332 



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



K 



II' 



leave the invalid. The identity of tliis mainland doll, or manikin, 

 with the idol, or cemi, of the Antilleans has already been indicated 

 (Sect. 93). 



391, The crystals are employed for charming, bewatching, or 

 cursing others, though the references in the literature to their appli- 

 cation in this manner are exceedingly scarce. Indeed, I can caU 

 to mind only the follo\ving from Crevaux (554): "I notice on the 

 nock of one of them [Guahibos of the Ormoco] a bit of crystal set in 

 the cavity of an alligator's tooth. The whole has the name of 

 guanare. ... It is with this guanare that the Guahibos throw spells 

 ijettentdes sortileges) on their hated neighbors, the ViAroas. . . . Every 

 mineral that presents in its lines and shape a certain regularity is to 



them the work of a devil or a sorcerer." 

 Cursing and similar procedure are not, how- 

 ever, the solo prerogative of the medicine- 

 man, at least not in the Pomeroon District 

 of the present day ; the procedure is known 

 as ho-a to both Warralis and Arawaks, and 

 is practised, I am told, by very old people. 

 As a remed}^ for over-fatigue, Schomburgk 

 describes "Macusis and Wapisianas cuttmg 

 each other's legs with a piece of rock crystal, 

 an instrument to which they ascribed partic- 

 ular virtue, refusing instead of it my offer of 

 a lancet" (ScF, 235). 



393. With respect to remaming kickshaws, 

 Pinckard (i, p. 505) says: "And having faith 

 in spells, they make little decorated instru- 

 ments, of tender rushes about a foot long, 

 which their physicians or priests called Pyeis 

 employ, together with other magical imple- 

 ments, as wands to drive out these demons 

 of 111." These instruments I have been unable to identify thus far. 

 Finally, on the authority of the old modicine-man who taught me 

 the greater part of what I know concerning the practice of the art, 

 a "charm" of some description was worn on the chest suspended 

 by a cord hung round the neck (Sect. 93). The one that my late 

 teacher (Bariki) employed is flat and oval, made of some resinous 

 material, and ornamented on one side with the incised figure of a 

 female frog (fig. 6) . It had been given Bariki by his grandfather when 

 the latter taught him his profession, and when the old man died, he 

 loft it to me. In the extract from Timehri (1892, p. 184) above 

 quoted, where is to be found a list of the kickshaws appertaining 

 to the piai-man's stock-in-trade, is mentioned: "a neatly carved 

 representation, in reddish quartz, of a dog sittmg on its haunches 



j:--;'^ 



Fig. 5. The piai's manltin, or doll 

 (Arawak),Moruca River. (Note 

 the chest-ornament; see fig. 6.) 



