ROTH] HEROES 133 



and anxiety, forgot all about the injunction, and picking out a louse, placed it, as is 

 customary with the Indians, between her teeth. But no sooner had she done so, 

 than she fell dead.' 



34. Old Nanyobo thereupon slashed open the mother, and extrac'ted not one child, 

 but two; a pair of beautiful boys, Makunainia and Pia. Nanyobo proved a dear, kind 

 foster-mother and minded them well. As the babies grew larger, they commenced 

 shooting birds; when still bi^er they went to the waterside and shot fish and 

 game. On each occasion when they shot fish, the old woman would say, '"You must 

 dry your fi.sh in the sun, and never over a fire;" but what was curious was that she 

 would invariably .send them to fetch firewood, and by the time that they had returned 

 with it, there would be the fi.sh all nicely cooked and ready for them. As a matter 

 of fact, she would vomit fire out of her mouth, do her cooking, and lick the fire up 

 again before the lads' return; she apparently never had a fire burning for them to see.- 

 The repetition of this sort of thing day after day made the boys suspicious; they could 

 not understand how the old lady made her fire, and accordingly determined to find 

 out. On the next occasion that they were despatched to bring firewood, one of 

 them, when at a safe distance from the house, changed himself into a lizard, and 

 turning back, ran uj) into the roof whence he could get a good \'iew of everything 

 that was going on. ANTiat did he .see? He not only saw the old woman vomit out fire, 

 use it, and lick it ui> again, but he watched her scratch her neck, whence flowed 

 something like batata (Mimusops balata) milk, out of which she prepared starch. 

 Sufiiciently satisfied with what he had witnessed, he came down, and ran after his 

 brother. They discussed the matter carefully, the result of their deliberations being 

 summarized in the somewhat terse expression, "WTiat old woman do, no good. Kill 

 old woman." This sentiment was carried into execution. Clearing a large field, 

 they left in its very center a fine tree, to which they tied her; then, surrounding her 

 on all sides with stacks of timber, the boys set them on fire. As the old woman 

 gradually became consumed, the fire which used to be within her pas.'sed into the sur- 

 rounding fagots. These fagots happened to be hima-heru wood, and whenever we 

 rub together two sticks of this same timber we can get fire. 



35. The Carib version of the tradition is noteworthy mainly in 

 that the Hero ultimately finds a place among the stars. 



The Si-N, THE Frog, and the Firesticks (C) 



A long time ago. there was a woman who had become pregnant by the Sun, with 

 twin children, Pia and Makunaima. One day the as-yet-unbom Pia said to his 

 mother: " Let us go and see nur father, ^^'e will show you the way, and as you travel 

 along pick for us any pretty flowers that you may come across." She accordingly 

 went westward to meet her husband, and plucking flowers here and there on the 

 pathway, accidentally stumbled, fell down, and hurt herself; she blamed her two 

 unborn children as the canse.^ They became vexed at this, and when she next 

 asked them which road she was to follow, they refused to tell her, and thus it wa? 

 that she took the wrong direction, and finally arrived, foot-sore and weary, at a curious 

 house. This belonged to Tiger's mother, Kono(bo)-aru, the Rain-frog, and when 

 the exhausted traveler discovered where she was, she told the old woman she was 

 very sorry she had come, because she had often heard how cruel her son was. But 



1 For (urther reference to head-lice in legendary lore, see PE, 7S, SJ. 



« I find it to be well known among the Indians that certain kinds of frogs, after dark, can be made to 

 swallow glowing embers, which are then probably mistaken for various luminous insects.— W. E. R. 



> When I suggested to the narrator that the woman went eastward to meet the sun, he emphatically 

 contradicted me, explaining that she went to meet him where he would fall to the earth again, at the 

 distant horizon. — W. E. R. 



