300 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LOKE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ann. ao 



man had been to Para or some other phice where he had seen the 

 stuffed skins in a museum.) (GC, 321-323) . For a pregnant woman 

 to look at the face of a corpse will draw trouble on her unborn child 

 (Sect. 279). It Ls possible that, perhaps on principles analogous to 

 some of the precedmg, most European races have adopted the practice 

 of closing the eyes when in the attitude of prayer; it is therefore 

 not so very remarkable that I found the aboriginal communicants 

 of a certain Mission speaking of prayer generally by a term which, 

 literally translated, means "to shut the eyes." 



254. But this temporary occlusion of the eyes may be accompanied 

 with another procedure, that of whipping. Thus, at the Cara-utta 

 Rocks, head of Wenamu Eiver, a branch of the Cuyuni, ' ' the Indians 

 who had never been here before, gave themselves up to the wildest 

 orgies. Several calabashes were placed on the rocks, before which 

 two old Arekunas, with faces turned toward the north, squatted, 

 and murmured unintelligible words, while an equally old piai rubbed 

 powdered capsicum into the eyes of each of the novices. Wheji the 

 first pains were over, they broke twigs off from the nearest bushes, 

 and whipped one another on the legs and feet, until blood was 

 drawn " (ScR, ii, 346) . In the last group of cases, it is not the body, 

 but the rock or other natural feature that is whipped. And so it 

 happens that while Boddam-Wlietham admits that they wih never 

 pouit at certain rocks with a finger, although one's attention may be 

 drawn to them by an mclination of the head, other rocks "they beat 

 with green boughs" (BW, 182); that along the slopes of the Seroun 

 Mountains, Mazaioini River, under some of the enormous masses of 

 conglomerate rock, were flowers and gi'een branches that had been 

 offered to the Rock Spirits by the superstitious natives (BW, 190). 

 But as this author may have obtamed his information concerning the 

 very same place (Seroun River vaUey) from Brown's work, published 

 a couple of yeara before, I quote from the latter as well: "On the 

 way we passed a very large isolated rock of diorite which had formed 

 part of one of the great layers of this rock, horizontally bedded in 

 the sandstone, upon which were lying the bruised remains of a small 

 tree branch with many more around its base. These were offerings 

 left by Indian travelers at the shrine of the spii-it of this rock, who 

 believe that if they did not perform the rite of breaking oft' a green 

 bough and beating it on the rock, evil would assuredly befaU them" 

 (Br., 78). 



255. In a sense analogous to the idea of thwarting or avoidmg evil 

 may probably be regarded the closing of the eyes as a sign of "envy, 

 hatred, and malice." Thus, among Warraus and Ai-awaks, as between 

 man with man or woman with woman, the angered one wiU look at 

 the other, suddenly shut the eyes, keep them closed a few seconds, 

 and then turn away. The person thus treated will know that he or 

 she must be prepared for the coming storm. So also the following 



