Additional studies of the arts, crafts, and customs of the Guiana Indians : with special reference to those of Southern British Guiana / by Walter E. Roth.

  • Roth, Walter E. (Walter Edmund), 1861-1933.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Additional studies of the arts, crafts, and customs of the Guiana Indians : with special reference to those of Southern British Guiana / by Walter E. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 91 830. At end of section add: Be Goeje relates the following from the Trio Indians, but whether it has anything to do with mourning I can not say: About 4 o’clock the Indians woke, raked the fires under their hammock a bit and then took another forty winks. An hour later the night’s rest was ended for good, which was mostly notified by one of their number imitating the note of the tokro [partridge, Odontopherus sp.], which the birds in the forest answered. (GOT, 1044.) 835. Line 4, after hut, add: The Waiwai and neighboring forest tribes also practiced cremation (sec. 867 B). 867 A. Mourning at a Trio female’s death has been noted by De Goeje. At Popokai village, sitting in the shade of the house were a number of men, Pontoetoe among them, in a row, busy with a sort of song of lamentation during which, every now and again, a couple of singers went to sit beside each other, and embraced each other as they wailed. They were for the most part painted with genipa juice, feet, knees, and hands quite black, the rest of the body with black rectilinear figures. On the head a garland of white chicken feathers covered with an apomali (circlet of short red, yellow, and black feathers) and in the bead band around the right arm a plume of ara feathers. * * * Aponhawa had died this morning * * * and they had immediately buried her in the old village of Intelewa. (GOT, 1087.) 867 B. Waiwai. The Waiwai and other forest tribes cremate the dead. When anyone dies the relatives and friends take the body in its hammock (hung on a pole), carry it away into the forest, build a heap of logs and brush, lay the body on top, and set fire to the heap. When the fire has burned out they gather up the ashes and fragments of bones in a large drink pot, cover it with a bowl, and leave it on the site without other covering; or a hole is dug in the center of the heap of ashes, the fragments of bones thrown in, and a large pot turned upside down over them. Some¬ times palm leaves are thrown over the heap of ashes and a pot inverted over the charred bones. Personal things are burned with the dead; a man’s ornaments, necklaces, shoulder basket, contain¬ ing comb, paint, knife, and arrow-making implements; his breech- cloth and hammock are all placed with the body, but his bows and arrows are broken and thrown away in the forest. A woman’s ornaments, her workbasket, containing spindle whorls and imple¬ ments for making pottery, her aprons, and hammock are burned with her, but her cooking pots, food bowls, water jars, and cala¬ bashes are broken and the fragments scattered. (FAC, 171-172.)