478 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
vi. Yaranda maruperké wai-ili sakutui. 
Gorge gully flute are cutting. 
vii. Uyewakerma machunepti machunepti woi-0 woi-o. 
glad {at your] coming [at your] coming [is the] ‘‘fire-fire’’ bird 
viii. Wamain yatunapéka, uipti wotto-wotto. 
tube, trumpet sounding, is coming sp. of bush-hog. 
ix. Wamai wamai karuata wai-ili wamai wamai 
trumpets another sp. bush-hog [iscoming] tube trumpets. 
x. Kurekeru yatirird wakeriré ytinepui wotto-wotto 
trumpet tree from which trumpet is made. good brings bush-hog 
xi. Wamai yapo yunepui wotto-wotto. 
trumpet branch (for makingit) brings bush-hog. 
Finis. 
When all the drink is consumed, which at times may not be until 
the end of two or three days, the dance being continued in relays, 
the parishara visitors return to their own settlement or village and 
prepare another drink. The above visit was an invitation to return 
the call, and their hosts returned it with interest. 
591. A high specialization of a portion of the festivities associated 
with a communal drinking bout, characterized by its preliminary 
humming-bird dance, is noticeable in the Makusi kaka or foot races 
that were originally drawn attention to by Im Thurn. Among the 
Makusi on the savannas he says that the paiwarri feasts are generally 
accompanied by foot races. The racers, who wear collars made of 
long white heron’s feathers or of black powis feathers, start, not 
abreast, but one behind the other, as in the bumping boat races of 
English universities (IT, 825). The men smear their faces, arms, 
legs, and bodies with tawa or clay of a light gray color. They 
don their crowns of bright feathers, fix the kawa seeds around 
their waists, so that they may have music wherever they go, and blow 
the small flute at intervals. The run is generally not less than 10 
miles, often it is 20; so they start before daybreak. The first runner 
to arrive is called the wampang. Outside the house where the drink 
is stored the men of the receiving party stand, and as the runners 
come in they seize them round the waist and attempt to lift them 
perpendicularly clear off the ground. In reality it is a wrestling 
match, but not comparable with those of the salutation observ- 
ances (secs. 607, 608, 811). The runners’ object is to break away 
from the catchers awaiting them and to force entry into the house. 
Often there is a prolonged wrestling for the mastery, and often the 
runners are too exhausted, especially if the final spurt has been up 
a hill, to offer any fight. Occasionally one of the runners makes a 
clean rush up to the house and through the doorway. He dips his 
finger into a bowl of the drink and tastes it, when the women then 
take the bowl and dash the contents over him, pelting him with earth 
also. All this is evidently the modern counterpart of the fighting, 
struggling, and “ peppering” to obtain the first hold on the drink, 
as originally described by Dance (sec. 587). It does not follow that 
