272 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. anx. 30 



as hit the target, so many of the enemy will be killed by the warriors 

 (ScR, II, 431). If after their descent upon the Arawaks, they are dis- 

 covered before striking the first blow, or a dog yelps at them, the 

 Island Caribs take the incident for a bad augury, and return to 

 then- boats; they beUeve that hostihties, begun openly, will not suc- 

 ceed (EoP, 529)! 



221. As a matter of fact, anything that occurs out of the ordinary 

 is accepted in the Ught of a token of something evil about to happen. 

 For examples of this, I am taking at random the following extracts 

 from the legends already given : 



He brought them a turtle, which they put on the hot ashes without killing it, so it 

 promptly crawled out; they pushed it on again, hut with the same result. It was the 

 omen betokening their death [.Sect. -j]. 



And when asked how she knew [that the Bush Spirits were coining to spoil the 

 drink], she told them that she had received a sign, or token, because when she was 

 weeping for her late husliand, he suddenly appeared before her and told her to cease to 

 cry [Sect. 109]. 



The elder brother then recognized that it [the fact of the younger persistently matmg 

 a noise while fishing] was a token of something that was about to happen [Sect. US]. 



The wife also met her death shortly after, and they then remembered having noticed 

 the token: she had omitted to bathe after a meal, .some days before (Sect. 119). 



Her visitor eating the frogs raw was a sign of something wrong somewhere, catising 

 the girl to become suspicious (Sect. 120). 



It was not long before the brother again put his feet into the fire, a fact wliich, con- 

 sidering that he was not drunk, led his brother to beUeve that it was a token of some 

 evil about to befall (Sect. 126). 



When the husband claimed the beast which he had not hilled, as his own, the wife 

 realized the token that something unusual was about to happen (Sect. 136). 



While eating the beetle grub out of the Mauritia palm, the elder brother heard it 

 whistle: he knew tliis to be the sign or token that he was about to die (Sect. 139). 



221A. The Icjken or augury may be in the nature of an indescribable 

 sort of feeling. 



The Obstinate Girl who Refused the Old Man (W) 



An old man asked a woman to come and live with him. She, however, was young 

 and wanted a younger husband, so she declined him. This made the old man much 

 vexed, and he threatened to punish her badly. By and by the woman took as hu.'?- 

 band a young man. He was a splendid hunter, and always killed anything and 

 everything; even at night, if he heard a tiger growling anywhere in the neighbor- 

 hood, he would never hesitate to go out into the darkness and slay it. One day he 

 went into the bush to ctit out honey, his wife accompanying him. "That will do," 

 she .said when she thought he had cut enough, but he wanted to cut one more tree. 

 "No, don't cut another," she repeated, "I feel frightened. I feel strange, as if some- 

 thing were about to happen." ' But he insi.^ted upon cutting one tree more, and no 

 sooner had he done so than two creatures like tigers rushed out of a neighboring thicket 

 and killed him. They were not exactly Hebus. and they were not exactly tigers: 

 they were Spirits of some sort whom the old man had sent to revenge himself with. 

 Now the deceased husband had left two brothers behind him, and when they heard 

 of his death, they made inquiry and examined the place in the forest where he had 



1 This was really the token. 



