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ROTH] GAMES, SPORTS, AND AMUSEMENTS 475 
do. He very probably only inserted it as an example of one of 
the many dances that might take place at any Indian gathering, 
provided the liquor held out sufficiently long to supply their 
wants. With no drink there is no dance. He continues: “A small 
banab was erected and well inclosed, and with one small door 
just sufficiently wide to admit one person at a time. In this banab 
there was a corial of paiwarri beer, well covered with the bark 
of the pump-wood tree, which was fastened down with strong cords. 
Within the banab, around the corial, to protect it was a guard of 
women, each with a calabash of pepper water mixed with cassava. 
At the entrance stood a man to prevent the ingress of him who was 
to force himself within, and to break away the pump-wood covering 
of the paiwarri corial. There was also a line of men each at about 
20 yards distance, the line of men thus formed extending about half 
a mile from the banab, in which was the tightly covered paiwarri. 
Then about 20 competitors for the honor of breaking the cover of the 
corial, all besmeared with slimy matter, started at full speed toward 
the banab, within reach of each of the linemen. One of them, as 
leader, holds a maraka or shak-shak in his hand, and is bound to 
resign it to anyone of the runners who overtakes and passes him. 
The shak-shak must be in the hands of the foremost, who is not to 
seek to evade a wrestling with the linemen. Each of the men of the 
line opposes the holder of the maraka, who must fight his way or 
resign it to the next who passes. At last they arrive at the door; 
and if the holder of the maraka can successfully struggle with the 
doorkeeper and effect an entrance, he must contend with the women 
within who dash the mixture of pepper-water and cassava into his 
face, and rub it into his eyes while he, holding the maraka in his 
hand, is attempting to break away the covering of the corial. If 
in defiance of all these obstructions he successfully breaks the cover- 
ing and tastes of the paiwarri beer, he is declared victor. A circle 
is then formed, of which he is the center, and they dance, singing in 
praise of his prowess. He is, until the next bimitti dance, the cham- 
pion of bimitti” (Da, 273). There was a humming-bird, etc., dance 
among the Akawai of the upper Pomeroon in 1907—the last occa- 
sion known to me of its having been performed in that district— 
when, instead of peppers, some plain water mixed with soot was 
thrown into the competitors’ eyes. 
588. During the course of my inquiries locally regarding the 
parishara dance among Makusi, Patamona, and Wapishana, 
where I invariably found it performed in connection with or sub- 
sequent to some variation of the humming-bird dance, I received 
much valuable information from Rev. Walter White, late of St. 
Mary’s Mission, upper Rupununi River. As the result of our ob- 
