Chapter V 

 THE BODY .VXD ITS ASSOCIATED SPIRITS 



The Body: Originally considered immortal {63); renovated hy change of skin {64), 

 or 1iy Fountaiu of Youth (65); its immortality put to the test (66), and assured by its 

 transformation into stone (67). 



The Spirits: Several in each body; Shadow Spirits; Head, Heart, and Pulse-beat, 

 Blood, Spittle, Footprint, and Bone Spirits, possessed by both men (68-69) and 

 animals (70): become associated with Dream, Familiar, Forest, Mountain, Sky, and 

 Water, Spirits (7/). 



Stages in Conception of Spirit Immortality shown in disposal and treatment of corpse: 

 attitude in wliidi liuried. etc. (72); flattery and adulation, festivals and feasts (73-74); 

 funiLshing dead willi means of capturing as-sailant (7.5 1: supph-ing dead with dogs, 

 women, ornamenls, hunting and fighting weapon.-,-, and food i76); eating his fiesh and 

 bones (77;; exhuming his remains for witchcraft and prophecy (7S); abandonment of 

 place of sepulture, etc. (79); doubtful animistic indications of other burial customs 

 (SO). 



WTiere spirits take on anthropomorphic forms, they reach their final destination 

 direct (81) or only after certain trials and ordeals (82), but the idea of a future existence 

 dependent on present conduct is very probaljly a borrowed one (83). 



Spirits are Good or Bad according as they help or harm the Indian, and not according 

 to the bodies whence they have been derived; the latter conception is an error into 

 which many missionaries and travelers have fallen — e. g., the Maboya Spirit (84). 



Individuals can be relieved of the presence of undesirable Spirits by use of rattle, 

 by blowing (85). 



63. As with many another savage people, there are traces among 

 the Guiana Indians of an idea of perpetual existence of both body 

 and its contained spirits. On the upper Yary River, Cayenne, when 

 a Roucouyenne piai is buried, the flesh (^tnatiere) and spirit remaui in 

 the grave, to be visited by medicine-men and others, as well as by 

 beasts, for the puqiose of being consulted (Cr, 298). The following 

 is a curious case from Surinam reported by de Goeje (22) : "An Ojaaa 

 woman asked me, when I came agam, to bring her a teremopiiilatop 

 whicli literally means 'die-never implement -for,' so that her little son 

 might be blessed with everlasting life. \Anien I told her there was 

 no such thing, and that everybody had to die, I met with the same 

 extraordmaiy unbelief that Von den Steincn records m liis 'Unter den 

 Naturvolkern' (p. 348)." So also on the upper Rio Negro Koch- 

 Griinberg (i, 197) was appUed to for a panacea (Vniversalsmittel) 

 agaiiist death. 



64. Other phases of this idea of an immortal body are met with 

 m the myths relative to changed skms: the Indian belief is that those 

 creatures which unflergo ecdj-sis live forever. After Amalivaca had 

 lived a lotig while with the Tamanacas, he took his corial to reach the 

 other side of the salt water whence he had come. Just as he was 

 taking his departure he sang out to them, "You will change your 



149 



