ROTH] THE SPIRITS OF THE BUSH 185 



dawii, picked up his hookH and hurried home. AMien his mate's mother asked him 

 why her son had not acrompanied him, he told her that he had persisted in eating 

 after dark, and that he was now a Yawahu tiger. But the old woman would not believe 

 him; he therefore advised her to come with him so that she could see for herself. 

 He took her to the banab, and told her thnt her son was in the bush; so she went out 

 and Hallekuba? (i. e., How are you?), and a deep rough voice answered, "That's your 

 Bon," but again she would not believe. Wanting to see for herself, she went alone 

 into the bush in the direction of the soimd, although she was strongly warned not 

 to do so. She went on and on, and at last met the tiger, who sprang upon and killed 

 her. The mother was punished because she would not trust the man when he told 

 her that the tiger really was her son. 



115. How THE Haimara Came to Have Such Fine Big Eyes (A) 



Returning on his way home from the bush one afternoon, a hunter met a Konoko- 

 kuyuha making a basket, but though he did not actually recognize it as the Spirit 

 of the Bush, he certainly recognized the uncanny appearance it presented on account 

 of its ha^dng the entire face, body, and limbs covered with thick hair. He asked 

 the Spirit what it was doing, but the only word it deigned to answer was bako, the 

 shortened form of bako-ie.' At any rate, when he reached home, he related his 

 experiences to liis family and friends, and advised them strongly not to go to sleep 

 that night, because It, whatever it was, might pay them a surprise \asit after night- 

 fall; all he could tell them was that it was covered with hair, and that it was making 

 an eye-socket basket. But they all laughed at him, and turning into their ham- 

 mocks as usual, told one another stories, and soon fell off to sleep. The man who 

 had warned them alone kept awake, and, recognizing the low whistle in the distance, 

 tried to arouse liis friends by shaking their hammocks; but it was all in vain, and 

 he had only just time enough to clamber up into the roof, when It, which he now rec- 

 ognized to be a Konoko-kuyuha, entered the house. Once in, the hunter was able 

 to watch its movements without being himself seen. He saw the Spirit stealthily 

 approach each hammock and remove both eyes of the snoring occupant without 

 waking him. These eyes it carefully placed in the now completed basket, and 

 then it left the house. Next morning, when all the people awoke, they discovered 

 that they could see nothing, and they wondered what had happened, but he who 

 had previously warned them told them everything. They said they were not now fit 

 to live on the land, and that he must take them to some waterside. He thereupon 

 tied them one to the other, and when they reached the stream he tied the last one 

 to a tree: they could not lose their way now, and they knew where they were. 

 He accordingly left them, as he thought, in perfect safety, promising to -idsit them 

 shortly. After a time he redeemed his word, but he found that all of them had in 

 the meanwhile been tmder water, and had changed into fish, the one exception being 

 the indi\idual tied to the tree who, being able to get into the water only up to his 

 middle, had turned but halfway into a fish. So the man went away, promising to 

 come again. He was a long time returning, so long, in fact, that the Spirit took pity 

 on the last man. and completed his transformation, giving him back his own two eyes, 

 which "are all very fine and large," so to speak, esjjecially for a haimara fish {Hopli- 

 as maJabariciw). which was what the Spirit changed him into. And when their old 

 friend did return at last, he cut the rope from the tree, thus allowing the haimara and 

 other fish to ])lay about with perfect freedom in the water, where they have since 

 remained. They were piinished for their imbeUef. 



116. Bush Spirits are excellent hunters, and some of them even 

 know how to employ the rattle, just like a medicine-man. 



' This word is the Arawak term for an eye-.socket; it is applied to a particular variety of baiiket, char- 

 acterized by having an oblong concavity in its base, a peculiarity which the name suggests. 



