296 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. asn. 30 



ing to eat snakes and large sea-turtles (AK, 188). ".\11 tribes . . . 

 agree in refusing to eat the flesh of such animals as are not indig- 

 enous to their country but were introduced from abroad, such as 

 oxen, sheep [pigs], goats, and fowls; . . . It must, however, be added 

 that, under great pressure of circumstances, such as utter want of 

 other food, these meats are occasionally rendered eatable by the 

 simple ceremony of getting a piaiman, or even occasionally an old 

 woman [who may play the role of piai], to blow a certain number of 

 times on them ; apparently on the principle that the spirit of the 

 animal about to be eaten is thus expelled" (IT, 368). Schomburgk 

 tells us how the aversion to European pork was never so strongly 

 met with as among the Wapisianas; at Watu-ticaba Village the 

 indisposition of a little girl was considered due to the circumstance that 

 Ids cook, who had helped the child carry wood and water, had given 

 her some to eat (ScR, ii, 389) . In Cayenne, they do not eat fowls 

 (poules) and other birds though they be delicious; they imagine that 

 out of spite these animals would cut their stomachs to pieces, gnaw 

 their intestines, and cause frightful coUc with the beak and spurs, 

 although only the meat portion should be eaten (PBa, 231). The 

 bush-negroes at ApikoUos Village (Surinam) said that all the Trios 

 Indians would die because the Europeans had partaken of the same 

 food as they had (Go, 22). AU the old piais that I have met stiU 

 persist in their refusal to partake of European food (Sect. 286). 



348. Food may be restricted or taboo only under special circum- 

 stances, as at an eclipse of the moon (Sect. 200). In Cayenne, 

 apparently men and women religiously abstain during the period of 

 mourning from eatmg certain meats, or from cutting large timber, 

 and several other practices of tlus nature (PBa, 229). The whole 

 family may be restricted in the way of food, when a member of it 

 happens to be ill (Sect. 3^7). The taboos of various foods at the 

 phj-siological periods of a man's or a woman's life are noted elsewhere 

 (Sects. 267-284). Among the Makusis, during the time that the 

 natural colors of the feathers are being artificially altered the owner 

 of the bird eats very sparingly and chiefly of certain kinds of food 

 (Ti, 1882, p. 28). The Island Caribs eat flesh only when there are 

 strangers at table; otherwise, they hunt but for Uzards and fish: it 

 is only on those special occasions when they want to entertain their 

 European friends or for purposes of trade and barter, that they hunt 

 anything else (RoP, .506). "When they have to cross over sea to 

 go to another island like St. Alousi, or St. Vincent, they eat no crabs 

 or lizards, because these animals five in holes: consequently this 

 would prevent them getting to another land" (BBR, 245). An 

 Indian does not eat an animal that he may have domesticated and 

 tamed. 



