BOTH] MISCELLANEOUS BELIEFS 371 



350. The biinia, or "stinking bird" {Ostinops spp.) is believed to 

 produce the aerial roots of the kofa tree {Clusia grandifolia) , an epi- 

 phyte, which are supposed to be its castings turned into wood (Sects. 

 138, 168): the natural "stench'' of the bird's feathers may have had 

 something to do with the origin of the idea. The same bird is repre- 

 sented as removing the snake from out of the plum-tree woman (Sect. 

 31), and also as a transformed medicine-man (Sect. 154)- The tiki- 

 tiki is a fabulous bird mentioned by Humboldt as the enemy of the 

 human race, which causes the deformities of newly-born children 

 (AVH, II, 249): it is also referred to by Schomburgk as tigtitig (Sect. 

 82). Macaws are believed to advise and assist the Water Spirits in 

 upsetting the canoes (Sect. 179). There is a Pomeroon Arawak 

 belief that the tiriliana, the '"corn-bird," is too lazy to look after its 

 own, and therefore lays its eggs in the nest of the mockuigbird (_C'as- 

 sicus), which does the hatching for it. A similar remark applies, 

 among these same people, to the werebekwa, a very sinall creature that 

 deposits its eggs in the nest of a hummingbird, which it thereupon drives 

 away. The caution of the goat-sucker (Oaprimulgus) makes the Wapi- 

 sianas declare that this bird carries another pair of eyes on its back 

 (ScR, II, 61). Goat-suckers are always birds of ill-omen (Sect. ^53). 

 The vulture is very reasonably known as the "boss, or governor," of 

 the carrion-crows (Sect. 137). Among the Indians hummingbirds are 

 proverbially exceedingly quarrelsome (Be, 11). There are several 

 allusions in the literature to the natural association of humming- 

 birds with tobacco, not only because these little creatures nest in 

 this particular plant (RoP, 114, 178), but also because they possess 

 a peculiarly pleasant smell (ibid., 177). It is quite common to hear 

 the hummingbird spoken of by Arawaks and Warraus as the "doctor's 

 bird," for a similar reason, the tobacco plant havmg been brought 

 into great prominence by the medicine-men, and having been intro- 

 duced among these tribes by the little creature just mentioned 

 (Sect. 296). 



351. The curbinata, so named by the Spaniards, is a fish found in 

 the Orinoco, but it is not so much as an article of subsistence that it 

 is valued, as on account of two stones in its head, exactly in the place 

 wliich is usually occupied by the brain. These stones, which are 

 regarded as a specific in cases of retention of urine [?by Indians or 

 Spaniards], sell for their weight in gold (FD, 150). I have kno%vn of 

 Arawaks sticking a sting-ray (Raja) barb into the aching hollow, to 

 relieve toothache. 



351A. Spider-webs must evidently have been formerly of immense 

 size to allow of people climbing down them (Sect. 142), and strong 

 enough to support a fallen tree (Sect. 300). 



