132 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ann. 30 



look and on his return home told his daughtor that he found fault with it. The young 

 couple then went off to inspect the field on their own account; they were much sur- 

 prised to see all the trees and bushes standing there, just as luxuriant as before, 

 little dreaming that Nahakoboni by means of his "medicine" had caused this rapid 

 growth to take place only the night before. Yar had therefore to cut another and a 

 bigger field, and just the same thing happened as before, the old father again expressing 

 himself in terms of strong diisapproval. "How is this?" said Yar to his wife. "I have 

 cut a field twice, and yet the old man is not satisfied with it.' ' She thereupon advised 

 him to cut a third field, but on this occasion suggested, in addition, his jiulling out 

 all the stumps by their roots. Having cut the third field, he started pulling up the 

 stumps; it is true that he started on many, but he did not succeed in jiuUing out one! 

 He fell down exhausted. By and by, his old friend the Hebu put in an appearance, 

 and seeing his distress, offered to do the job for him, advising him to return home 

 at once and to tell his wife that the field was now thoroughly cleared. Nahakoboni 

 went next morning to inspect, and planted the field with cassava, plantains, and all 

 other useful plants; he retm-ned in the evening, but spake never a word. This made 

 Yar suspicious, so getting up early the following day. he was much surprised to find in 

 place of an empty field, a beautiful crop of ripe cassa\'a, plantains, and all the other 

 good thingsthathisbelly might yearn for. But anger still rankled in the old man's 

 breast, so that when his son-in-law started on and completed his other marriage 

 task, the building of a house, the old man a.gain found fault, pulled it down, and said 

 he wanted it built stronger. Yar accordingly rebuilt it with purple-heart — the hard- 

 est timber he could find. Nahakoboni, pleased at last, took charge of the house, 

 and lived there. 



33. Yar, the Sun, was now free to look after his own domestic affairs, and being 

 well satisfied with hisivife, they lived very, very happily together. One day he told 

 her he proposed taking a journey to the westward, but that as she was now pregnant, 

 she had better travel at her leisure; she would not be able to keep pace with him. 

 He would start first, and she must follow his tracks; she must always take the right- 

 hand track; he would scatter feathers on the left so that she could make no mistake. 

 Accordingly, next morning when she commenced her journey, there was no difficulty 

 in finding her way, by avoiding the feathers, but by and by she arrived at a spot 

 where the wind had blown them away, and then the trouble began.' What was the 

 poor woman to do now that she had lost her way? Her very motherhood proved her 

 salvation, because her unborn babe began talking, and told her which path to follow. 

 And as she wandered on and ever on, her child told her to pluck the pretty flowers 

 whose little heads bobbed here and there over the roadway. = She had picked 

 some of the red and yellow ones, when a marabunta (wasp) happened to sting her 

 below the waist; in trying to kill it she missed the insect and struck herself. The 

 unborn baby, however, misinterpreted her action, and thinking that it was being 

 smacked, became veied and refused any longer to show its mother which direction to 

 pursue. The result was that the poor woman got hopelessly astray, and at last more 

 dead than alive found herself in front of a very large house whose only occupant was 

 Nanyobo (lit. a big kind of frog), a very old and very big woman. Saying "how day" 

 to each other, the visitor was asked her biisiness. She was trj-ing to find her husband, 

 the Sun, but she had lost, the road, and she was so very weary. Nanyobo, the Frog, 

 therefore bade the woman welcome, and giving her to eat and drink and telling her 

 to be seated, squatted on the ground close, and asked her to clean her host's head. 

 "But mind," continued the old woman, "don't put the insects into your mouth, 

 because they will poison you." Our wanderer, however, overcome with fatigue 



' In Sect. «S there is mentioned a connection between certain feathers and loss of memory. 

 2 Dance (p. 340) in connection with the Makusi, says, "she pluclied pretty leaves and flowers and placed 

 them in her girdle ... the same as we do now when our pregnant wives travel with us." 



