494 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
use arrows of thick rush, which can neither do damage nor wound, 
and shields to exercise themselves in avoiding the blows of a stone, 
spear, or arrow. As this exercise is their only one throughout life, 
it is incredible the skill which some of them develop. [An example 
is then given of a case where an Otomac bet with three Spanish 
soldiers that if placed at the corners of a triangle and he in the center 
they would not hit him (sec. 606). The Indian won his bet, avoid- 
ing every stone thrown by the trio.| The mothers also cooperate in 
the arrow exercise by not allowing food or fruit in their children’s 
hands before putting it up as a suitable target, so that their appetite 
may encourage in them the skill necessary for hitting with the 
arrow point that which they are anxious to eat. Trained thus in 
youth, by the time they are ready to proceed to battle, some of them 
have a reputation for being very skillful with the arrow and par- 
ticularly dexterous in warding it off, either with the shield or even 
with the bow itself, a feat which few can perform and hence much 
appreciated by the others (G, 1, 89). 
610. On the Pomeroon and Moruca Rivers the present-day Arawak 
boys may occasionally be observed amusing themselves by shoot- 
ing arrows at a papaw fruit rolled down a gentle declivity of the | 
ground. They are supposed to be hunting acouri. I have found 
Makusi and Wapishana youngsters amusing themselves with an 
arrow tipped with an emptied akkoyuro seed through the side of 
which a hole had been drilled. When shot into the air a soft whis- 
tling sound is produced. The young Carib boys of the Barima will 
shoot at the smaller varieties of bird with a little five-pronged arrow, 
the four extra barbs being fixed around the circumference of the 
shaft, some 3 or 4 inches below the tip,at a fairly acute angle, with 
gum-cement and twine. 
611. With miniature pots little girls will play at grating and bak- 
ing cassava, at making various drinks, and with little quakes will 
pretend to gather firewood. Boys, in addition to their fighting and 
hunting games, will build little houses and then pretend to cut down 
a field which the girls will promptly come and plant. Of children’s 
other imitative games, the following have been mentioned in con- 
nection with the Makusi: Coming from Georgetown, the acouri 
in a pen with jaguar trying to get him out, a flock of vicissi duck, 
a brood of chickens captured by hawk, an anteater supplying him- 
self with ants, a buzzing swarm of wasps, etc. But young men may 
join most heartily in some of these games (Ti, Dec., ’89, p. 273). 
I have had the opportunity of watching several such games among 
Patamona children at Karikaparu, about five days’ march from 
Roraima. Standing one behind the other, with their arms on the hips 
of the one in front, the biggest boy leading and the smallest bring- 
