52 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 5° 



slightly in unison with each note, and shaking huge calabash 

 rattles. This was accompanied by the wailing chant of a chorus 

 of women standing just behind the quartette and waving fans to 

 keep away the flies. The snort of two huge flutes, the barking of 

 the calabash trumpets, the lament of the savage mother, her body 

 besmeared with her own blood, kneeling by the corpse of her child, 

 the hairs jerked from her head, half a dozen at a time, by a female 

 crouched behind her, the lamentations of the father, with his hair 

 clipped, as he kneeled on the other side of the body and recited the 

 virtues of the deceased loved one, and the low mournful chant of 

 female relatives or friends as they slashed their legs and arms, or 

 even their entire bodies, with sharpened shells — this was the drama 

 that unfolded itself one beautiful summer morning as we crept into 

 the baehytu of the Ta-Dare-Mano Paro village. The little daughter 

 of a chief had been summoned from her earthly bae to wander with 

 the bope (evil spirits), and the funeral ceremonies were in progress. 

 When a Bororo dies, his body is wrapped in the palm-leaf rug 

 which has served as his bed and is carried to the baehytu, where 

 the spectacle described above makes night and day hideous until 

 the first sunset after death ; then as the sun goes down the chorus 

 becomes hushed, and the bundle of remains, with a nine-foot pole 

 passing through the roll, is carried to the public play-ground just 

 outside the baehytu, and about ten inches of earth heaped over it. 

 Here it rests a week that the flesh may separate from the bones, and 

 each evening at sunset the sorrowing family and friends gather 

 around the little mound, their faces toward the fading light, and 

 murmur a low chant, pleading the virtues of the departed one. 

 Every evening, also, water is thrown on the little mound to hasten 

 decay. The day before the remains are to be resurrected is again a 

 gala time. A bamboo whistle brilliantly decorated with feathers is 

 blown at intervals to summon the bope, while within the baehytu 

 the man who invites the bope to resurrect the body is decorated 

 and feted. He wears a skirt of palm leaves hanging loosely from a 

 belt, over his shoulders a cloak of the same material descending 

 below the waist, and over his head is a veil of slender palm leaves 

 to prevent his recognition, and his name must not be spoken. On 

 his head, to represent the setting sun, is a pariko, an ornament of 

 brilliant feathers of the makaw and parrot. Thus arrayed, he dances 

 up and down sideways like a crab, while a companion and a rear 

 guard execute similar movements. After a time, accompanied by 

 all the males, they leave the baehytu for the play-ground just be- 

 yond the village, all dancing as they go. Here the soul-representa- 



