ROTH] THE SPIRITS OF THE BUSH 221 



you; but as you are yet quite fresh, I will take you home." He accordingly went 

 in search of a piece of strong bark-strip wherewith to tie up the animal and carry it. 

 He was very slow, and sauntered about carelessly, and when he had secured the 

 strip, he even then dallied in returning where the carcass lay. But when he did 

 get back tf) the spot, lo and behold, the ant-eater was gone! He looked up, and he 

 looked down, and he looked all about. "This is the very spot," he said, "where I 

 saw it Ijdng dead. Some one must have taken it away." AMien finally ho returned 

 empty-handed to the camping-place, he told the rest of the crew what had happened. 

 The old man said: '^You are a fool. The ant-eater was not dead, but only sleeping. 

 Didn't you see it blowing?" (i. e., breathing). They all laughed heartily at him, and 

 lie recognized only too late that if he had obeyed orders, he would have had something 

 good to e-at. 



IIow THE Indians Learned to Paddle 



• 



154. Anoth(T country which they visited in the course of their peregrinations was 

 peculiar in that its inhabitants could travel in their coriuls only with the tide. As 

 a matter of fact, they had paddles, l>ut did not know how to use them in the proper 

 way: they held the paddle edgeways instead of broadside to the water. Furthermore, 

 this method of progression entailed always ha-ving to travel with a very long pole. 

 When the tide turned against them, they would drive this pole into the bottom of the 

 stream, and make fast their corial to it until the tide turned again. The old leader, 

 who, as has already been stated, wasa medicine-man, (-hanged himself into a bunia, and 

 yelled out its note Turhuran! Turhamn! ' Now, when some of the people who were pad- 

 dling in this curious fashion heard what the bird said, they were annoyed, and remarked: 

 "Nonsense! If we were to take the broadsides of our ])addles and hit you on the head 

 with them, how would you like it?'' But the bird still continued shrieking, Tar- 

 baran! Tarbaran! and would not stop. So each paddler at last turned his paddle 

 round, and pulled it broadside ^vith the water, and found he could travel three times 

 as fast as before. And then all the others and their friends tried the new method 

 that the bunia had shown them, and found that by this means they could go up and 

 down tlie stream quite independent of the current. They never u,sed their paddles 

 edgewise again. - 



The Big Bats 



155. The search party continued their journey, and at nightfall reached a landing. 

 Now this was in the country of the Bat Tribe, and the old man warned his crew that it was 

 very dangerous for them to sling their hammocks on the trees (as Indians usually do 

 in the dry season ) because the Bats here were as large as cranes. He therefore called 

 on them to build an inclosed camp, that is. a banab with covered sides. One young man, 

 however, w;vs slothful, and very backward in assisting the others to build the shelter. He 

 said he did not believe that the Bats, however big they were, would hurt him before the 

 morning. In spite of the old man's entreaties, he refused to come int(j the inclosure, 

 but, fixing his hammock between two trees, rested out^side. The (others did as they 

 were told, slinging their hammocks inside the banab. Late in the night, when it 

 was quite dark, they heard the man outside entreating to be allowed to come in. 

 But they said: "No, We cannot open the door now. You must bear what comes 

 on you [i. e. you must take the consequences]. " And when they opened the door in 

 the morning, all that was left of the individual was some bones. The Bats had sucked 

 him dry indeed. 



• Tliis word in Arawak means "broadside." 



2There is an island in the Essecinibo just abover,roote Creek called hiarono-dulluhing(woman'spole). 

 The story goe^ that once upon a time the women there were traveling in the old-fashioned way with the 

 paddles edgewise, when the tide being against them, they fixed the pole as usual in the mud. But they 

 drove it in so firmly that they could not get it out again, with the re.sult that it remained there. The 

 timbers, grasses, and sand collected round it, forming the present island. 



