12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 79 



in the same sense as among civilized peoples. The individual forms 

 an inseparable part of a whole, namely, of the family or tribe to 

 which he belongs. Especially the members of the same family are 

 regarded as, so to speak, organically coherent with each other, so 

 that one part stands for all and all for one. What happens to one 

 member of that social unit happens to all, and for the deed of one 

 member the rest are held equally responsible. How the Jibaros 

 conceive this connection appears from certain of their social cus- 

 toms. For instance, custom requires that after a child is born the 

 parents shall fast and observe other rules of abstinence for a couple 

 of years, or until the child is named. This is due to the idea that 

 something of the souls or essence of the parents inheres in the child, 

 so that all three in one way form a single organism, a single per- 

 sonality. But this mystic connection between the parents and the 

 child also subsists after the child has grown up, although perhaps 

 less intimately. Similarly the tie which unites brothers and sisters 

 in a family is so intimate that they may be said together to form 

 one organic whole. Among the Jibaros and the Canelos Indians, 

 when one member of the family is sick the rest have to diet in the 

 same way as the patient himself, for if they eat unsuitable food it 

 would be the same as if the patient ate that food, and his condition 

 would grow worse. From the same point of view we have to explain 

 the custom prevailing among the Jibaros that when a man dies his 

 brother must marry the widow. The departed husband, who is still 

 jealous of the wife he left behind, does not cede her to any other 

 man than his brother, who with himself forms one personality and 

 represents him in the most real sense of the word. When a younger 

 Jibaro is murdered by his enemies the duty of revenging his death is 

 also first of all incumbent on his brothers. 



The Jibaro can not even distinguish his own personality from his 

 material belongings; at least not from things he has made himself. 

 When he fabricates a shield, a drum, a blowpipe, or some other deli- 

 cate object, he has to diet and observe abstinence in other ways; for, 

 according to his own idea, he actually puts something of his own 

 personality, his own soul, into the object he is making. His own 

 properties, both the essential and habitual ones and those occasionally 

 acquired through eating a certain food, etc., will therefore be trans- 

 ferred to that object. The division of labor existing among the 

 Indians depends on the same peculiar view. Thus, for instance, the 

 Indian woman has to fabricate the clay vessels and manages these 

 utensils, because the clay of which they are made, like the earth itself, 

 is female — that is, has a woman's soul. She is connected with the fire 

 and has to cook the food, because the fire has a female soul, etc. 



Such a view prevailing among the Indians, it is easy to under- 

 stand that a Jibaro, with regard to the murder of one of his rela- 



