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NA TURE 



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1884 



Animism, the results obtained by hi n must take a 

 ppQmin^nt place.' Few, if any, Europeans have had 

 such perfect opportunity of seeing the idea of soul 

 originate in the evidence of the senses in dreams, as 

 interpreted by childlike, savage philosophy. Dreams 

 ai-e, to these rude people, events of real life, in which 

 the spirits or phantoms of other men come to them in 

 sleep, or are seen when the sleeper, in like manner, leaves 

 hii own body lying and goes forth into the dreim-worlJ. 

 Both these conceptions are illustrated in the following 

 slopes of what occurred to our traveller : — 



''It becomes important, therefore fully to recognise the 

 complete belief of the Indian in the reality of his dream- 

 life, and in the unbroken continuity of this with his 

 working life. It is easy to show this belief by many in- 

 tidents which came under my notice. For instance, one 

 morning when it was important to me to get away from 

 a camp on the Essequibo River, at which I had been 

 detained for some days by the illness of some of my 

 Indian companions, I found thit one of the invalids, a 

 young Macusi, though better in health, was so enraged 

 against me that he refused to stir, for he declared that, 

 with great want of consideration for his weak health, I had 

 take 1 him out during the night and had made him haul 

 the canoe up a series of difficult cataracts. Nothing 

 could persuade him that this was but a dream, and it was 

 some: time before he was so far pacified as to throw him- 

 self sulkily into the bottom of the canoe. At that time 

 we; were all suffering from a great scarcity of food, and 

 hunget having its usual effect in producing vivid dreams, 

 similar effects frequently occurred. More than once the 

 men declared in the morning that some absent men, 

 whom they named, had come during the night and had 

 beaten. or otherwise maltreated them ; and they insisted 

 upon much rubbing of the bruised parts of their bodies. 

 Another instance was amusing. In the middle of one 

 night I was awakened by an Arawak named Sam, the 

 captain or head man of the Indians who were with me, 

 only to be told the bewildering words, ' George speak me 

 very, bad, boss; you cut his bits ! ' It was some time 

 before I could collect my senses sufficiently to remember 

 th<^t 'pipits ' or fourpenny-pieces are the units in which, 

 among Creoles and semi-civilised Indians, calculation of 

 mOnfey, and consequently of wages, is made : that to cut 

 bit^ frtfeans to reduce the number of bits or wages given : 

 a:hd ta understand that Captain Sara, having dreamed 

 thst'ijtis subordinate George had spoken insolently to 

 lli^^l,,the former, with a fine sense of the dignity of his 

 ofjicflj'pow insisted that the culprit should be punished 

 in r^ar life " (p. 344). 



• iii^atiless clear is the train of native argument by which 

 the motion of soul e.xtends itself from man to the other 

 ahimals, which in the view of the rude Indian are beings 

 differiiBg indeed from man in bodily form and strength, 

 bot-jeomparable with him in ways and cunning, creatures 

 talkfln^ among themselves in their own languages, not 

 more) unintelligible to him than are the languages of sur- 

 roiindtng tribe; of men. Indeed the peai-man or magician 

 ofijhis own tribe, carrying into fraudulent effect this real 

 beli«f,.holds converse in his hearingwith birds and beasts. 

 Wla.itdrude men think of the intelligence of animals is 

 well illustrate! by a custom which came under .Mr. Im 

 Thiam's own notice. " Before leaving a temporary camp 

 in: thd. forest, where they have killed a tapir and dried 

 theuoipeat on a babracot (stage of green sticks for 



. '&^-*paper bv .Mr. Iiii Thurn. embodying much of this rescirch, will be 

 ^^AyXf^i^'i J out-nalo/ tfu Anthfopological Institute. 



.ini tflllSSj.— i. 13. T. 



ithr apology printed in Na 



M.ay 3 



smoking meat over a fire), Indians invariably destroy 

 this babracot, saying that should a tapir passing that 

 way find traces of the slaughter of one of his kind, he 

 would come by night on the next occasion when Indians 

 slept at that place, and taking a man, would babracot 

 him in revenge." 



Not to discuss here the spirits of rocks, waterfalls, and 

 objects generally, which animate the Indian's world, men- 

 tion may be made of those particular phases of Animism 

 which underlie the proceedings of the native magicians, 

 as to which Mr. Im Thurn has brought some picturesque 

 and instructive facts into view. To understand these 

 ideas, it has to be borne in mind that by the native law o( 

 vengeance, when an injury has been done (or believed to 

 have been done)to a man, his nearest relative,as his avenger 

 {keiiaima), sets himself to follow and slay the wrongdoer, 

 or, if he cannot be found, one of his relatives. Thus every 

 Indian lives in constant dread that a kenaimamaybe fol- 

 lowing him like a shadow through the forest till he can catch 

 him sleeping or hel[)Iess, strike him down, and rub deadly 

 poison into his flesh, or dislocate his limbs. All this 

 really happens, but the Indian extends the idea into his 

 spirit-world, and, with a rude but sufficient philo- 

 sophy, finds a cause of all sickness and death in attacks 

 by the spirits sent by the imaginary kenaimas, which 

 enter into the bodies of beasts of prey to attack their 

 victims, or poison them, or, embodied in worms or insects, 

 or any other small objects, pass into their bodies, and 

 cause aches and pains. Against these spirit-foes the 

 Indian has a protector, the magician or /tvj/-man. This 

 personage's craft is based on the same Animistic theory as 

 that of his dupes, as is plain from the training for the 

 profession which he undergoes, fasting, wandering in the 

 forest, and drinking large draughts of tobacco-water, till 

 he can work himself up into morbid passions of excite- 

 ment, in which his intercourse with the spirits is carried 

 on, partly no doubt in knavish imposture, but partly also 

 in genuine belief. The methods by which this practi- 

 tioner drives out disease-spirits from his patients were 

 actually experienced by Mr. Im Thurn, who had the luck 

 of getting a peai-man to operate on him for a slight head- 

 ache and fever. A company of some thirty people, 

 mostly attracted by the prospect of so novel a perform- 

 ance as peai-ing a white man, were assembled in the 

 house of the doctor, the entrance was closed, the 

 fires put out, and all lay in their hammocks, our 

 traveller being especially warned not to set foot on 

 the ground, for the kenaimas would be on the floor, and 

 would do dreadful things to him if they caught him. 

 Much like his analogue the professional medium at a 

 modern seance, the peai-man made the patient promise 

 not to stir out of his hammock, nor look, nor lay hands 

 on anything that might touch him. For a while all 

 was still, till suddenly the silence was broken by a 

 burst of indescribable and really terrible yells and 

 shouts, which filled the house, shaking walls and roof, 

 sometimes rising rhythmically to a roar, which never 

 ceased for six hours. Questions seemed to be thundered 

 out and answers shouted back, with no pause in the 

 sound. A little Macusi boy, who had slung his hammock 

 close to Mr. Im Thurn's, whispered to him that it was the 

 peai-man roaring his questions and commands to ihe 

 kenaimas, who were \clling and growling and shouiiug 



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