ROTH] SEXUAL LIFE 309 



everything dried iip, and that if any man trod wliere they had placed 

 tlieir feet, liis legs would swell: having studied the remedy, they 

 ordered us to starve them, so that their bodies should be free from 

 the poison" (G, i, 159). So with the Pomeroon Caribs, it was 

 essential that when the girl was carried from her hammock to the 

 place where the scarification had been effected, and back again, her 

 feet must not touch the ground (ScK, ii, 431). ^Vmong the 

 Pomeroon Ai-awaks, at the pul)erty ceremony of fii-st menstru- 

 ation the girl is allowed no meat, but a little fish (and these 

 must be only of small size), together with small cassava cakes, of 

 which she nmst eat only the center, and a modicum of water in a 

 very small calabash. For the next six months or so, according to 

 circmnstances, the young woman does not eat any meat of large 

 animals, or fish which has much blood in it, as flesh of the tapir, 

 yarau, turtle, etc. With the Warraus the girl must not speak or 

 laugh or eat during the two or three days of the period. Were she 

 to do so, she would lose all her teeth when she grew into a big woman. 

 The first thing she is allowed to eat is a httle cassava fiotir wrapped 

 in a leaf. The Pomeroon Carib girl who, for the space of three days 

 had to do without food or water, was not allowed to utter a word. 

 She was subsequently starved for a month on a diet of roots, cassava 

 bread, and water (ScR, ii, 4.31). Girls may die under this treatment. 

 369. In order that the Arawak girl, now become a woman, may 

 henceforth have strength and ^villingness to work, some old stranger 

 whose character is known to be strong and good, and a willing 

 worker, is chosen to place an ant-frame on the young woman's fore- 

 head, hands, and feet. The ants are attached at their middles 

 in the interstic(>s of the plaited strands forming the framework, the 

 frame itself being applied on the side from which all the Uttle 

 heads are projecting. In Cayenne, Pitou (ii, 267) describes the 

 ant-frame as being applied by the girl's mother. Among the 

 Warraus, as with the Caribs, the young people of both sexes cannot 

 many until they have gone through the ordeal of the ants. 

 Among the Warraus [mouth of Orinoco], the sufferer is put in 

 his hammock; they apply the tari-tari ants to him; if he cries 

 out he is condemned to celibacy (Cr, 612). My Warrau friends on 

 the Moruca recognize the above-mentioned msects as their natatari. 

 They tell me that long ago the same practices were carried on here. 

 If the girl cried it meant that she could not work, and was therefore 

 not deserving of a husband. The Roiicouycnne (Cayenne Carib) 

 would-be bridegroom has to submit to a corresponding ordeal at the 

 Hands of the piai: the latter apphes ants to the chest and wasps on 

 the forehead, the whole of the body being subsequently stimg with 

 ants and wasps (Cr, 245-50). According to Coudrcau, the Ojanas 

 believe that the wasp ordeal undergone by the men renders them 



