nOTH] KANAIMA; the INVISIBLE ARROW 359 



Further reference to thLs poison was obtained from the upper 

 Pomeroon Caribs, who speak of it as massi, and tell me of its bemg 

 put to use by the Akawaios as follows: Massi is a weed which is 

 rubbed on a thin stick and the latter is pointed at the uulividual 

 it is wished to injure. The person so pointed at must come to the 

 one holdmg the stick, and as he walks along, he falls down in a sort 

 of faintuig fit: While thus unconscious, Kanaima covers him with 

 trisel {Pentaclethra Jilamentosa) and thus makes him wake, but by 

 this time Kanaima changes himseK into an acouri or a deer. As the 

 victim limps along, he startles either one of these animals, and by 

 this sign or token recognizes that Kanaima has been givmg him 

 "medicine."^ 



327. Now, whichever means — as, poison, arrow, club, visible or 

 invisible — the Kanaima agent may employ to carry out his design, 

 ho especially refrains from causing the immediate death of his vic- 

 tim for the reason that at least a three days' respite or interregnum 

 has to be observed before he can comj)lete, vn his victim's body, 

 those particular rites (Sect. 329) without the due observance of which 

 he can not obtain his own purification. If circumstances should 

 jjrovent him thus bemg purified, he must become demented and 

 die raving mad. Hence, after assuring himself that the actual death 

 will not take ])lace before three days shall have passed, he makes 

 equally certam of the sufferer m the meanthne holduig liis tongue in 

 more senses than one, thus preventing him giving any defuiite clue 

 to his assailant's identity or existence in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood. To effect this, the Kanaima devotee accordmgly slits his 

 victim's tongue with the fangs of a most poisonous snake. Schom- 

 burgk tells us from his own experience (ScR, i, 324) how the Indians 

 collect the fangs of such snakes. Of course accidents will often 

 happen, and even after taking the precaution of shootmg an arrow 

 into his back, the victim may be killed on the spot: in such a case 

 the Kanaima agent will bury the corpse at once superficially in the 

 spot where the man fell, takmg care to remember the place, that he 

 may find it when he returns, after the third day, to complete the final 

 ceremony. Even should the wound fad to prove immediately fatal, 

 before the poor creature can reach home the tongue has become 

 inflamed and swoUen, so that he (or she) is unable to tell who did 

 the deed. Dance speaks of another method of unpairing speech, by 

 twistuig the tongue, and insertuig poisoned piUs into the mouth. 

 These piUs are composed of the parings of a macaw's bill, parings of 

 cowhorn, dog's hair, scrapings from the bulb-root of the dhu turn, 

 and another poison, the name of which was not ascertained (Da, 278). 



1 On the Rio Ijana (upper Rio Negro), maralsa-imbira is the secret magic poison to which every 

 death Is ascribed (KG, i, 45, 207, 214). 



