714 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN, 33 
or similar implement, and with all his household turns in a direction 
aside and digs as many pits as there are heads under his charge. 
When they have eased nature’s call each one covers his pit with 
great care. This is a daily business, and is always done a little before 
or a little after sunset (G, 1, 173). On the Takutu, Schomburgk 
states that in the early morning the Wapishana relieve themselves of 
nature’s requirements, whereby men and women show an extraordi- 
nary Shame, in that they never relieve themselves in the presence of 
others. They cover everything with earth (SR, u, 47). Among the 
present-day Makusi, Patamona, and Arawak a man will often ac- 
company his wife, a father his son, a mother her daughter. In 
the Pomeroon and Moruca Carib and Arawak houses there is always 
a small pathway leading from the house to what may be called 
the latrine, which is but a log cut down, and on this the person 
squats. After a time, if the place becomes offensive, another log 
is felled in the immediate neighborhood, but the same pathway is 
always retained. These same people have a curious superstition 
about the tiba bee. They say that when in its flight this insect hits 
up against anyone and then falls to the ground, the person so hit 
must straightway go into the bush to ease himself, when this bee will 
come and cover his excreta for him. All through South America, 
says Spruce, I have noticed that when the Indian has a hard day’s 
work before him and has only a scanty supply of food he prefers to 
go until night without an evacuation, and he has greater control 
over the calls of nature than the white man has. Their maxim, as an 
Indian at San Carlos expressed it to me in rude Spanish, is “ Quien 
caga de manana es guloso” (he who goes to stool of a morning is a 
glutton) (RS, m, 454). Barrere talks of the Cayenne Carib males 
urinating in the squatting position (PBA, 164). I have seen the 
same practice with the Patamona and Makusi. 
Whenever an Indian passes near to or smells exposed excreta, a 
decomposed carcass, or anything else equally offensive, he will turn 
aside and spit. By spitting he used similarly to express his aversion 
to the Negroes (SR, 1, 194). 
The young girl-folk are so accustomed to keep their legs close 
together that, whatever position they assume, one can notice nothing 
at all, not even the least signs that they are indisposed; even when, 
according to custom, they sit on the ground they know how to tuck 
the leg in a funny way under the body with the result that, even on 
stooping over them, the eye can not be offended (BER, 21). 
Even up to my day Pomeroon Arawak and Warrau women during 
menstruation used to retire at night to a small outlying shed (where 
they might likewise be delivered). Such a shed would be distin- 
guished by a tassel or two of spent ite leaf (i. e., after removal of the 
outer fiber) being hung up outside from a rafter. 
