BOTH] THE SPIBITS OF THE BUSH 229 



theii- brothers, who now showed them how ilie real thing ought to be done. Further- 

 more, they ■'called" their si.sters Kussaro-banna [=Kuraua plait] and Koro-botoro 

 [=I(e fiber], the elder and younger, respertively, that is, they transformed them into 

 Kuraua [Bromelia] thread and Ite fiber, the two materials out of which the Arawak 

 have ever since made their Makuari whips. 



163A. In the origin of the Jiirupari festival according to the 

 Yahuna Indian.s of the River Aj)a])oris there is also a conversion of 

 a human being into a plant. This is their story (KG, ii, 293): 



A long time ago, from out of the great Water-house, the house of the Sun. came a 

 little boy Mil6maki, wlio sang so beautifully that everj'one came from far and near 

 to hear him; but when they reached their settlements again, all died. Their rela- 

 tives thereupon came and Ijurned him on a large pyre, but he continued singing until 

 he died. Thus was his body destroyed, but his spirit went up to heaven. From the 

 ashes grew a long green leaf, which x-isibly became greater and greater and turned into 

 the first Pa.xiul)a palm [Iriarka exorrhi:H]. a timber used for all kinds of weapons and 

 articles. The people made l)ig flutes of this tree, which i)roduced the ,same melodies 

 that Mil6maki had sung. To honor Milomaki the men dance and blow on these 

 flutes nowadays when the various fniits, as Inga, Pupunha [(Titiliclmo spcciosa], Cas- 

 tanha, Umari, are ripe, because it was he who created them all. The women and 

 children must not see these flutes: the former would die, and the latter would eat 

 earth, become sick, and die, 



164. Several examples are to be met with of Bush Spirits being 

 associated wnth particular plants or trees. Perhaps the most inter- 

 esting is that of the silk-cotton tree (Bomhax sp.), the superstitions 

 conccrnmg which have been incorrectly surmised (Br. 369) as com- 

 municated from the negroes to the Inilians. The earliest reference 

 in this connection that I have been able thus far to find for it, m the 

 Guianas, is by Stedman (St, ii, 261), in Surinam: "Perceiving that 

 it was their [negroes'] custom to bring their offerings to the wild 

 cotton-tree . . . under this tree our gadoman or priest delivers his 

 lectures: and for this reason our common people have so much 

 veneration for it, that they will not cut it down on any account 

 whatever." It would be LnterestLng to learn whether the so-called 

 frornager of the French Ivory Coast is identical with our tree. Certain 

 it is that the records are abundant as to both Indians and negroes 

 (AK, 45) refusing to cut one down. iVs a matter of fact, however, 

 the superstitions of the Bomhax were cherished in middle America 

 long before the arrival of the negroes: the Mayas of Yucatan spoke 

 of it as the Tree of Creation, etc., under whose shade the spirits of 

 mortals reposed. I know Arawaks who iirnil}- beheve that this tree 

 moves within a circuit at midnight and returns to its proper place 

 again. Dance (57) states that its guardian spirit "walks round the 

 tree at mid-day, and at mid-night." Brett (377, 398) informs us 

 of an Arawak tradition that men and other living creatures were 

 originally made out of its bark and timber (Sect. 37). Women 

 have told me that the xVdda-kuyuha, in the form of a large bird, 

 hves on the buds (i. e. picks out the cotton to build its nest with); 



