118 AKIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ANN. 30 



have not even in their language any suitable term to express the 

 Divinity, still less the homage and respect due to Mm (PBa, 218). 

 The pi"esent-day British Guiana Carib name for God is identical with 

 that just given, Tamosi-Kabutana, Old Man-Sky [Kabu = the Sun], 

 figuratively The Ancient of Heaven, or simply Tamosi, without par- 

 ticularizing. But this word is undoubtedly the same as tamucJii, the 

 Cayemie Carib term for the head-man or chief of a tribe; it serves 

 also to designate a grandfather (PBa, 218). The same remark 

 perhaps may be applicable to theos, the word given by Gumilla as 

 the Betoya word for the Divine Person, recognizable in the terms 

 tuchao (Cr, 372) and tusliaua (IIWB, 241, 244), the name given to the 

 chief, head-man, of the tribe or nation, in the upper and lower 

 Amazons, respectively. Koch-Griinberg (ii, 82) talks of Tuschaua 

 as being Lingoa Geral. Wallace (348), too, says that the IncUans of 

 the Ajnazon appear to have no definite idea of a God. The Arawak 

 terms for the Christian deity alsb show signs that they have been 

 adapted to express a conception to which they could have been intro- 

 duced only within modern times, a statement which is made advisedly, 

 because in none of the Ai'awak myths and legends relative to the Crea- 

 tion, even in those published by clerics, is there a single reference to 

 the All-Maker (Br, 58) under the term of Wa'cliinachi, Our Father, 

 Wa'murretakuon(na)chi, Our Maker, or even Aiomun Kondi, Dweller 

 on High. It is very noteworthy that the same discrepancy as to the 

 alleged word for God is at once apparent in almost all the Creation 

 myths of the other tribes that so far I have managed to unearth: for 

 example, the Warrau word (ScR, ii, 515) Icwarisaharote , really intended 

 for hwaresa ba-arautu, meaning literally 'on-top belongiug-to.' The 

 only exception perhaps would seem to be the Warrau Kanonatu, Our 

 Maker (IT, 366) , referred to by Brett in liis Warrau story of the origin 

 of the Caribs (BrB, 62), where its introduction is certainly suspicious. 

 "Some [of the Orinoco] tribes, Father Caulin tells us, considered the 

 Sun as the Supreme Being and First Cause; it was to him that they 

 attributed the j^roductions of the earth, scanty or copious rams, and 

 all other temporal blessings; others, on the contrary, believed that 

 everything depended on the influence of the moon, and conceived, 

 when she suffered an eclipse, that she was angry -with them.' ' (FD, 51 .) 

 It is known that the Chaimas, Cumanagotos, Tamanacs, and other 

 original tribes of the Carib people, worshipped (adorahan) the Sun 

 and Moon (AR, 185). For perhaps the most extraordinary con- 

 ception met with, however, concerning ideas of a Supreme Being, I 

 would quote the reply given to Acuna (97) by a cacique of one of the 

 Amazon tribes: "He told me liimself was God, and begotten by the 

 Sun, affirming that his Soul went every night into Heaven to give 

 orders for the succeeding Day, and to regulate the Government of the 

 Universe!" The Tupi language, at least, as taught by the old 

 Jesuits, has a word, tupdna, signifying God (HWB, 259). And so 



