K'lTiij THE SPIRITS OF THE BUSH 193 



The Bush Spirit with Big Ideas (A) 



A Konoko-kiijTika, meeting a man one day far out in the bush, asked him what he 

 was doing there. Learning that he had come to hunt, he told him to go and catch 

 some akara (a species of black land crab). ATter a while he retiimed to the banab 

 bringing some with him, but when the Spirit saw them, he said those were not the 

 kind he required. "Come with me. I will show you what I want." With this, 

 he led the huntsman to a big hole in the ground, put his right arm in, and pulled out 

 two armadillos. "This is the sort of akara that I need. What you brought me were 

 only spiders." They returned to the banab, when the Spirit told him to go and fetch 

 some cassava. Proceeding to the nearest house, the man soon returned with. a few 

 cassava cakes, but these were not what the Spirit wanted. They went to a neigh- 

 boring tree, where, pointing to an immense toad-stool, the Konoko-kuyuha changed 

 it into a ca.seava cake, explaining that this was what he meant.' The Spirit then sent 

 him for a cooking-pot, telling him that he would find one lying among the roots of a 

 certain tree, which he described to him. The man went as <lirected. btit could see 

 only a bush-masler snake. AMien he came back, and reported what he had seen, the 

 Spirit said: '" Didn't you notice that the snake was coiled up like a pot? Why didn't 

 you bring it as you were told?" So the man again went on liis way, and when he 

 reached the spot, lo and behold! there was a real cooking-pot painted in all the colors 

 of the snake. When he had brought it to the banab, the Spirit told him to bring 

 firewood next. This he did, but when the Spirit saw it, he said, "That is not what 

 I asked you for." So he took the man with him to a big dead tree, shook it a little, 

 and made it fall, and then carried it to where they were camped. "That is what / 

 call firewood," he said: "Wiat i/ou brought me was only birds' nests!" At any 

 rate, they both soon had the fire lighted, and the armadillos cooked. The Spirit ate 

 all his up in a few moulhfuls. btit the man could eat only a portion of his. "Why 

 haven't you finished yours?" remarked the former; "No wonder you Indians are so 

 thin. Look at me. I am big and fat and strong because I have swallowed the whole 

 of my armadillo."^ Having rested in their hammocks, they started hunting again, 

 and by evening time returned with a large quantity of game. Wien their bellies 

 were satisfied, they stacked and smoked the remainder of the meat on the babra- 

 cote. After they had retired for the night, the Spirit said that he expected a tiger 

 would come t^) steal the meat, and therefore instructed the man to keep good watch. 

 By and by, the tiger came, and the man accordingly woke the Konoko-kuyuha. 

 Raising himself from his hammock to get a better look at the creature, the Spirit said: 

 "That IS no tiger. That is what I call a yawarri" (opossum, Didelphijs sp.), and 

 (urned round to resume his slumbers. The man pondered over all this for a long time, 

 and remarked: " Well, if by im/ kind of tiger he means a yawarri, what sort of a thing 

 does he mean by his kind of tiger?" He thus became much frightened, and cleared 

 out, leaving Konoko-kuj-uha in the hammock. 



124. To concliule this natural history, so to speak, of the Spirits of 

 the Forest, it maj' be mentioned that, with very rare exceptions, 

 as the Mansinskiri (Sect. .97), they shrmk from exposure to sunlight 

 or firelight, from hcarmg their names called, or particulars of their 

 origin talked about. This idea explams why an Indian will almost 

 invariably refuse to tell these spirit-legends in the daytime, when 



lAccording to Dance (p. 202), the large woody fungi growing out of the fallen and decayed trunks of trees 

 are named by the Demerara liiver Arawaks "kamara-sana" and also the "Bush-devil's cassava bread." 



» In the Warrau version of this story the Bush Spirit asks the man to bring him peppers, but be means 

 ascorpion; then a hammock, but he means a tiger, whose color-stripes represent the cotton "cross-ties;'' 

 and finally a hammock-rope, but he means a snake. 



1.=>0GI°— no ETH — 15 1.1 



