roth] the spirits of the bush . 231 



The Spirit of the Rot Saves the Young Woman (C) 



Two girls were left in charge while the remainder of the household went to a drink- 

 party. The former had been told by their parents to accept the invitation, but had 

 preferred stajang at home. About siinse* a Yurokon emerged from a neighboring 

 silk-cotton tree: he had an arrow and with it he shot a parrot. He brought the bird 

 to the young women and asked them to cook it, and they, not knowing that he was a 

 Bush Spirit, were only too ready to oblige him. After they had eaten the bird and 

 he had slung his hammock, into which he threw himself, Yurokon called on the younger 

 sister to join him, but she, not feeling fo inclined, sent her sister instead. Later, 

 when all was still and dark, the younger sister heard extraordinary noises and growling 

 proceeding from their visitor's hammock. [Credens eos copulare]. she i)aid no further 

 attention to them. After a whUe, however, the clamor was even worse than before, 

 so, blowing up the fire, she went over to Yurokon'a hammock, whence she saw blood 

 trickling to the ground. Looking inside, Uiere was her sister lying dead. [Yurokon 

 intravit earn.] She now recognized the tribe to which the man belonged, and 

 hastened to save herself from a similar fate. She had a stack of buck-corn, which 

 had all become mildewed and nitten, and in this corn she hid herself. To make 

 assurance doubly sure, site further warned the Spirit of the Rot that if he allowed 

 the Yurokon to come and catch her, she would never sui)ply him with any more 

 corn. By verj' early dawn, Yurokon ha<l completed his work of destruction with 

 the elder sister, and now asked the Spirit of the Rot whctlier he had not seen another 

 woman about, but this Spirit refused to answer the question, being so busily engaged 

 in eating tiie corn. Yurokon therefore walked all about, looking everywhere 

 for the younger sister, but could not find her, and now that the day was 

 just breaking, he had to hurry back to his home in the sUk-cotton tree. Ail 

 this time the poor woman was crouching in her hiding-place, and it was not 

 until midday when the sun was shining brightly, that she dared emerge. 

 Directly she did so, she rushed down the pathway to meet her people, who were 

 returning from the drinking-party, and, as soon as she saw them, she fell exhausted, 

 and commenced halloaing and crying. "What's wrong?" asked the mother. "The 

 komaka [silk-cotton tree] Yurokon has killed my poor sister." was the reply. This 

 made the mother say, "You ought to have come with us to the party, as you were 

 told, instead of staying behind by yourselves." When at last they reached home, 

 the parents picked all the peppers around, gathering twenty basketsful of them. 

 They then made a ring of fire right round the komaka tree, which the surviving 

 daughter had no difficulty in pointing out to them, and as soon as the flames began 

 to blaze, threw peppers into them. There must have been a big family of Yurokons 

 in that silk-cotton tree, because as the irritating, pestiferous smoke arose, down came 

 a lot of small baboons of which the fire made short shrift. They threw on more peppers, 

 and down fell a number of bigger baboons, and they soon shared the same fate [Sect. 

 342]. The parents now threw in the last of the peppers, and down scrambled the 

 very Yurokon who had killed their elder daughter: they clubbed him to death, and 

 the father said, "I am killing you in payment for my daughter." They then opened 

 the corpse's belly, in which they found woman's flesh. The younger sister obeyed 

 her parents from that time onward. 



168. Another tree which, according to Arawak beUcfs, has inti- 

 mate association with the Spirit workl, is the CJusia grand'tfiora, an 

 epiphyte, which tlirows down straight aerial roots that finally fix 

 themselves in the ground below. Indian belief explams tliis pecu- 

 liarity by the statement that the bunia bird roosts on the host, 

 whence it di-ops its castings (Sect. 350), which are nothing more 



