people. Like Indians 

 generally, the natives of Guiana had no idea of a supreme being in 

 the modern conception of the term. For example, the terms em- 

 ployed by the Arawak for the Christian deity — and the same may be 

 said of the other tribes — "show signs that they have been adapted to 

 express a conception to which they could have been introduced only 

 within modern times . . . because in none of the Arawak myths 

 and legends relative to the creation, even in those pubhshed by 

 clerics, is there a single reference to the All-Maker." According to 

 one writer, some of the Orinoco tribes considered the Sun as the 

 supreme being and first cause; it was to him they attributed all tem- 

 poral blessings. Others, on the contrary, beheved that everything 

 depended on the influence of the moon, while some of the tribes wor- 

 shipped both the sun and the moon. Various writers, evidently 

 misled by certain conceptions derived by the Indians from missiona- 

 ries, have attributed deific powers to Alubiri and Kororomamia, who 

 were in fact tribal heroes of the Arawak and Warrau, respectively; 

 and similar powers have been ascribed to other beings to whom the 

 Indians did not, originally at least, attribute supernatural force. 

 Doctor Roth devotes a chapter to the discussion of the beliefs, tales, 

 and traditions associated with these tribal heroes, one of whom, 

 Amalivaca, is known throughout a region of more than 5,000 square 

 leagues. 



Evidences of a spirit, idol, and fetish cult are very scarce, but they 

 are recognizable in famiUar spirits and in the kickshaws of the 

 medicine-man. Certain ceremonial performances, in which dancing 

 "to the sound of very noisy instruments" (which Doctor Roth iden- 

 tifies as trumpets) is the chief outward feature, were held in front of 

 idols. The same instrument was sounded under palm trees that they 

 might bear abundant fruit. Toads were regarded as sacred and were 

 kept under pots in order to obtain rain and fine weather. By some 

 of the tribes frogs were regarded as the gods of the waters, and, hke 

 the toads, were beaten when rain did not fall. Beyond mention of 

 certain snake dances, there seems to be nothing akm to actual woi-ship 

 and similar ceremonies in connection with these animals. Figurines 

 representing human personages and various animals, including birds, 

 reptiles, and fishes, the author does not regard as examples of a fetish 

 cult, although their real significance so far has not been satisfac- 

 torily explained. 



In the beUef of the Guiana natives man was either brought to the 

 earth from cloud-land or was created here — in the latter case from 

 animals, snakes, plants, or rocks. On the other hand, certain plants 

 were derived from human beings or from bush spirits, or grew upon 



