314 ANIMISM AND FOI.K-LOKE OF GUIANA INDIANS [UTii. ANN. 30 



his hammock; if ho refuses the offer it means that he does not want 

 her (PBa, 220). 



376. In none of the tribes is any sexual union pubhcl}' recofinized 

 as permanent — the closest correspondence I can find to our idea of 

 marriage — prior to the advent of womanhood . Certam of the ordeals 

 of puberty are closely paralleled: indeed, as at puberty, the candi- 

 dates for matrimony have to submit to a rigid fast with or without 

 exposure to ants, wasps, etc., a sound flogging (KG, ii, 144), or a 

 severe scarification. It is only the males on whom something addi- 

 tional is imposed in the way of trials of skill, and the like. Among 

 the Makusis the man, for some time before marriage, abstains from 

 meat (IT, 221-3), which was apparently the case with the Guayrjuirie 

 and Mapoye females of the Orinoco. Concerning the latter tribes 

 GumiUa says: For forty days before marrying, their girls are locked 

 up to a continuous and rigid fast: three seeds of the Murichi, three 

 ounces of cassava with a pitcher of water is their daily ration ; and 

 so, on the day of the nuptials, they are more like corjises than brides 

 (G, I, 159). No reasons for this abstention are given, though it was 

 asserted for the Carib girls on the Islands, who were treated simi- 

 larly, that the idea of the fastuig was to prevent them becoming slug- 

 gards, not likely to work when married (BBK, 250). The young 

 Apalai males on the Parou River, Cayenne, have to undergo the marake 

 (the ant and wasp ordeal) prior to attempting the trials of skill. 

 Among the Guahibos of the Vichada River (Orinoco) on the occa- 

 sion of the marriage of a widow, after having covered her husband's 

 remains with earth, they put her on the grave, and remove the rag 

 which, for the time being covers her chest: she then holds her hands 

 above her head: a man comes forward and strikes her breasts with a 

 switch — tliis is her future husband: the other men hit her on the 

 shoulders, and she receives the flagellation -wdthout a groan: her 

 fiance in his turn is struck with the switch, his hands joined above his 

 head and without a murmur (Cr, 548). [Compare Sect. 271.] After 

 the above ceremony, they place another woman on the grave and 

 pierce the extremity of her tongue with a bone: the blood runs down 

 her chest, and a sorcerer besmears her breasts with it (Cr, 548). 



277. In most of the tribes there were certain trials of skill (Sect. 30), 

 certain marriage ordeals, which the would-be suitor had successfully 

 to surmount before gaining permanent possession of his wife, in 

 addition to the puberty ordeals that had previously to be passed. 

 These marriage ordeals at the same time may be admittedly regarded 

 as omens or tokens of what the father-in-law or his daughter 

 might reasonabty expect from the husband in the future. The 

 Uacarras Indians, a tribe on the River Apaporis, a branch of the 

 Uaupes, of the Rio Negro, have a trial of skill at shooting with 

 the bow and arrow, and if the young man does not show himself a 



