250 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [bth. ann. 30 



How Sickness and Death Came into the World (W) ' 



A man went fishing, and wished for a wil'e from among the Water People, the Ho- 

 ardnnis. Every time he went to the water his heart yearned to see a Water Spirit, 

 and one day, while fishing, one put in an appearance waist-high above the surface, 

 and came quite close. "Would you like to take me home with you?" was the first 

 question she asked him, and when he told her "Yes, " she clambered into his corial, 

 and he took her home. When they reached there she told him not to roast the morokot 

 fish [Myletes] which he had caught, but to boil it, and impressed him that for the 

 future he must never bring fish for her to eat, but only animals and birds. The next day 

 she went with him in the corial while he fished, and after a time got into the water 

 and went deep down. After a while she came up to the surface again, with a message 

 from her father, who said he would be very glad to welcome him below. The man 

 was afraid to go, but the woman told him to have no fear as nothing would happen to 

 him. Just to show that there was no danger she stood straight up in the water, which 

 came to the level of her hips. "Come along ! Don't be frightened, " she repeated, and 

 60 he jumped in close by her side. Saying that she was going to tie the boat up with 

 a rope, she bent down and seizing the head of a big water-camudi, clamped its jaws 

 on the gunwale. She now took the man's hand, and led the way below: as he sank 

 below the surface he shut his eyes and opening them almost immediately afterward, 

 found himself in the house of his father-in-law. The latter gave him a bench to sit on. 

 which was really a large live alligator. This is how it has come to pass that we Warraus 

 always use a bench carved in the likeness of that creature. "When he had sat on it some 

 time the old man said, "I sent you my daughter for your wife: you must live a good 

 life, and must now send down your sister for my son. " This was all agreed to, and the 

 man's Ho-ar&ani wife brought hint dry boiled meat and cassava: the eating done, 

 she gave him to drink. WTien all was finished, she led him up to the surface again. 

 They got into the corial and reached his home once more. She then said to him: 

 ' ' Remember, when I am moon-sick you must not send me away to the naibo-manoho,^ 

 but you must let me remain in the hut with you. In fact, if you insist on my going 

 there I shall die, and if I die, my father will have a spite against you, and send you 

 sickness and death. " Now the Warrau jjeople were strongly averse to such a defiance 

 of their long-established custom, and when the man's wife did at last become moon- 

 sick, the women insisted on her going into the naibo-manoko, but they found her l.ving 

 dead there the following morning. Placing her body in a hollowed-out piece of ite 

 palm, they put it on a sort of babracote under a banab [as the Warraus of the Orinoco 

 treat the bodies of their dead]. After a few days the widower went back to his usual 

 fishing-place, wishing he could see his wife again, but being unable to see her any- 

 where, he became exasperated and flung himself into the water, sinking down in just the 

 same spot as on the previous occasion . lie reached the house, and there on the farther 

 side lay his poor wife. She looked ill; indeed, she was quite dead. Her old father 

 turned to him and said: ""Why didn't you li.sten to my daughter? Why didn't you 

 do what she told you? You see how you have killed her. From now on sick- 

 ness, accident, and death will come among your people from mine, and what is more, 

 if any of your women-folk travel on water while they are moon-sick [Sects. 1S8, 1S9], 

 my people will 'draw their shadows'. " [Sect. 263.]^ The man was much grieved to 



' See Sect. WS. 



3 The Nailjo-manoko is the little out-house for the special use of women at their periods, and sometimes 

 for the use of a female dining confinement. It can always be distinguished by the tassels of "skinned" 

 Mauritia leaves (those from which the cortex has been removed for twine manufacture), hanging from the 

 posts and other parts. This building is of course taboo to the males, though I am afraid that advantage is 

 often taken by bachelor friends of this isolation of the females from their husbands. — W. E. R. 



3 What is intended is, that just as a person draws the entrails out of a fowl, so will the Water People, 

 or Ho-ar&miis, draw the Shadow, or Life-essence, out of a person, that is, kill him. 



