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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 15 



sister (ashimbe) which are extended to both parallel 

 and cross cousins. Distinctions are made for 

 younger and older sibling. Only one term is used 

 for designating one's own children, brother's 

 and sister's children, as well as grandchildren, 

 manundo. (See chart 12.) 



An individual is prohibited from marrying 

 parallel and cross cousins but beyond this restric- 

 tion he is permitted to marry into any of the other 

 families. After marriage a young man lives 

 with his wife's family until his father-in-law dies. 

 He then builds a house near his own brothers. 

 During his stay with his wife's family he obeys 

 his father-in-law as if he were his own father. 

 There appear to be no father- or mother-in-law 

 taboos. Disputes between the families were 

 settled by the chief who forced wrongdoers to 

 make payments to the injured parties. 



KELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 



MYTHS 



One day some ripe figs fell from the fig tree and 

 out of one of these figs came Aipuku, the first man 

 in the world. He woke up suddenly and walked 

 around. He was lonely and thought a long time 

 about what to do. Then he picked up four figs 

 and placed them in a row on the ground and 

 walked away. He heard voices, and when he 

 came back the figs had turned into human beings, 

 two men and two women. One of these was 

 Barabela whom he married; the others went away. 



Then Aipuku made the ancestors of many 

 Indian tribes. He took macaba palm nuts and 

 set them in a row; from these nuts came the 

 Umotina — the men came from the long nuts and 

 the women from the short nuts. He made skirts 

 for the women and gave each man a bow and some 

 arrows, told them where to live, and gave each 

 one a name. These people married and are the 

 ancestors of the Umotina. Then he made many 

 other Indian tribes, using the fruit of the mangaba 

 and the berries of the bauwi tree. 



One day Barabela asked Aipuku what was 

 wrong with his legs. He looked down and noticed 

 that the calves of his legs were sore and swollen. 

 They kept swelling until they burst open. Out 

 of one calf came the white men (uwase), and out 

 of the other, the abuse, or enemy Indian tribes. 



Aipuku then made holes in the ears of the abuse, 

 but the uwase refused to have their ears pierced. 

 He then asked them to live with him, but they 

 refused. The abuse went north, and the uwase 

 went south. Aipuku was sad because h's children 

 disobeyed him. It is interesting to note that the 

 abuse and uwase, who were the traditional enemies 

 of the Umotina, came from the sores in Aipuku 's 

 legs, were unasked for, and were disobedient. 

 After creating all the people, Aipuku and his 

 wife left. 



In the old days the Umotina did not have maize. 

 One day when a woman was out in the woods 

 collecting she found some sucuri (anaconda) eggs. 

 She thought that they were birds' eggs and put 

 them in the basket which she carried on her back. 

 The eggs broke, leaked down her back and into 

 her womb. She became pregnant and gave birth 

 to a snake. She liked the snake very much be- 

 cause it was her child and could talk. In order 

 to hide it from her sons she let the snake go into 

 her womb. One day, however, the sons saw the 

 snake as it went up into a buriti tree to collect 

 nuts. They asked their mother who it was. At 

 first the woman denied seeing it, but her sons in- 

 sisted. Finally she said it was her son. The 

 boys were very angry and said they would kill 

 the snake when they saw it again. The snake 

 heard this while he was hiding in the woman's 

 womb. For a long time the woman carried the 

 snake in her womb but one day it came out and 

 went into the woods to collect buriti nuts. The 

 woman's sons saw it, killed it, and cut it into 

 pieces. The mother went into the woods and 

 cried when she saw what had happened to her 

 snake-son. She picked up the pieces and buried 

 them and from each piece a maize plant grew up. 

 She gave the ears to the other women in the village 

 who planted them. Since then the Umotina have 

 had maize. 



One day a woman caught a "lambari," a small 

 fresh-water fish. She liked this particular fish 

 very much and, as she had no children, she took 

 it home and hid it under a mat. Soon she heard it 

 crying and when she lifted the mat she saw a boy 

 instead of a fish. For a long time the woman hid 

 the fish-boy from her husband, but the boy in- 

 sisted on going out and following the man when 

 he went into the woods. One day as he was 

 following the man he called out and asked him 



