ITINERARY. Ixix 



I required at the time, but, on going to the house next day, I found 

 she liad been taken away to some other place, whither I was quite 

 unable to ascertain. I could not really at heart regret my action, but 

 I wondered whether perhaps my interference had done more harm than 

 good for the girl, and might expose her to greater suffering in new 

 surroundings unfamiliar to her. It was not a pleasant thought, and, 

 being quite unable to do anything, I realised that it may not be always 

 wise to interfere in tribal matters, unless one has the power to shoulder 

 the responsibility. That sad face and figure of suffering, with its gentle 

 pathetic voice and spirit of loneliness and resigq^tion, has always been 

 a living memory with me since. 



Though they are very undemonstrative in their affection, exhibiting 

 little or no sign of welcome, or of regret and farewell at parting, there 

 is yet ordinarily a very real affection between the various members of 

 a family, seen particularly at times between husband and wife, and 

 parents and children, but always in a very quiet, unobtrusive way. I 

 -was once particularly struck, on a trip on the Upper Berbice river, by 

 the devotion shown by the parents of a sick child that was rapidly 

 wasting away with consumption, hastened by the attacks at night of 

 , blood-sucking bats, which may be very troublesome to men and animals 

 ■in certain localities. The parents kept watch night after night to pro- 

 tect the child, but in their lonely vigil they would at times unintention- 

 ally doze off, always to find that, however short the interval, the bats 

 had been at work on some exposed part of the child, the nose, ear, or 

 chin, if the toes and fingers were covered in the hammock. Unprovided 

 with nets or any substitute, the situation was a hopeless one from the 

 beginning, for they were of the forest Indians, living in houses not 

 enclosed at the sides. 



During much travelling on the first journey in the Makushi country, 

 we had become quite at home, reciprocally so, with the people, who, as 

 a rule, are as open in their dealings as the plains they inhabit, if they 

 are handled sympathetically. Reports of us were spread everywhere, 

 and we were always welcomed, whole parties at times wanting to 

 accompany us ; and on our leaving, baby after baby would be held out 

 to us to be blown upon three times, a protective proceeding of their 

 menfolk, especially of the peaimen or medicine-men, as they wowld be. 

 This might be regarded as a sign of farewell, but it had no reference to 

 the mother, only to the welfare of the child ; and, as such, it was an 

 animistic rite. At first sight, it would appear as a direct blowing away 

 of the ills and evils that might affect the child, a literal blowing for 

 good luck : in reality, it seemed to be something deeper, a leaving behind 

 of the spirit of the blower, as a sort of guardian spirit for the protection 

 of the child, explicable only by a real comprehension of their type of 

 animism, with its wide range of belief in the power and agency of 

 spirits. 



We met with a very different state of things among the people 

 of the little-visited districts about the upper Kotinga, whicli may be 

 regarded as on the outskirts of the Makushi tribe. Here they fled to 

 the forest when possible on our approach, and where the housse were 

 far out on the savannah, they took refuge in their hammocks, or hid 

 away behind the various objects in the houses, until their fears of us. as 



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