KOTH] CREATION OF MAN, PLANTS, AND ANIMALS 143 



of the various trihas, the b(>]ief becomes more and more prominent 

 that Mankind — and by Mankind each Indian means the original 

 ancestors of his own people — was originally derived, with or without 

 the assistance of pre-existing agencies, from various animals and 

 plants, from rocks, stones, and rivers. 



53. Among various animal forms, "tigers" (jaguars) and snakes 

 constitute the commonest sources from which peoples claiming an 

 animal pedigree have been derived. Carib history furnishes excellent 

 examples in tliis respect, because we have records not only of what they 

 themselves tliought about their own origin, but of what other peoples 

 also believed concernmg it . Thus the Achagua maintain that the Caribs 

 are legitimate descendants of tigers . . . cluivi in then- language sig- 

 nifies a tiger, whence they deduce cltarinari, "arising from a tiger, ' 

 wliich is their term for a Carib. Other branches of the Achagua 

 explain the term more satisfactorily thus: chavi in their language is a 

 tiger, and chavina is the spear, lance, pike, pole, and from these two 

 wortls, "tiger" and "pike," they derive the word chavinavi, as being 

 the children of tigers with pikes (G, i, 112). 



5-t. The Salivas say that the son of Puru conquered and put to 

 death a horril)le snake that had been destroj-ing and devouring the 

 nations of the Orinoco; but that as soon as the monster began to 

 putrefy, certain large worms began to develop in her entrails, and 

 that from each worm th(>.re finally arose a Carib Indian and his 

 woman; and that in the same way that the snake was so bloody an 

 enemy of all tlu)se nations, so her children were savage, inhuman, and 

 cruel"(G, i, 111). 



55. The Warrau version, like that recorded by Brett in his Legend 

 of Korobona (BrB, 64) refers to a special water-snake, and the 

 account which I now give is almost word for word as related to me: 



The Origin of the Carles' (W) 



.V Warrau man warned his -sLster not to bathe in a certain neighboring pond at those 

 regnhir periods when she hap]>ened to he unwell (Se<-t. 188). For a long time she 

 obeyed his instnielions, bnt after a time, forgetting all about them, she went to bathe 

 at the forbidden spot and time, and was caught by a large snake, the water-camudi 

 Uamma. By and by she became pregnant. Now it was during the bullet-tree 

 (Mimusops b(lata) season, when the Indians used to cut down the trees to secure the 

 seed, which are excellent eating, and it was noticed that this same woman, although 

 she took no ax away with her in the morning, invariably returned with a large 

 quantity of the delicious seed in the afternoon. The brother, thereupon becoming 

 suspicious, watched her. Unobserved himself, he followed her next day, saw 

 her ajiproach a huge bullet-tree, and saw the Uamma snake (Sect. 244) exeuntem ex 

 corpore feminje, coil around the tree, and make his way up into the to])mo?t branches. 

 There the snake changed into a man, who shook the boughs for the woman, thtis 

 causing the seeds to fall to the srnund, where .she gathered them. Ha\-ing done this, 

 the Uamma, reverting to his original form, descended the tree, and iterum corpus 



