304 TlMEHRI. 



turing in the most curious way, going through what I can 

 only describe as the most solemnly ridiculous and fan- 

 tastic posturings, their bodies energetically, yet steadily, 

 bent from the hips alternately backward and forward, 

 while at the same time their stamping feet moved the 

 whole circle of them round and round the paiwarie trough. 

 All were chanting as loudly and sonorously as possible a 

 short continuously repeated sentence, erantan eworki, 

 which being interpreted by one of my own Macoosis was 

 said to mean " that they had come to drink like hogs." 

 This sentence, apparently more apposite of meaning 

 than they intended, really signified that they, in the 

 character of bush hogs (or peccaries) had come to drink. 

 And to a very large extent they justified their statement 

 that they had come to drink like hogs, both in its appar- 

 ent and in iis intended signification ; for while they cer- 

 taily did, as a rabid total abstainer might say, drink like 

 ho^s, make beasts ot themselves, they, at the same time, 

 cleverly managed to keep up the whole time a somewhat 

 close suggestion of a herd of peccaries. Their stamping 

 was as the stamping of a herd of these animals ; and 

 every now and then they interrupted the chanting of 

 their sentence, first to utter a series of fiendish shrieks 

 which were then always immediately followed by a rapid 

 and vehement imitation of the gruntings of a herd of 

 bush-hogs when disturbed by some unexpected sight or 

 sound. But even the monotony of the chanted sentence 

 was occasionally, perhaps once every half-hour, altered 

 by the adoption of new words. Sometimes it was eran- 

 tan meopoi wai ey — "we have come to a bad place;" 

 that is to say they had had to mount a steep hill to reach 

 the drinking place. This was followed by a suggestion 



