BOTH] BESTKICTIONS 293 



ingparty returned, and the old woman told her husband what had happened, and all 

 about the queer old man, but he would not believe her, sajang that she must have been 

 visited by some old sweetheart. So she went and told the rest of the people, and when 

 the head-man had listened to her story, he said, "Yes, what she says must be true. 

 We will remain with her tomorrow. " Th^y therefore stayed with her next day. At 

 the appoijited time they heard the roaring followed by a whistle. Now when the 

 old woman, who was still angrj' with her husband for not having believed her, heard 

 the whistle, she said mockingly, "There you are! That's my sweetheart!" and a few 

 minutes later the old man put in an appearance. He was given a seat, and ha\'ing 

 learned that everybody was at home, he told them all to stand up in a line, side by 

 side. One woman, who was in advanced pregnancy, was half a.shamed to take so 

 prominent a j)08ition, and recognizing that the queer old man's hand was big and 

 sharp like a claw, she became frightened; she felt sure she must be dealing with a 

 Hebu of some .sort , and made her escape. Having thus got all tlie people into line, the 

 Hebu quickly passed down the ranks, and "clawing" in the air, so to speak, at each 

 person's head, killed every one of them. This done, he called out twice for his wife 

 to come, and she answered him; she was a very old granny carrying an immense 

 quake, so big that she could cram four or five people into it. And this is just what 

 the old woman did; she carried the dead bodies, quakoful by quakeful, over to her own 

 place. In the meantime, the old man Hebu examined the roof and under the flooring; 

 he even opened the troolie covering of the banab to .see if anyfine Wiis in hiding. But 

 both he and his wife were being watched by the pregnant woman, who had made her 

 escape; she saw everything, and then reported to her friends at the next settlement. 

 The head-man and the others accompanied her to the spot where the Uebu's wife 

 had carried all the dead bodies. They came to an immense silk-cotton tree, so huge 

 that the cavities of its entire trunk and branches were occupied by members of the 

 baboon-Hebu family. The party made a large fire around the tree, and threw peppers 

 into it;' this smoked out and killed all the Hebu baboons, from the youngest to the 

 oldest, the queer old grandfather Hebu being killed bust [Sect. 167]. Of course before 

 gi^^ng up the ghost they did a lot of choking and coughing, and in his djing rage the 

 old Hebu swore that this choking and coughing would remain with us forever. 

 Indeed, it is tliis pepper sickness which is causing so much mischief now and killing 

 so many of our children. We Warrau Indians have known the sickness for a long time 

 as the "baboon cough, " but you white people are ignorant of this, and persist in calling 

 it whooping-cough. 



243. Special precautions liave to be taken when any large animal 

 has been slain, to protect the hunter from any harm that might be 

 expected from the Spirit of the animal lie has ju.st destroyed (Sect. 

 129). Thus, when a big snake or other large animal is killed, arrows 

 are stuck into the groimd in the middle of the pathway leading from 

 the place of destruction toward the house, with a view to preventing 

 the Spirit of the beast coming to do the slayer or his family any 

 hurt. The pecuhar arrangement of the pointed sticks which Bar- 

 rington Brown described from the Emoy River between Enaco and 

 Taiepong villages toward the upper Potaro, probably served a 

 similar piu-pose: "In many places on the path we had to step over 

 arrangements of little sharpened sticks, placed loosely together in a 



' This idea of throwing peppers into a (ire appears to have been an old tricli. It is stated by Captain 

 Jean-Pierre that, when the old Oyampis, of the upper Vary, Cayenne, wished to stop an enemy, they sur- 

 rounded their village with a circle of tire into which they threw handfuls of dry capsicums. It is impossible 

 to fight when one is seized with an unconquerable sneezing (Or, 271). 



