320 ANIMISM AND FOLK-LORE OF GUIANA INDIANS [eth. ANN. 30 



in something being amiss with the chihl vvlien horn. Tlie IndiMns of 

 the Uaupes River, Rio Negro, "believe tliat if a woman, during her 

 pregnancy, eats of any meat, any other animal partaking of it will 

 suffer; if a domestic animal or tame bird, it will die; if a dog, it will 

 be for the futm-e incapable of hunting; and even a man will ever 

 after be unable to shoot that particular kind of game" (ARW, 349): 

 hence, meat has to be avoided by her. A Pomeroon Arawak female 

 will beget twuis through eating any double fruit during the period of 

 her pregnancy. The Saliva husband, however (G, i, 189), regarded 

 such a result as a sure sign of his wife's disloyalty, beheving that only 

 one of the twins could possibly be his. Another pregnancy restriction 

 on the Pomeroon is that the Ai-awak woman must not laugh, and 

 must not grieve; neither may she look at the face of a dead person 

 though it is permissible for her to gaze on the body. 



280. And even when the baby does put in an appearance, the 

 mother's troubles, like the father's, are far from over; for until her 

 youngster is able to walk well, the Ai'awak mother on the Pomeroon 

 must eat neither deer, turtle, nor iguana, animals which, for some 

 days after birth, creep or crawl very slowly, in contradistinction, for 

 instance, from the bush-hog, that will start to run directly it has 

 littered. The idea is that by eatmg such flesh the mother will cause 

 her infant to walk too slowly. On the islands, the C'arib mother 

 abstained from female crabs, which would give the child stomach- 

 ache, while the father had to avoid certain animals for fear of 

 the youngster participating in their natural faults. If a father 

 ate turtle, the child would be heavy, and have no brains; if he ate a 

 parrot, the child would have a parrot nose; if a crab, the conse- 

 quence would be long legs (BBR, 24S-9). The mainland Caribs of 

 Cayemie (GaUbis) avoided deer, hog, and other large game (PBa, 

 223-4). Brett, in a quotation apparently from McClintock, says that 

 the Akawai, Carib, and Warrau husband abstains from venison 

 after his wife's delivery for the same reason that the Arawak mother 

 shuns it (Br, 356). The Roucouyemie father must eat no fish or game 

 that has been caught with an arrow, but must content himself with 

 cassava and with small fish that have been poisoned with the "nicou" 

 plant; should he disregard this taboo the child wiU either soon die 

 or develop vicious propensities. For the Carib Islander, paternity 

 must undoubtedly have proved somewhat trying; for ten or twelve 

 days he had "to take to his bed," and subsist on a little cassava 

 and water; he ate only of the insides of the cassava cakes, leaving 

 the outsides for the subsequent feasting; for from 6 to 10 or 12 

 months later he had to abstain from several meats, as manati, turtle, 

 hog, fowl, and fish, for fear of hurting his uifant, but such extreme 

 fasting was carried out only at the birth of the first male child. 



