BOTH] HEROES 129 



have left, it too long. It stinks." However, they let loose their fish, as they thought 

 it was, and carried it down to the riverside to wash and clean it. After they had 

 washed it, one of the Hebus said, "Let us slit its belly now, and remove the entrails," 

 but the other one remarked. "No, let us make a waiyarri (basket) first, to put the flesh 

 in." This was very fortunate for Kcrorouianna, who, seizing the opportunity while 

 they went collecting strands lo i>lait with, rolled down the river bank into the water 

 and so made good his escape. But when he succeeded in landing on the other side, 

 he was, in a sense, just as badly oS as before, not kno\ving how to get home. 



36. Kororomanna next came across a man's skull lying on the ground, and what 

 must he do but go and jerk his arrow into its eye-ball? Now this skull, Kwa-muhu, 

 was a Ilebu, who thereupon called out: "You must not do that. But now that you 

 have injured me, you will have to carrj' me." So Kororomanna had to get a strip of 

 bark, the same kind which our women employ for fastening on their field quakes, 

 and carry the skull wherever he went, and feed it too. If he shot l)ird or beast, he 

 always Iiad to give a bit to Kwa-muhu. with the result that the latter soon became 

 gradually and inconveniently heavier, until one day he became so great a dead weight 

 as to break the liark-strip support. The accident occurred not very far from a creek, 

 and Koioromanna told Kwa-muhu to stay still while he went to look for a stronger 

 strip of bark. Of course this was only an excuse, because directly he had put the 

 skull on the ground, he ran as fast as he could toward the creek, overtaking on the 

 way a deer that was running in exactly the .same direction, swam across, and rested 

 himself on the opposite side. In the meantime Kwa-muhu, suspecting that he was 

 about to be forsaken, ran after Kororomanna, and seeing but the deer in front of him, 

 mistook it for his man and killed it just as it reached the water. On examining the 

 carcass, the Hebu exclaimed, when he got to its toes (Sect. 126): "Well, that is indeed 

 very strange. You have only two lingers;" and though he reckoned again and 

 again, he could make no more — "but the man I am after had five fingers, and a long 

 nose. You must be somebody else." ' Now Kororomanna, who was squatting just 

 o\ei on the opposite bank, heard all this, and burst out laughing. This enraged 

 Kwa-muhu, who left the deer, and made a move as if to leap across the creek, but, 

 having no legs, he could not jump jiroperly, and hence fell into the water and was 

 drowned. AU the ants then came out of Us skull. '^ 



27. Poor Kororomanna was still as badly off as before; he was unable to find his 

 way home. But he bravely kept on his way and at last came upon an old man l)ailing 

 water out of a pond. The latter was really a Hebu, whose name was Huta-Kura- 

 kura, ' Red-back ' (Sect. 99). IIuta-Kurakura, being anxious to get the fish, was bailing 

 away at the water side as hard as he could go, but ha\'ing no calabash bad to make use 

 of his purse [scrotum], which was verj' large. And while thus bending down, he was 

 so preoccupied that he did not hear the footfall of Kororomanna coming up behind. 

 The latter, not knowing what sort of a creature it was, stuck him twice in the back 

 with an arrow, but Huta-Kurakura, thinking it to be a cow-fly ( Tabanus), just slapped 

 the spot where he felt it. When, however, he found himself stuck a third time, he 

 turned round and, seeing who it was, became so enraged that he seized the wan- 

 derer and hurled him into a piece of wood with such force that only his eye 

 projected from out the timber. Anxious to be freed from his unenviable position 

 Kororomanna offered everything he could think of — crj'stals, rattles, paiwarri, women, 

 etc., but the Spirit wanted none of them. As a last chance, he offered tobacco, and 

 this the Hebu eagerly accepted, the result being that they fast became good friends. 

 They then both emptied the pond and collected a heap of fish, much too large for 



' The account given of Kororomanna's doings in this paragraph forms the complete story of an unnamed 

 Indian, as related by the Caribs, who give the name Pupombo to the Skull Spirit, 



= Ehreoreich refers to the many examples of such individual giant heads or skulls in the North American 

 legends (PE, 71). 



15961° — 30 ETH— 15 9 



