KARSTEN] BLOOD REVENGE, WAR, AND VICTORY FEASTS 33 



the superstitions of the Jibaros, namely, the sloth, called uyushi 

 by them. Feasts with trophies made of the head of the sloth are 

 among the Jibaros equally common as feasts with human tsantsas. 

 This fact derives its explanation from the mythology of these In- 

 dians. In primitive times, the Jibaros tell, all animals — quadrupeds, 

 birds, fishes, reptiles, and so on — were men, i. e., Jibaros. They had 

 human shape, human habits, human thoughts and passions, and 

 human language. They also waged wars agains.t each other, and 

 made trophies of the heads of their slain enemies, just as the Jibaros 

 still do. Later on this kind of folk were changed into animals, the 

 animals which still exist. The Jibaros still have a very vivid con- 

 sciousness of their supposed relationship with the animal world, a 

 feature which especially appears in their religion and their poetry. 

 But they especially claim to trace the ancient human qualities' in 

 the sloth. This helpless animal, according to their idea, is a direct 

 survival from the remote period mentioned. It is still a Jibaro in 

 the shape of an animal, but a Jibaro of a foreign tribe and conse- 

 quently an enemy. He is a very old man. as one may judge from his 

 slow movements and from the fact that his hair is partly gray.^ The 

 Jibaros even profess to know what his name was in- ancient times, 

 while a man. He was then called Unupi, his wife's name was 

 Unuchi, and his brother's Uyungra. When, therefore, the Jibaros 

 meet a sloth, they kill it with a lance, just as they kill their human 

 enemies, and make a trophy of its head. This trophy is prepared in 

 the same way as a human tsantsa, but is only reduced a little, since 

 the head of the sloth is comparatively small. In the trophy made 

 of the sloth the fell of the neck corresponds to the hair of a human 

 tsantsa. The fell of that part is therefore conserved and prepared 

 with care. The Indian who has killed the animal has thereafter to 

 pass through exactly the same purificatory ceremonies as one who 

 has killed a human enemy, and even the final great victory feast is 

 celebrated in due time with exactly the same grand preparations and 

 with the same carefully performed ceremonies. 



There are also instances of trophies having been made by the 

 Jibaros of the head of the jaguar. Many years ago an Indian woman 

 was killed by a jaguar in the neighborhood of Rio Zamora. The 

 Jibaros regard a jaguar, which in this way attacks and kills people, 

 as the incarnation of the soul of an evil sorcerer which has entered 

 that wild beast with a view to harming or killing his enemies. The 

 Indians consequently resolved to take revenge, arranged a hunting 



^The superstition held of the sloth is partly due to the fact that the animal is ex- 

 tremely tenacious of life. This the .Tibaros suppose to be the case with old people In 

 general. When the Jibaro warrior has succeeded in killing an enemy who was an old 

 man and whom it was very difficult to deprive of life, he regards the victory as a special 

 triumph. 



