646 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [BTH. ANN. 38 
the Makuari is recorded by Schomburgk as met with among the 
Arawak of the upper Moruea at Asecota [the present-day Asakata]. 
He describes it as a peculiar death ceremony, also customary among 
the Muntrucus [? Mundurucus, of River Tapajos|—a bloody death 
dance in which are used plaited whips made out of Bromelia karatas 
[kuraua] fibers. After every death the dance is held, either in the 
course of several months or after a year. The dead person is, with 
the usual wailing, placed either in a hollowed-out tree trunk or 
a small corial and buried in the hut. The cassava field of the de- 
ceased must be no more used, but when the roots are ripened they 
are made into paiwarri. Friends and acquaintances in the neigh- 
borhood are invited with the knotted string, etc. On the day ap- 
pointed all the men of the village stand in two rows armed with 
these whips, in front of the hut, and with all their strength lash the 
arriving visitors upon the calves. No cut must be made above or 
below. The incoming guest does not at all strive to avoid the blow, 
but stands in a challenging attitude with one leg in front of the other. 
The visitors so treated now join in the rows with the whippers and 
lash in their turn those of the guests who arrive later. In the mean- 
time the calabash [with its liquor] does not rest. Now begins a gen- 
eral whipping among themselves—a horrid sight, wounds which often 
require weeks of rest in the hammock. After the whipping has lasted 
a while the participants range themselves in procession, in front of 
which are carried three figures—those of a crane and two human bhe- 
ings—and circle around the deceased’s house in a long monotonous 
chant. The song ended, three men armed with knives forcibly seize 
the blood-trickling whips from their possessors and immediately cut 
them up. Inthe meantime a grave is dug outside the hut and the three 
figures, together with those of the deceased’s utensils and weapons 
which are still to be found, are buried in it. With the closure of the 
grave all remembrance of the dead is at an end. With the possessors 
of large cassava fields these ceremonies will be repeated, because the 
deceased’s cassava may only be utilized for paiwarri to be devoted to 
such a purpose. For such a repetition the whips will be carefully pre- 
served and plaited in again with the new ones necessary and buried 
at the very last (SR, 1, 458). 
843. The name of the dance—mariquarri (Schomburgk), macuari 
(Dance), maquarri (Brett), macquarie (Im Thurn), etc.—is very 
probably connected with the Arawak moraktiyuha, the white crane or 
stork, of which the general Amazon (Tupi) term is magoary (HWB, 
32, 146, 316). The bird carried in procession (pl. 181 B), which 
Schomburgk describes as a crane, is possibly identical with the 
magoary in question. Im Thurn would seem to have described this 
magoary or moraktiyuha as the honoré (Ti, Dec., 1889, p. 282), really 
