NOMADS OF THE LONG BOW- — HOLMBERG 



67 



to occur. One interesting instance of this kind, 

 although it was not observed by me, came to my 

 attention while I was living in Tibaera. Sometime 

 in 1938 one of the amphibian planes of Lloyd Aereo 

 Boliviano, the Bolivian national airline, got lost 

 in a storm between Cochabamba and Trinidad 

 and for lack of gas was forced to land on an 

 uncharted lake in the Siriono country. It so 

 happened that Eresa-eanta (Strong-eyes), his five 

 wives, and their children were camped on this 

 lake at the time, hunting, fishing, and tending a 

 small garden plot which he cultivated there. It 

 was probably the first time that an unacculturated 

 Siriono had ever seen an airplane; in any event, 

 Eresa-eanta and his family were unacquainted 

 with such a phenomenon. 



As Eresa-eanta described the event to me, he 

 was returning from the hunt late one afternoon to 

 his house, which was situated near the shores of 

 the lake, when he heard a buzzing sound some 

 distance away. As it became louder he got 

 frightened and hurried on to the house. When he 

 arrived there, he saw a huge ngidadisa (harpy 

 eagle, his term for the plane) swooping down on the 

 lake. When it had settled, people got out of its 

 "stomach." He and his family were immediately 

 seized with terrific fright and took to the bush, 

 carrying with them nothing but their hammocks 

 and fire. Upon arriving at a water hole some 

 distance away, they were overcome by darkness 

 and were forced to camp for the night. Sometime 

 during the night, one of his wives who was preg- 

 nant — Kire was her name, and she verified the 

 story — had a miscarriage, "because she had great 

 fear." The remains of this abnormal birth were 

 thrown away into the bush. On the following day 

 Eresa-eanta's wives proceeded to another camp, 

 while he cautiously approached the lake again to 

 pick up some of the supplies left there. Upon 

 arriving, he found that "ngidadisa" was still there, 

 and he watched it for some time while hidden in 

 the brush near the shore. Before noon of the same 

 day the "father" of the "ngidadisa," i. e., a larger 

 plane, flew over the spot but left immediately. 

 Eresa-eanta remained concealed in the brush. 

 Later in the afternoon a "brother" of the first 

 "ngidadisa," i. e., a plane like it, circled overhead 

 and landed near it. This also had people in its 

 "belly." After the people conversed for some time, 

 both of the planes went off together, and he never 

 saw them again. He said that he returned to his 



family the same afternoon, but that he did not 

 come back to the lake for a long time afterward. 

 More than 3 years later I had the good fortune to 

 spend considerable time with one of the worried 

 passengers of that plane, Senor Medardo Solares 

 A., who substantially confirmed the events as 

 recounted to me by Eresa-eanta. 



CHILDBIRTH 



Childbirth normally takes place in the hut and 

 is a public event. Births are well attended by 

 women and children but rarely by the men, who 

 display little interest in such matters. If a birth 

 takes place during the day, even the prospective 

 father will not be present because, as soon as a 

 woman begins to feel birth pangs she notifies her 

 husband and he departs for the hunt to seek a 

 name for the child. 5 



The coming of labor pains necessitates certain 

 preparations for the birth. These are usually 

 made by the woman herself. Since parturition 

 takes place in the hammock, she ties a rope (eco- 

 seko-sdkwa, "childbirth rope") above it, so as to 

 have something secure to grasp during labor. She 

 also loosens the hard ground under the hammock 

 with a digging stick so that the child will have a 

 soft bed on which to be born. Sometimes she also 

 spreads ashes over the soft earth further to cushion 

 the newborn infant. Having finished these prep- 

 arations the woman lies down in the hammock 

 where she awaits the birth with grunts and groans 

 to which her tribesmen pay little attention. 



Of the eight births which I had the good fortune 

 to witness among the Siriono, four took place 

 during the day and four at night. In the former 

 cases the mothers received no help whatever, either 

 during the preparations for the births or during 

 the births themselves. In the other four cases the 

 husbands assisted to the extent of setting fire to a 

 few dried leaves of motacu palm in order to light 

 up the immediate environs of the hammock, but 

 beyond this they gave no help . At all of the births 

 a crowd of women were present, standing by or 

 sitting in adjoining hammocks, gossiping about 

 what it was like when they had their last child or 

 speculating as to whether the prospective child 

 would be a boy or a girl. Not a move was made 

 by these onlookers to assist the parturient women, 

 except in one case when twins were born. 



1 See Naming, p. 74. 



