294 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ann. 30 



variety of ways. These, the guide said, were put by the Indians 

 using this path for the purpose of keeping the pumas and jaguars 

 from traversmg it. These sticks were not meant to injure the 

 animals, in fact they were too loosely stuck up for that, but were 

 merely intended by their artificial appearance to scare off the tigers" 

 (Bro, 198). The pointed hardwood sticks, stuck into the ground, 

 guardmg the pathways leading to the houses of the Akawaios (Ba, 

 268-9), of the Oyapock River Indians (Cr, 169), and others, may 

 have been employed for corresponding reasons, although other reasons 

 have been given. The same may be said of the following: "Before 

 leaving a temporary camp in the forest, where they have killed a 

 tapir and dried the meat on a babracot, Indians invariably destroy 

 this babracot, saying that should a tapir, passing that way, find 

 traces of the slaughter of one of his Idnd, he would come by night on 

 the next occasion, when Indians slept at that place, and, taking a 

 man, would babracote him in revenge" (IT, 352). In Cayenne, 

 between the upper Yary and Parou Rivers, Crevaux (252) makes 

 this interesting note: "I see ten boucans disposed in a line along the 

 pathway. What puzzles me is that there is no fire beneath. Another 

 thing, instead of being charged with smoked meat, they are covered 

 with several billets of dry wood alternating with stones. I learn 

 that these altars . . . have been made by ten hunters of a neighbor- 

 ing village who started some days ago on a big expedition. Every 

 time the Roucouyennes go hunting (shooting with arrows) the 

 quatta monkey, they stop to trim these boucans." ' 



344. An Indian must never himself bring into the house any game 

 that he has caught, but leave it for his wife to carry in if she has 

 been accompanying him; otherwise he will place it on the pathway, 

 some four roods or so from the house, whence the women-folk will 

 fetch it. Pitou gives a very interesting example of this from Cayenne 

 (LAP, II, 220, et seq.). Similarly, with fish — unless very small, or 

 unless there is only a single one that he can carry on the stick wath 

 which he has skewered its gUls — he never brings them into the house, 

 but makes his wife go fetch them from the waterside. The reason given 

 for this custom is that, were the food to be brought home direct by 

 the man he woidd have bad luck in fishing or hunting on the next 

 occasion. A similar practice is recorded from Cayenne and from the 

 islands. When the men (Roucouyemies) return from the chase, 

 they bring the game as far as the edge of the forest, whither the 

 women go to fetch it (Cr, 283). Carib Island women go and fetch 

 the venison from the spot where it has fallen, and the fish on the 



» It is only proper to state that Cr(5vaux gives it as his opinion that the object of these boucans is to placate 

 {calmer) Yolock, the Bush Spirit, who can prevent them killing game. With this opinion, however, I am 

 unable to agree, but can only regard these structures as ha\ing something to do in the way of protection 

 from the injuries which one might reasonably expect the slaughtered monkeys would do their best to 

 inflict.— W. E. R. • 



