ROTH] THE SPIRITS OF THE BUSH 175 



(Caprimulgus) . These physical attributes of some particuhir creature 

 or other they may permanently retain, or on occasion discard, as 

 when plajnng the role of a Jcanaima, or blood-avenger. At the head 

 of the Ai-apu River near Roraima "m traversing the country between 

 Waetipu and Ipelemouta ... we were startled by a most singular 

 prolonged cry. . . . The Indians . . . said that the sound must 

 have proceeded from some Arecuna who, having killed one of his 

 own people, had been turned into a wild animal" (Bro, 123). Among 

 the Trios of Surinam certain of these Spirits are Akalamano, the 

 carrion-vulture (Sarcorhamphus) ; Soni, a kind of vulture or falcon, 

 etc. As with animals, so in the case of birds, those of them which 

 are Bush Spirits bent on inflicting punishment, in the way of blood 

 revenge or otherwise, upon poor mortal man, may be killed by him 

 with impunity. "One small bird which in the early morning and in 

 the evening fUts, with a peculiar and shrill whistle, over the savannahs 

 and sometimes a])proaches the Indian settlements, is looked upon 

 with especial distrust. When one of these is shot, the Indians sup- 

 pose that the}' have one enemy less, and they burn it, taldng great 

 care that not even a single feather escapes to be blown about by the 

 wind; on a windy day on the savannahs I have seen upwards of a 

 dozen men and women eagerly chasing single floating feathers of 

 these birds" (IT, 332). On the other hand, there are certain birds — 

 owls, goat-suckers, and. others (undoubtedly Bush Spirits in the 

 sense that they have been derived from human beings) — which must 

 not be killed under any pretence whatever. Such birds do not wish 

 to injure "we Indians," but they often com(( to give us a warning or 

 token. "You will never persuade the negro to destroy these birds 

 [goat-suckers], or get the Indian to let fly his arrow at them. . . . 

 They are receptacles for departed souls, who come back again to 

 earth, unable to rest for crimes done in their days of nature; or they 

 are expressly sent by Jumbo, or Yabahou [Yawahu], to haunt cruel 

 and hard-hearted masters, and retaliate injuries received from 

 them. ... If it be heard close to the negro's or Indian's hut, from 

 that night misfortune sits brooding over it; and they await the event 

 in terrible suspense" (W, 177). Reference has already been made 

 to the "souls" of people departed being changed into goat-suckers 

 in the cavern of Guacharo (Sect. 82). 



103. The following legend, current among both Caribs and Ai-awaks 

 is of special interest in that the bird in question is derived from the 

 head of the Spirit itself: 



The Spirit's Brain and the Goat-Sucker (A) 



A man went out hunting for land crab, and was waiting for the rain to fall, because 

 it is only under this condition that the animal creeps out of its hole into the swamps. 

 Now, when the rain fell, it wet his hair; to protect himself, the huntsman, using hia 



