ROTH] KANAIMA ; THE IXNaSIBLE ARROW 361 



(Br, 359). Tho Arawak is fkmly convinced that if tlio Kanaima, 

 on the third day, cannot taste any of his victim's blood, lie \s-ill become 

 mad and die mad (ScR, ii, 497); he can be freed only if he succeed 

 in leaving behind his two distuictive death-marks — the swollen tongue 

 and the damaged entrails. The original doctrme of Kanaima woidd 

 almost seem to have constituted a special cult, the inner working of 

 wliich it is now hard to imravel. Brett says that, among the 

 Akawais, the whole system of Kanaima is taught by father to son 

 in many families (Br, 358). 



330. It has been already stated (Sect. 322) that Kanaima's 

 handiwork may be recognized in the blue spot due to the invisible 

 poisoned arrow employed by him. On the Napo River (Amazon), 

 the Indians will "attribute many of their ills to tho pufhng of 

 invisible dai'ts into their bodies by evil, designing persons — an idea 

 no doubt suggested by the mysterious and silent operation of their 

 own instruments of offence" (AS, 155). A similar belief is current 

 in the Guianas. Caribs ascribe cliilcLren's sicknesses (Sect. 110) 

 and Arawaks otherwise unaccoimtable illness in general, and any 

 sharp sudden agonizing pains in ])articular, to an in\asible arrow. 

 The latter tribe will often describe it as the Bush Spirit's arrow 

 (Yawahu-shlmara). Interesting in this connection is the fact that 

 a miniature bow and arrow may be extracteil by the piai from 

 the patient's body by means of niiissage and suction (Sect. 316). 

 There are further beliefs about certain mysterious arrows which it is 

 worth noting. WTiere the arrow sank into the water, there Im'ked 

 the danger in the shape of submerged rocks, but where it floated, 

 there the passage was clear for the corial to pass (Sect. 151). Owing 

 to an invisible fungus growing upon the arrow in the one case (Sect. 

 143) and upon the bowTnan's arm in the other (Sect. 144)> the missUe 

 does not hit its mark. When either is properly cleaned, however, the 

 arrow is made to split a fisliing-line and a distant hanging-vine rope, 

 respectively. It has been clauned for the Spirits, and medicine- 

 man — and after all, the powers of these agents were identical — as 

 almost one of their perquisites, so to speak (vSect. 30), that they 

 alone can hit an animal by shooting the arrow up into the air and 

 letting it fall from above on the quarry. As a matter of fact this 

 was once a more or less common practice among the turtle-h miters 

 of the Amazon and Oruioco.' 



331. A few words on certam ideas concerning broken bows and 

 broken arrows must be given place here. The term "broken" would 

 seem to represent almost the normal condition in which certain of the 

 Bush Spirits employed bows, for which reason some of these denizens of 

 the forest were known as Shimarabu-akaradani (Sect. 95). The same 



^ I have observed and since recorded the same method among the natives of North Queensland. — 

 W. E. R. 



