BOTH] THE SPIRITS OF THE MOUNTAIN 239 



served a huge artificial mound of earth and small stones, wliich the 

 guide said was the grave of ilakunaima's l)rother. It would seem that 

 the Great Spirit is a dweller in this region, for an isolated rocky moun- 

 tain, seen from the Cotinga lower down, at the head of the Mauitzie 

 River, is called Makunaima-outa, which means the 'Great Spnit's 

 House'" (Bro, 276). In the Pakaraima Mount auis there is a singular 

 rockcalled by the Makusis Toupanaghoe, from its resend)lance to a hand. 

 The Indians make it the s(>at of a demon and pass it under fear and 

 trembling (ScG, 256). At the Merume escarpment, upper Mazaruni, 

 says Brown, ' ' the Indians begged my men not to roast salt fish on the 

 embers, fearing thereby to rouse the ire of a large eagle and camoodie 

 snake, which they said lived on the mountain side, and would show 

 their displeasure by causing more rain to fall" (Bro, 399). According 

 to the tale told l)v a medicine-man. Mount Koraima was guarded l)v 

 an enormous camudi, which could entwine a hundred ])e()ple in its 

 folds. He hims(df had once approached its den and ha<l seen demons 

 running about as numerous as quails (BW, 225). Another Indian 

 m the same neighborhood objected to camping near what he believed 

 to be the cave of a celebrated "water-mama," near which it was 

 dangerous to sleep (BW, 210). 



176. Sometimes the facts of the original occurrence have been lost 

 sight of and oidy a memory remains, but this memory is grafted on 

 the minds of the Indians apparently in the form of a Spirit, if we are 

 to judge by the procedures adopted on their visiting such localities — 

 these must neither be approached too closely, nor pointed to, and 

 sometimes not even looked at, or spoken of. .VJt hough it is per- 

 missible to single out a person by a nod with the head, to point the 

 finger at a fellow-creature is to offer him as serious an affront as it 

 would be to step over him when he is lying on the ground (Sect. 72); 

 in the latter case he wotild tell you that he is not dead yet, and that 

 you must wait until he is. To point the finger at a .Spirit nmst 

 necessarily be a much more serious matter. We have the Old Man's 

 Rock in the Essequibo, which a murdered buckeen continually 

 haunts, and at which it is dangerous to point the finger (A, i, 9.3). 

 So also, there is a large bare rock (the Negro Cap) standing with its 

 head about six feet aboAc the water, close to the Three Brothers 

 Islands, in the same river, concerning which the natives entertain a 

 most curious superstition. They believe that if anj^ individual 

 points at this rock a heavy storm wUl immediately overtake him for 

 his audacity (StC, ii, .37). The dangers consequent upon talking 

 about Spu-its have already been dealt with (Sect. 124), hence the 

 following allusion from im Thurn is of mterest: "In very dry seasons, 

 when the water in the rivers is low, the rocks in their beds are seen to 

 have a curious glazed, vitrified and black appearance, due probably 



