BOTH] MISCELLANEOUS FOLK-LORE 383 



370. How We Beat the Caribs (A) 



I give the following almost word for word translation of the account 

 told me b)- an old Pomeroon Arawak; it is well worth comparing 

 with Brett's version (BrB, 35): 



An Arawak ami a Carib were very friendly; tliis niiisl needs be so, because eacli had 

 talten tiie other's sister to wife. They regrularly used to go hunting together. After 

 living in harmony for a long time, they went out hunting, but on this occasion they 

 did not go in company, and they both stayed away longer thauusual,and their friends 

 were beginning to wonder wliat had happened to them. The Arawak, ha^dng finally 

 returned, went to see after his brothcr-in-iaw. lollowed liis tracks into the bush, and 

 came on the babracote upon which he found the dried body of his sister whom her 

 husband had evidently killed. He went home, but did not speak for some lime. He 

 then told his wife, the Carib's sister, to come into the bush and hunt with him: when 

 he got her away, he killed and babracoted her. The Carib next came along to see 

 what had happened, and ho soon saw. He also went home again, but did not speak for 

 some time. Finally, he expressed a wish to fight and kill the Arawak. but the Nafudi 

 said " No. All the Caribs together must fight the Arawaks together. '' So both sides 

 cut a big field and planted j>lenty of the particular canes required for making arrows, 

 and when these canes were full grown, they cut them down and completed their 

 weapons, and both sides erected a strong house, Waiba, to store them in. Up at Jack 

 Low, on the left bank of the Pomeroon, is still to be recognized the site of the old 

 settlement and fortress, the place itself even to this day being known a.>> Waiba-diki. 

 Furthermore, it was arranged by both parties that as they intended fighting their 

 battle at sea, and not on land, they would allow themselves time to build a large 

 number of canoes. This being done, they filled their boats with arrows: twenty 

 canoes were paddled by Arawaks, and forty by Caribs. They all went down the river, 

 out to sea, at the Pomeroon mouth, each taking up such position as would permit of 

 the intervening distance lieing just sufficient to allow of the arrows tlu-own from one 

 side reaching the other. The Arawaks, however, were sltrewd. They made themselves 

 cork-wood shields [notiabokuiinna].^ The Caribs let fly their arrows first, but these 

 stuck in the shields, when the Arawaks broke them off with their mossi, the now 

 almost obsolete club. None of the Arawaks were slain, and it was now their 

 turn to shoot. This they did, with the result that they killed all their enemy, except 

 two, whom they purposely spared in order that they might go home and tell their 

 friends what had happened, and what to expect should they ever dare to fight the 

 Arawaks again. The two who had been spared went away to the Cuylini, to the 

 Barima, and to the A\'aini, and remained three months gathering together all their 

 people, who clamored that they would never rest until they had destroyed all the 

 Arawaks. The Arawaks were waiting for them at Waiba-diki. their .-.Ironghold, and 

 stretched a vine-rope across the river; and as the hosts of (^aribs approached up the 

 stream, the steering paddles of their canoes became entangled in this rope, and broke 

 away; and while the occupants weie looking after them, their canoes all tossed 

 one against the other in dire confusion, and the Arawaks shot showers of arrows into 

 the wavering multitude. Half the Caribs were destroyed; the other half effected a 

 landing. But around their fortress, the Arawaks had already built a palisade, with 

 just a few chinks in it to permit of arrows flying through; they were all well under 

 cover, and though losing a few of their own people, massacred as before all their 

 enemy, leaving but two to give the news to their friends. These two went to the east, 

 to Surinam, and started collecting the remnants of their own tribe from those parts. 



1 Although we have historical evidence of the use of shields from the Orinoco, Cayenne, and the Amazon, 

 this is the first reference that I have come across concerning these weapons in British Guiana. — W. E. R. 



