668 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
Such proofs are referred to again in section 884. The parents of 
the Warrau girl, while still at a very early age, choose a bride- 
groom and hand her over to him at a later period without any further 
festivity. But from the day on which the girl has been betrothed 
to him, the boy must work for her parents until he arrives at 
manhood, in the meantime paying her every regard and atten- 
tion in the way of giving her beads and the best of what he hunts. 
Arrived at manhood, he takes her to where inclination has led 
him to build a house (SR, 1, 164). Among the Arawak, marriages 
are frequently contracted by the parents for their children when 
infants. In this case the young man is bound to assist the family 
of his wife until she arrives at puberty. He then takes her 
where he pleases and establishes his own household (HiC, 228). 
With these same people, if the girl is still so young that the bride- 
groom has to wait some years for her, the stepfather will in the 
meantime give him a widow or some older unmarried woman out 
of the family who, after the marriage with the real bride, returns 
with her in the relation of a servant (SR, m, 459). Cayenne In- 
dian boys might marry their cousins german (who were consid- 
ered their own by right of birth, as among the island Carib), 
often when two or three years of age. In the meantime they take 
another woman, whom they send away when the young cousin 
has become big enough to sleep with her husband (PBA, 223). 
A father possesses such authority over his own children that 
they must give their hand where he pleases, the girls being entirely 
under his control, even to a certain extent after marriage. Capt. 
Quio, as Dance remarks, had given his child to an Indian, but having 
had a quarrel with him, he ordered the child home. He next gave 
her to another, and a short time after, a drunken quarrel and fight 
ensuing, he deprived his® pugnacious son-in-law of the girl. The 
third husband was abandoned because, as the captain affirmed, he 
was too lazy to work. This may have meant, however, that the man 
objected to work for the sole benefit of another man (Da, 106). On 
the other hand, it may happen that the young benedict is himself 
averse to the girl bride that has been forced upon him. Thus 
Schomburgk refers to the case of a young Makusi who, to judge 
from appearance and size, could scarcely have completed his thir- 
teenth year... it appeared on inquiry that he had been lately 
married, much against his own will, though in deference to the 
wishes of his relations, and was anxious to join this traveler’s ex- 
pedition to escape from his bride (Sel, 194). 
869. Men may make their own choice and demand for a wife. 
Thus with the present-day. Pomeroon district Arawak, if a man 
wants to take over a girl for a wife he camps in the same house or 
