274 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS (eth. a.nn. 30 



222. With rt><i;;ii(l to animals, let us see what they or their actions 

 can presage. 



Serious sickness or death is indicated by either small or large 

 species of armadillo (yeshi and monoraima, respectively), or the 

 jaguar, l)urrowing or digging up, for the purpose of covering its 

 excreta, any portion of the road leading up to the house. Similarly, 

 it is a bad omen for any droppings of the buhiirri (a bat) to be found 

 on the pathway (Arawaks) . There is a frog with a spotted back which 

 jumps well, and is known to the Pomeroon Arawaks as sorukara. A 

 pregnant woman will tickle it to make it jumj), and according as it 

 lands on its back or its belly, so will her child prove to be girl or boy. 

 The Island Caribs regarded bats as their guardian Chemeens or 

 Familiar Spirits, and believed that whoever killed them would become 

 ill (BBR, 2.35). When the warritimakaro {Bradi/pus tiidadylus) , the 

 smallest kind of sloth, which has a curious habit of always covering 

 its face with its crossed hands, uncovers its face, it is a sure token that 

 some one is going to die (Arawaks). 



323. Birds of ill omen are present in plenty. Chief among these is 

 the goat-sucker {Caprimulgus) . Writing from the Takutu, Schom- 

 burgk says that — 



The Indians have the greatest superstition with regard to this bird, and would not 

 kill it for any price. They say it keeps communication with the dead, and brings 

 messages to their conjurers. Even the common people on the coast retain in a great 

 measure this superstition, and hold the bird in great awe. Its nocturnal habits, the 

 swiftness and peculiarity of its flight, and its note, which breaks the silence of the 

 night, have no doubt contributed to the fear which Indians and Creoles entertain 

 for the Wacarai or Sumpy Bird [ScT, 67]. 



As is the case with even far more civilized nations, owls are of 

 equally evil portent and may indicate sickness, death, the presence of 

 an as-yet-unborn babe, or a birth. Thus, among the Pomeroon and 

 Moruca Arawaks, the boku-boku, and the waro-baiya or maletitoro 

 (both of them species of night-owl), and among the Demerara River 

 Arawaks, the hututu (night-owl) and makudi (small owl) are said 

 always to be heard when a person is sick or about to die. In the 

 Pomeroon the morokodyi (night-owl) cries when a female in the 

 house is enciente. On the Demerara, when the night-owl calls 

 cuta! cuta! cuta! quickly, it is to notify that one in the family is about 

 to give birth to a child; and when that bird mews hke a cat, it is the 

 notification of death (Da, 269). In French Guiana, on the upper 

 Parou River, at an Apalai village, Crevaux had a curious experience: 

 "Arrived in the forest where we proposed camping, we heard the notes 

 of a bird which I have reason to beUeve is a kind of screech-owl. A 

 panic seized my escort, the torches were put out, and men and women 

 saved themselves in the obscurity of the night. We were obUged to 

 return to the village for our night's rest" (Cr, 300). On the Pomeroon 



