noTH] RESTBICTIOXS 303 



any one else, so perfectly had it been cleaned out.' He then commenced to cry, but 

 the Pot reminded him: "You were greedy. You gave the bird and meat neither to 

 your wife nor to your children. You ate it all yourself." 



260. Among the Island Caribs, when the women make hammocks 

 they phice at each end a small parcel of ashes. Unless this cerentony 

 were observed the hammock would not last. Should they eat figs 

 when in possession of a new hammock, they think it would become 

 rotten. They take great care also not to eat of certain fish with 

 sharp teeth; for this would cause the hammock to be soon torn. 

 Tlie nuni erect the houses, except the roofs, which are made by the 

 women, and canoes (BBR, 242). With the same people, during 

 the coiirse of manufacture of a canoe, while being burnt out, sticks 

 are placed across, so as to enlarge it. If a woman did but touch it 

 with her fingers, they behcve it would split (BBR, 243). Father 

 Gumilla, the missionary of the Orinoco, evidently commiserating 

 the unhappy lot of the weaker sex, and recognizing the hardships 

 to which they were exposed in carrying on their field work, made the 

 attempt tt> get the men to lend assistance. His exhortation with its 

 fruitless results is given here in his own words: "Brethren," said I 

 to them, "why don't you help your poor women to j)lant? They 

 are tired witli llie heat, working with their babies at the breast. 

 Don't you see that it is making both them and your children sick?" 

 "Father," they replied, "you don't understand these things, which 

 accordingly worry you. You have yet to learn that women know 

 how to bring forth, and we don't: if they plant, the maize stalk gives 

 two or three ears of corn, the cassava bush yields two or tliree 

 basketsful of roots, and similarly everything is multiphed" (G, ii, 237). 



261. A woman must j^reserve her fan for the uses for which it is 

 iiitentled, namely, for blowing u]) the fire; should she use it on hei-self, 

 she would become thin — at least this is what the Pomeroon Arawaks 

 tell me. 



Among the nations bordering on the Amazon the IndiaiLs are 

 entirely nude. They regard it as an almost certain sign that he who 

 would cover what shame obliges civilized man to liide would soon be 

 unfortunate, or would die in the course of the year (PBa, 121-2). 

 It might be pardonable perhaps to mention here the reproof which the 

 Island Caribs gave their European visitors when the latter, regarding 

 them too closely, laughed at their nudit}': "Friends! You should 

 look only at om- faces!" (RoP, 4G1.) 



262. Waterton has recorded the following beUefs in connection 

 with the manufacture of curare (wurah) poison: 



The women and young girls are not allowed to be present. The shed under which 

 it has been boiled is pronounced polluted and abandoned ever after. He who makes 

 the poison must eat notliing that morning and must continue fasting as long as the 



'The vessel in which the staple Indian dish known as "pepper-pot" is daily wanned, cooked, and 

 added to from time to time is never cleaned. 



