KOTH] 



THE MEDICIXE-MAN 353 



enemy, and who is suppos(>cl to have employed tlie Yawahu in destroy- 

 ing him (Br, 364-5) , will at times come in for a share of the blame. 



318. Crevaux (250) states that when consulted, the piai is offered 

 a cigarette: if he accepts it, this means that he undertakes to visit 

 the sick person. H(> will not receive, however, certain gifts (in this 

 this case a comb, child's hammock, and sifter) offered him until the 

 sick person is completely cured. "A young girl is sometimes given 

 as payment for the professional services of the piaiman during sick- 

 ness, which may account for the scale of his domestic establish- 

 ment" (Br, 320). So great is his influence among the women that his 

 wives are always the choicest (ScR, i, 423-4). With the Carib 

 Islanders it was customary for the person cured to express his grati- 

 tude by a big feast, where the Boye, who had helped in the ciu-e, 

 held first rank among the guests: furthermore, it was incumbent on 

 the convalescent not to omit the Anakri (Sect. 89) for the devil [Fa- 

 miliar Spirit] who did not fail to find a place among the assembled 

 company (RoP, 564). 



319. There is said to have been on the Islands a class of men and 

 of women who, though in a large measure alleged to be plaj-ing the 

 role of piai, can not quite correctly be classed as such; references to 

 them may conveniently be given here. Besides the Boyes or Magi- 

 cians, there are sorcerers (sorders), at least the people believe so, who, 

 according to what they saj', send charms on them, of very dangerous 

 and fatal kinds, and these sorcerers they kill when they can catch 

 them ; their presence often serves as a pretext for getting rid of one's 

 enemies (RoP, 474). 



They believe themselves never to get ill, but to be bewitched; and, simply for a 

 headache or stomach-ache, they kill or cause to be killed those whom they suspect 

 to have given it to them. It is generally a woman (Sect. .?07), since they dare not 

 openly attack a man. But before killing her, they ill-treat this unfortunate person most 

 cruelly. Their parents and friends go and fetch her, and she is then made to search 

 in the earth in different places, and ill-treated, until she finds what they believe her 

 to have hidden; and very often, the woman, in order to deliver herself from her exe- 

 cutioners, confesses what is not true, picking up some pieces of shell ... or fish- 

 bones. . . . When the women who are accused as witches pick up these different 

 shells they say that it is the remains of what the bewitched had eaten, which the 

 pretended witch had buried in the ground. Many incisions are then made on her 

 body. She is hanged by the feet; a kind of very strong pepper (Sect. 255) called 

 Piman is then rubbed in her eyes, and she is left for some days without food, until a 

 drunken executioner arrives and puts an end to the unfortunate being by breaking 

 her head with a club. [BBR, 232-234.] 



With regard to the celebration of the anniversary of a Guahibo 

 chieftain's death on the mainland, there is a record by Crevaux (548) 

 of the medicme-man casting, or rather blowing, a spell over {soiiffie 

 four Jeter un sortilege a) the individual who caused the death [compare 

 Sect. S5]; the others, men and women, then following his example. 



15961° — 30 ETH — 15 23 



