NOMADS OF THE LONG BOW HOLMBERG 



91 



MAGIC 



Magic, like religion, is little elaborated among 

 the Siriono. Most magical practice that has 

 not already been described has to do in one way 

 or another with increasing anil insuring the supply 

 of food. Hunters hang up the skulls of the 

 animals and the feathers of the birds which they 

 bag on sticks near camp or on posts in the house 

 to influence the same animals to return. They 

 smear their faces with uruku ami glue feathers 

 into their hair to make them more attractive to 

 game. They also frequently paint the cotton 

 string of then- arrows and wrist bands with 

 uruku to give them magical charm. When they 

 kill a harpy eagle, they rub their bodies and 

 hair with the white downy feathers of the breast 

 to absorb some of the power of this mighty bird. 

 They sing and dance not only for recreation but to 

 promote the supply of game as well. All these 

 and many other magical practices already men- 

 tioned appear to have as their principal function 

 a reduction of the anxiety that centers around 

 the satisfaction of hunger. 



DREAMS 



Dreams are thought to be caused by absence 

 and wandering of the soul. Generally they are 

 believed to presage the future. Hunters who 

 dream about hunting a certain animal believe 

 that this is a sign that they will kill one, and 

 after such a dream they often go on a successful 

 chase. One night Eantandu dreamed that he 

 killed a tapir. Early the following morning, he 

 departed for the hunt and returned late in the 

 afternoon having bagged his prize. He told me 

 that he knew he was going to shoot a tapir because 

 he had dreamed about it. Such experiences are 

 common among the Siriono and strongly reinforce 

 the belief that dreams foretell the future. 



If dreams are an unconscious expression of 

 desires, then those of the Siriono clearly reflect 

 their preoccupation with the quest for food. 

 While I was only able to record data on some 50 

 dreams, more than 25 of these are related directly 

 to the eating of food, the hunting of game, and 

 the collecting of edible products from the forest. 

 An especially common type is one in which a 

 person dreams that a relative who is out hunting, 

 has had luck and is returning to camp with game 

 for him. Enia, for example, had a dream that 



Eantandu, who was out on the chase, killed a 

 great many peccaries and was returning to camp 

 with broiled peccary meat for him. Another 

 recurring type of dream is one in which a person 

 himself is out hunting, and kills and eats a great 

 deal of game. Kenda reported a dream in which 

 he was hunting fish in a certain lagoon and shoot- 

 ing huge quantities. His brother was with him, 

 and they roasted and ate fish until they could 

 not move. Dreams also reflect strong desires 

 to eat certain kinds of food. Before the ripening 

 of the coquino fruit, which is greatly relished 

 because of its sugar content, Ai-a dreamed that 

 she was in the forest collecting with her husband 

 and that they encountered coquino trees loaded 

 with ripe fruit, which they ate until they were 

 stuffed. 



One of the striking things about food dreams is 

 that they seem to occur just about as often when 

 a person is not hungry as when he is hungry. 

 The food dream of Kenda, for example, was 

 reported the morning following a feast in my 

 house the night before. Hence, it would seem, 

 that such dreams reflect considerable concern 

 about food. Indeed, an intense psychological 

 analysis of the dream life of the Siriono — which 

 I have neither the data nor the skill to make — 

 might support the theory that hunger is the most 

 intense motivating force in the society. 



THE SOUL 



Ideas about the soul among the Siriono are con- 

 fused and vague. When questioned about such 

 matters, informants displayed a singular apathy 

 for discussing them. Whether such attitudes 

 spring from a lack of ideas, from a fear of the dead, 

 or from some other reason, I was never able to de- 

 termine. Some Indians said that the soul resides 

 in the head; others, that it resides in the heart; 

 still others, that they did not know. 



Prof. Richard Wegner (1934 b, p. 21) has made 

 the claim that the Siriono have a belief in an 

 afterworld called Mbaerunya, to which the souls 

 of good hunters depart after death and where they 

 while away their time drinking maize beer with a 

 Celestial Grandfather who has many wives. Since 

 this statement has already been emphatically de- 

 nied by Padre Ansclm Schermair (1934, p. 520), 

 I need no more than mention here that I, too, 

 found no evidence to corroborate such a belief in 



