162 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ANN. 30 



or friends, they repair to the mouth of the cavern, in order to ascertain -whether their 

 souls have encountered any obstacles, or been allowed m pass. . . . Whatever the 

 fate of the defunct's soul they give themselves up to the same excesses [drink], making 

 no difference but in the nature of the dance. [FD, 129-130.] 



The superstitions connected with this cavern are recorded also by 

 Humboldt (i, 2.58). 



83. It has been mentioned (Sect. 81) that in the case of a spirit 

 taking on an anthropomorphic form there were indications showing 

 that its future state may sometimes depend on the character of the 

 individual whence it had been derived. But mainly for the reason 

 that the more complex ideas on this subject, as will have been 

 recognized from even the few iliustrations already given, are to be met 

 with among those of the tribes which have been longest in contact 

 with Eui'opean influences, I am inclined to the opinion that the 

 belief in a future condition directly dependent on present conduct is 

 not only of comj^aratively late introduction, but is a borrowed one; 

 the purgatorial nature of the ordeals to be successfully undergone 

 by the spirits (Sect. 82) certainly savors strongly of Roman Catholic 

 influences. In a sense this opinion is strengthened by a study of the 

 Orinoco Indians, whose original beliefs have been preserved through 

 the careful investigations of Father Giunilla, one of the very first 

 of the missionaries to labor among them. I have searched his 

 writings in vain for any reference to the doctrine of conditional future 

 reward or punishment, or to that of a jjurgatory. In the same man- 

 ner, on the Aiary (Rio Negro), the Siusi Indians, an Arawak group 

 which has been but little in contact with civilizing influences, appar- 

 ently make no distinction between good and bad spirits, all the 

 members of the tribes after death finding their way to a forest upon 

 high mountains on the upper I^ana (KG, r, 166). 



84. So again there does not appear to be sufficient wariant for many 

 of the old travelers and missionaries making that arbitrary distinction 

 of "good" and "bad" spu'its (according to the bodies whence they 

 have been derived) which has led to so many disastrous misconceptions. 

 The Indian's idea of these comparative virtues is, as might have been 

 expected, simplicity itself, in that a sjiirit is good or bad according as 

 it is for or against him, that is, inclined to help or to harm liim; it 

 is only from this point of view that he concerns himself with the 

 sj)irit at all. A spirit may be good as judged by its source of origin 

 (e. g., a brave man), but bad as regards the evil which it happens to 

 inflict upon the person concerned. Thus it was among the Carib 

 Islanders, that the good Familiar Spirits, the Chemin or Icheiri, 

 (Sect. 67) were sent by their human associates as messengers to 

 carry sickness and evil to their enemies (RoP, 472). As a matter 

 of fact, the above-mentioned misconception of the Indian's point 

 of view affords an excellent illustration of the error into which 

 certain authors have fallen in faihng to recognize the very wide 



