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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 10 



RELIGION AND MAGIC 



RELIGION 



Native religion has not reached a high degree of 

 elaboration among the Siriono. One of the 

 reasons for this may be that the Indians are 

 forced to devote most of their time and energy to 

 the immediate straggle for survival. Both sha- 

 mans and priests are lacking in this unprofessional 

 society, and the confused beliefs and practices that 

 are adhered to with respect to the supernatural 

 world have not been integrated into a complex 

 religious system. As in all societies, however, a 

 distinction between the sacred and profane, the 

 holy and unholy, is clearly drawn by the Siriono. 

 The existence of taboos, of ceremony, of belief in 

 evil spirits, etc., all bear witness to a concern with 

 religious matters. 



In this simple society, however, there is no 

 belief in a hierarchy of gods who control the 

 destiny of man. Yasi (Moon) is the only super- 

 natural being which the Siriono believe in. As 

 has already been mentioned, mythology imparts 

 considerable power to this culture hero who was 

 responsible for the creation of the world and all 

 that is in it, and attesting to the fact that the 

 moon still plays some role in the affairs of men are 

 such beliefs as that the moon causes thunder and 

 lightning by hurling peccaries ami jaguars down 

 to earth and that to sleep under the rays of the 

 moon causes blindness. But the moon can 

 scarcely be regarded as a supernatural being in the 

 usual religious sense. It exerts little or no influ- 

 ence on the affairs of men, and no cult has grown 

 up around it. 



The core of Siriono religious belief is centered 

 in the fear of animistic spirits. The universe is 

 thought to be peopled with detached evil spirits 

 called abacikwaia, which are responsible for most 

 of the misfortunes that befall the human race 

 Thus cold south winds, accidents, illnesses, bad 

 luck, deaths, etc., are ascribed to the intervention 

 of abacikwaia. These spirits are invisible and 

 formless, little can be done to control them, and 

 they are neither worshiped nor propitiated in any 

 way. They can best he avoided by adhering to 

 the traditional customs of the band. 



The Siriono also believe in monsters, of whom 

 they have great fear. These are called kurukwa. 



Unlike the abacikwaia, which are invisible an? 

 formless, the kurukwa are visible and somewhat 

 resemble human beings. But they arc large, 

 ugly, black, and hairy. These monsters lurk 

 outside of the house at night, where they await 

 their victims, carry them off into the forest, and 

 strangle them. Sometimes the kurukwa even 

 come into the house and snatch people from their 

 hammocks while they are sleeping. During the 

 day, however, there is little danger of the kurukwa. 

 They have great fear of the bow and arrow. 

 Consequently hunters are never assaulted. 



Informants told me that the kurukwa are 

 especially fond of waiting outside of the house 

 on nights of drinking feasts. When the men are 

 drunk, they often go outside of the house to 

 urinate or defecate. The kurukwa await them 

 at the edge of the forest and say, "Man yen 

 ererSkwa heri" ("What is the name of your 

 chief?"). (The kurukiva are especially fond of 

 killing chiefs.) If the men impart the name of 

 the chief to the kurukwa, they will not be harmed; 

 if not, they may be carried off into the forest and 

 strangled. 



The kurukwa are believed to have companions 

 like men. When they are unable to find human 

 victims, they himt tapir, peccary, and other 

 animals. Kenda, who was one of my best 

 informants at Casarabe, told me that it was 

 dangerous to let my horse ran loose at night 

 because a kurukiva might strangle him. 



Many informants identified both abacikwaia 

 and kurukwa with ghosts of the dead. Some time 

 after the death of Teko, an Indian of Casarabe, 

 Kenda told me that he had become a kurukiva and 

 that he had been seen hi the forest by other men. 

 At Casarabe one night an old woman was attacked 

 by a kurukwa while alseep in her hammock — 

 just 3 days after the death of her husband. I 

 fired a pistol to drive the kurukiva away, but for 

 several nights thereafter the woman slept with 

 an arrow by her side so as to be aide to resist 

 attack. In another instance a widow at Casarabe 

 remarried without undergoing the usual 3-day 

 period of mourning. She was severely criticized 

 by her tribesmen, who thought that her dead 

 husband would return as a kurukwa to wreak 

 vengeance on the group. 



