152 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [bth. ANN. 30 



over him, making a thousand apologies for having fallen upon him, and kept him so 

 long below the surface. The cacique Brayaon came to examine the Vjody and jiro- 

 nounced it lifeless; but the Indians still fearing it might possess lurking immortality 

 and ultimately revive, kept watch over it for three days, until it showed incon- 

 testable signs of putrefaction. Being now convinced that the strangers were mortal 

 men like themselves, they readily entered into a general conspiracy to destroy them. 

 [WI, 779.] 



67. Certain of the Indians (e. g., Otomacs) seemingly held the 

 view that, after death, the body or. skeleton itself turned into stone, 

 reverted to the very material from which some of them believed 

 it to have . origmally sprung (Sect. 58). The Atorais regard cer- 

 tain enormous blocks of granite as some of their local warriors who, 

 after death, have been changed into stone (Cou, ii, 346). Hence we 

 must not be surprised to find cases where bowlders (Sect. 171 at seq.) 

 and bones (Sects. 26, 91 ) possess a more or less mdependent animate 

 existence of their own. The transformation of people into rocks 

 and stones by way of punishment, or for other reasons, may be a 

 development of the same belief. Thus, a long time ago, the Caribs 

 came up to the Kirinampo Rocks, upper Rupununi, in order to 

 surprise the Makusi and destroy them from off the face of the earth; 

 but the good Spirit who in those days lived among the Makusis 

 took pity on them, and changed their enemies into these stones 

 (ScR, I, 375). 



68. Having reached a higher stage of belief, and realized that the 

 mateiial body does indeed undergo dissolution at death, the Indians 

 are convmced of a Sjanit or Something, one or more, being set free 

 at the time of its occurrence. I piu'posely say ' ' one or more " because 

 it would seem that originally, not only the shadow, but also the 

 heart, the head, and the more perceptible of all the parts of the body 

 wliere there is a pulsation of arteries, as well as perhaps the blood 

 (Sect. 24OA), the spittle (Sect. 112), the footprint (Sect. 24), and the 

 bone (Sect. 69) were each regarded in the light of a Sphit or Something 

 that was part and parcel of the body, and took its departure at the 

 material death. The Aj-awak present-day conception of this Some- 

 thing is comiected with the person's shadow (Sect. 2-53) ; thcu- terms 

 for a dead person's sph'it and a person's shadow are Qh)iyaloko and 

 {h)iyd, respectively. With these same people according as -this spnit 

 helj)s or harms them, they may qualify the designation by satu- 

 {h)iyalo]io when doing good, or walcaiatu-Qi)iyaloko when domg evU. 

 The hiyaloko, strange to say, does not appear any further in the 

 folk-lore collected by me, unless indeed it is identical with lya-imi and 

 so with Hyorokon, Yolok, etc., the word for a bush spu'it, a term 

 which, as I propose showing (Sect. 94), is met with throughout the 

 extent of the Guianas, from the Orinoco to the Amazon. 



69. The mainland Caribs term a person's shadow ai-akaru, and the 

 spirit resident in his head, his Dream Spirit, oka or dkari (Sect. S6); 

 but after the latter leaves the body for the forest permanently, it is 



