TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SOUL 
misfortunes which had afflicted the Bororos. Some of the 
barihs maintained that they had actually seen both 
Marebba and some of the boppes. They gave wonderful 
descriptions of them, comparing them in their appearance 
to human beings. The Bororos believed that in any food 
it was possible to find a boppe , there established in order 
to do evil. Therefore, before partaking of meals, es¬ 
pecially at festivals, they first presented the barih with 
fruit, grain, meat, and fish in order to appease the anger 
of the evil spirits. 
The Bororos believed in the transmigration of the soul 
into animals. They never ate deer, nor jaguar, nor vul¬ 
tures, because they thought that those animals contained 
the souls of their ancestors. The jaguar, as a rule, 
contained the soul of women. When a widower wished to 
marry a second time, he must first kill a jaguar, in order 
to free the soul of his first wife from suffering. 
They also seemed to have an idea that the arue, or 
souls of the dead, might reappear in the world and could 
be seen by relatives. Men and women all became of one 
sex on leaving this world — all souls being feminine, 
according to the Bororos. 
The apparition of the souls before their relatives was, 
of course, merely a clumsily arranged trick of the barihs . 
This is how it was done. They made a circle of branches 
of trees, in order to keep the audience at a distance, and 
then erected a large wooden gate, so arranged that when 
the souls appeared, it fell down in order to give them free 
passage. The souls, generally not more than two 
together, upon being called by the barih entered the ring 
with their faces covered and hopping with a special step 
of their own. They did not respond to prayers or tears, 
and kept on twirling about within the ring. The body was 
that of a woman, wearing from the waist down a gown 
of palm leaves. The face was covered by a mask of 
vegetable fibre, which allowed its owner to see and not 
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