BOTH] KANAIMA ; THE INVISIBLE AEKOW 355 



of fire-arms it will fight its way througli all tbe mountain tribes, 

 though at open war with them; and by the rapidity of their marches 

 and nightly enterprises, which they call Kanaima, they conceal the 

 weakness of then" numbers, and carry terror before them" (HiC, 234). 

 Schomburgk says it was impossible to learn clearly how Kanaima is 

 regarded, because he appears not only as an evil invisible Being 

 (ddmoniscTies Wesen) and, in many cases, as' a particular personalitj' 

 (individuelle personlicTiJceit) , but always as the avenger of a known 

 or an unknown! injmy. Who and what Kanaima was, they could 

 not tell us, but they reckoned that every casualty (Todesfall) was due 

 to him. I had already observed the tliirst for vengeance among 

 the Warraus which often overcomes and tortures an Indian to the 

 point of madness, as soon as he considers himself injured in his repu- 

 tation or in his viiie; a thirst wliich is but quenched with the death 

 of the offender, or in the annihilation of his whole family (ScR, i, 322). 



The same author gives an account of a certain waterfall on the 

 upper Cotinga wliich his terrified Indians tried to get past as quickly 

 and as quietly as possible. Kanaima, the hereditary enemy of the 

 human race, was being followed by a powerful Spirit: the pursuer 

 was close at hand, escape seemed impossible, the steep bank pre- 

 venting further fhght over level ground, but in this opening it was 

 possible: he burrowed in here, and came out again on the opposite 

 shore of the river bunk about ten en- twelve miles farther on, whence 

 he emerged to continue afresh his torments upon mankind (ScE, ii, 

 182). 



320A. And yet again it is quite possible that the term Kanaima may 

 have an easily intelligible origin based on the bloody exploits of certain 

 of the Rio Branco tribes, whoso reputation, through the avenues of 

 exchange and barter, could easily have reached the Indians of British 

 Guiana. As a matter of fact, I can not recall at present a single 

 instance of Kanaima culled from the hterature dealing with Cayenne, 

 Surmam, or the Orinoco region. At the head of the River Jauapiry 

 and River Taruman-Assu (streams flowing into the Rio Negro to the 

 eastward of the Rio Branco) are a series of wild tribes. These tribes 

 are not wild in the sense of making war on civilized and quiet peoples 

 (mansos), but are Kanaima tribes {tribus canaemes), as the Indians of 

 the upper Rio Branco call them, that is, they are tribes of cut-tlu-oats 

 by profession, educated from generation to generation in murder and 

 theft, killing for the pleasure of killing, not even eating their vic- 

 tims but utilizing their tibias for flutes and their teeth for necklaces. 

 Indians of a dozen tribes have assured me, says Coudreau, that 

 there exists among the canaemes an association of piais who exert 

 great influence. What makes the thing appear very probable is that 

 it is known that these various Kanaima tribes are aUied and more or 

 less united (solidaires). [Cou, ii, 23.5-6.] 



