218 ANIMISM AND l'"OLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ann. 30 



while his wife went out to the field: all of a sudden they growled and made a noise 

 just like Naharani [thunder]. This frightened him somewhat, but when their mother 

 returned she told him that such a noise really meant nothing, that it was but the same 

 row which the Black Tiger nation always made when they traveled in the bush. 

 Soon after this he began to feel homesick, and told his wife that he proposed visiting 

 his mother and sister; and he went. How happy indeed was the welcome he met at 

 his old home, where they had long given him up for lost. His mother asked him 

 whether he had a wife, and when she learned that he had not only a wife, but also 

 two boys, who could make peculiar noises, she begged him to bring the family with 

 him when next he paid her a visit. This he did very shortly, but when they reached 

 his mother's place all there were drinking and the old woman's tongue was well 

 stimulated. She upbraided him for bringing home to her such a daughter-in-law; 

 could he not see that she was not "a proper people" but a tigress, who would fall upon 

 and destroy him some day? Was he not ashamed to bring such an one home to her? 

 and so on. And in her drunken fury she and her daughter killed him: his wife did 

 her best to defend him, but they 'slew her also. His two boys would have shared the 

 same fate had they remained, but they managed to make good their escape, and 

 reached home in safety. Uncle Tobe-horoanna asked them, "Where is your father?" 

 "Dead," they replied. "Where is your mother?" "Dead also," they answered. 

 When he learned from them what had happened, he became very angry, changed 

 himself into a Black Tiger again, trotted off to the place where they were all drinking, 

 and killed everyone — mother, daughter, and all the guests. 



149. Ba-mu [Bahmoo] and the Frog 



To account for the division of mankind into races, the following 

 little story is given by Brett (BrB, 167) : ^ it is not Arawak. 



Bamu came to visit some friends who were about to go frog-hunting — hunting for 

 none of your small-sized frogs but for frogs as large as bush-hogs. They told Bamu 

 to take a cudgel and come with them, but he, being a braggart, said that he did not 

 want any weapons, but would jimip on the back of the first frog he met and twist its 

 neck around. The Chief of the Frogs heard him boast, and purposely squatted close 

 to the river just in front of the path along which Bamu was coming. Bamu made a 

 jump and so did the Frog, right into the water, the latter taking him over to the opposite 

 bank, where he jerked him off. When his friends first saw Bamu on the Frog's back 

 in the water, they started laughing, and when they saw him on the other side, they 

 continued chaffing, telling him to twist the Frog's neck and bring the dead animal 

 over to them. Having finislied their frog-hunt, his friends again called on him to come 

 over and join them, but he was too much ashamed to swim back and be laughed at 

 again. So it came to pass that Bamu remained on that side, begat children, and 

 became separated from us. 



150. How THE Man Fooled the Tiger (C) 



An Indian went to a somewhat distant settlement to drink paiwarri, and on arriving 

 there in the early afternoon, commenced imbibing. By midnight, the drinks being 

 finished, he started on the return journey, although the house-master warned him 

 not to leave then but to wait for daybreak, because an immense Tiger was known to be 

 prowling about. Our friend would not be persuaded, however, to postpone his 

 departure, but only said: "Oh! never mind. I am not afraid, and if I meet him I 



' The jBooroof Boorool chorus in Brett's verse is onomatopoeic for the Bura-bura-u, the Arawak term for 

 a certain frog with a particularly loud croalc. 



