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



These Indians also cunpluyed the little hut specially constructed in 

 the Icariet, in which, after aU the hg^hts have been extinguished, the 

 mcdicinc-mcn "sings" and shakes the rattle. lie often comes out of 

 liis little cabin and would pretend that it is the Devil [Spirit] that has 

 got out. He wiU then run right round the Tcarhet and tug at the 

 hammocks in which the Indians ai-e lying. Ho sometimes says that 

 he is going up into the skies, but wUl soon return, and he will then 

 mimic the distant voice, etc. (PBa, 213-215). 



311. In remote parts [of French Guiana] and toward the som'ces of 

 the River Oyapok, the Indians [ ? Oyampis] practise another method, 

 with the figure of a Devil [Spirit] made of a very soft and resonant 

 wood. Tliis statue, which is three or four feet high, looks frightful, 

 with its long tail (queue) and big claws with which they provide it. 

 They call it Anaan-tanlia (literally, Devil-figure). After having 

 blown on the sick pei-son, the piais carry the statue out of the hut. 

 There they talk to it, and thrash it umnercifuUy with sticks, so as to 

 force the Devil [Spirit], in spite of itself, to leave the sick person. These 

 exorcisms are carried out at night, after the fires have been extin- 

 guished (PBa, 216). Very interesting in this connection is the maize- 

 straw manikin, found by Crevaux, among the Apalai Indians of 

 Cayenne (Cr, 301), which may have been employed for a similar 

 purpose; it represented a warrior ready to let fly an arrow, fixed on 

 two sticks arranged crosswise like a gallows. 



313. It is not always necessary, however, to use the maraka, it 

 being quite possible to invoke the Spirits with a couple of bundles 

 of leaves. Thus, Schomburgk gives the following accoimt of a 

 Makusi performance at Nappi, on the Canuku Mountains : 



The old man came into my hut with two bundleR nf leaves in his hands, and with 

 them he drove out the other ocoupants. He then put out all the fires, sat near my ham- 

 mock on the ground, which he whipped with the bundles, and started howling, only 

 now and again broken by short pauses. After this had gone on for a quarter of an hour, 

 1 recognized a second voice by the side of my hammock, and question and answer went 

 on between the two. The conversations with the evil spirits are unintelligible even 

 to the Indians: it was next morning that the piai took care to make them aware of its 

 contents. After the double conversation was finished, the magician placed himself 

 at the head-end of my hammock, howled close to my forehead and, after lighting a 

 cigar, blew strong clouds of tobacco-smoke into my face which almost suffocated me, 

 and pressed the bundle of leaves (which I recognized by the smell as tobacco leaves) 

 onto my forehead. This went on for quite half an hour and got me into a good sweat: 

 at last his voice failed him, and he left the hut. He did not use the maraka. [ScR, 

 II, 14.=)-146.] 



313. Westward of the Guianas a particular kind of wood apparently 

 played the same role as the rattle or the leaf-bundle, if we accept the 

 statement of Depons in his description of the Captain Generalship of 

 Caracas: 



The practice of these professors of tlie healing art consisted in licking and sucking 

 the affected part, in order, according to them, to eliminate the peccant humour. 



