210 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ann. 30 



his house lay. A little hummingbird commenced flying about, and then settled on 

 a neighboring bush: it offered to show Ihe man home, and told him to follow its flight. 

 But it flew far too swiftly, and the man could not keep up with it : .so it came back and 

 made a second start, this time following the course of a straight line before it disap- 

 peared. The man followed the line, and came to a path, where the bird met him 

 again and said, " Follow the path." The man did so, and got home. 



139. The Disobedient Son Killed by a Tiger (W) 



Two boys were playing around the house. Their father became vexed at seeing 

 them idling, and said, " It would be much better if you went hunting and fishing or 

 did something useful for yourselves." The boys got angry at being spoken to in this 

 manner and went to another house far away in the swamps. They were obliged to 

 hunt now, whether they liked it or not: there was no mother to bake cassava, no 

 father to bring them meat. They used to eat the grubs of a certain beetle [the hi-bomo 

 of the Warraus] that grows in the ite palm, after killing them by "nicking" them 

 against the trunk. It happened that, while eating one. the elder brother heard it 

 , whistle; he knew this to be the sign or token that he was going to die. \Mien they got 

 back to the house, and were resting on the manicole flooring — a flooring which all 

 our houses built in the swamps used to have — both brothers saw a Hebu enter, pick 

 up his harri-harri, and saying, "This is my plaything," warm himself at the fire, and 

 then go out again. Both brothers knew that this Spirit had come from some grave, 

 and that its presence was another sure token of impending doom. After the Hebu 

 had left, a tiger came along, and both boys clambered into the roof. " Poor we 

 tonight," exclaimed the elder; "our father is angered, and this is what he has sent 

 toptinishus. We must be content, even if we are killed." Tiger made a few springs, 

 and finally succeeded in pulling down the elder brother; he dragged the dead body 

 into the bush, where it was devoured. Returning to the house, Tiger put out his 

 tongue to lick off all the blood oozing from his mouth, and then sought the other 

 brother. The latter, however, was so well concealed by the roof that he escape4 detec- 

 tion, and the more Tiger peered into every chink and cranny, the more disguised was 

 the place of hiding. This alternate .seeking and hiding went on all through the night 

 until dawn, when the Tiger plunk off into the bush. The boy finally mustered up 

 courage to come down, and what with the fright, fell in a faint directly he reached 

 the floor. Recovering consciousness, he broke his arrow and beat himself with the 

 two fragments.' He then ran away to a good distance, and listened: no Tiger. He 

 went farther and listened again: still no tiger. And yet farther did he go, and listened 

 once more: yes, he could just hear the brute growling. Still faster did he run, and 

 what with the extra strength which he had obtained from the broken arrow, just 

 managed to reach his old home in safety. Here he tumbled into his hammock, too 

 upset and excited to talk to his parents. Next morning, however, he told them the 

 whole story, and how the Tiger had devoured his brother. Now, staying in the house 

 there happened to be a champion tiger killer, so the father turned to him and asked 

 him to slay the creature, but he replied, " No. As you are the cause of the two boys 

 being vexed, and one of them being killed, it is your duty to do it." The father 

 thereupon gave him a kind of greenish stone as a present, and said he would accom- 

 pany him: the champion thereupon agreed to destroy the animal.^ The pair then 

 ttirned to the men in the company and asked them to join in. but they were all too 

 frightened. The champion thereupon twitted them on their cowardice, saying: 



1 It was a custom ot tlie old-time Warraus thus to castigate themselves with the halves of a broken 

 arrow (Sect. 331) in the belief that this would endue them with strength and courage. 



3 AH that I can learn from the old Warravis about the stone specially singled out here, which they 

 called hebu-bakka, is that people in the days of long ago used to wear it on their necklaces, and that it then 

 passed current in trade and barter in just the same way as does our money. (Cf. Sect. ^41.) — W. E. R. 



