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



394. Occasionally the piai may be a woman. Thus, I knew an 

 old Warrau dame who used to practise her profession in the neigh- 

 borhood of Santa Rosa Mission, Moruca River, under almost the 

 very nose of the unsuspecting Father. On the authority of Joseph 

 StoU, Arawak, catechist at St. Bede's Mission, Barama River, j'oung 

 women, certainly among his own tribe, used to be trained in the same 

 manner as the boys for the profession of piai: his own grandmother 

 (on the father's side), and his father's cousin were both tramed 

 piai-women. On the other hand, I can find no references whatever 

 to woman "doctors" tlu'oughout the early literature of the subject. 



295. The medicine-man usually possesses a httle outhouse (Pome- 

 roon and Moruca Rivers), plate 6, in which he keeps his various in- 

 signia: theW SLTTHUS caW it heh'a-hanoJcu (Spirit-house). This building is 

 of courpe taboo, as indicated by a bundle of kokerite leaves hung over 

 the entrance. As a matter of fact, I have never seen the doctor's 

 "consulting-room" in the Pomeroom District biiiltof any leaves other 

 than kokerite. At Savonette, Berbice, the "consulting-room," so 

 to speak, must have been a somewhat more complicated structure, 

 for the use of medicine-men in common. "Near to the cabins 

 that were inhabited, we observed a detached building inclosed on all 

 sides, forming a single room, into which light and air were only 

 admitted at the doorway. Upon inquiry we learned that this was 

 devoted to the use of the sick — not as a hospital, but as a temple of 

 incantation, for the purpose of expeUing disease" (Pnk, i, 505). 

 On the Amazons, Father Acuna (98) also leads us to believe that 

 there was in each settlement one special building for the use of all 

 these doctors: "There is a certain house devoted to the use of these 

 sorcerers, in which they perform their superstitious exercises, and 

 converse with the Devil. " 



396. The original piai forms the subject-matter cf legends with 

 which Ai-awaks, Warraus, and Caribs are all more or less conversant; 

 members of all these tribes assure me that tobacco was brought here 

 from the islands, but I will let a Warrau give two of the versions: 



The Hummingbird with Tobacco for the First Piai (W) 



A man had been living with a woman for a long, long time: she was verj* good at 

 making hammocks, but could not bear a child. So he took unto himself a second 

 partner: by her he had a baby and was now happy. The infant, Kurusiwari, grew 

 apace, and while the step-mother would be weaving her hammock, it would often 

 come and hang on the suspending cord and slacken it. The old woman stood all 

 this little annoyance for some time, but one day when the child was even more mis- 

 chievous than iisual, she said, "Go away, and play over there." It obeyed, went to 

 a distance, but soon toddled back and once more interfered with the string. The 

 woman now pushed the youngster aside, and in so doing it fell and cried. No one 

 took notice of the incident and no one saw it toddle out of the house. All this time 

 its father and mother were lying together in their hammock, and it was late in the 



