A WARRIOR'S TEACHING.

How The Turtle Tricked The Tiger – Guiana



   Tiger really wanted to eat the Turtle, but was a bit of a coward and none too sure whether his intended victim was the stronger or not. Wishing therefore to find out, he approached the Turtle and pretended to make friends. The latter, however, was no fool, and knowing quite well what reliance could be placed on such a pretended friendship, saw that he must exercise every craft and cunning to save himself. 

Tiger began telling him what a big strong man he was, that he ate only meat, with such and such results, thinking thereby to impress Turtle with his physical superiority. But nothing daunted, Turtle said he could do the same, and suggested that their respective statements be put to the proof. This was agreed on, Turtle stipulating only that during the test they should both keep their eyes shut, an arrangement to which Tiger agreed. 

"Now, didn't I tell you?" said Turtle, "that I could do exactly the same as you and even go one better?" 

Tiger was loath to admit this, and therefore maintained: "Well, even if you are stronger than I, I am faster than you; I can run more quickly. Let us have a race, and prove it." 

They accordingly arranged to run to a certain spot, along a certain path, and whichever got there first would be admitted to be the faster, Turtle stipulating only that he must be allowed a little time in which to get ready. Tiger again agreed. Turtle spent the interim in visiting his many friends, telling them what had happened, and arranging for them to place themselves at stated intervals along the course of the pathway where the race was to be run. 

The two then started, and Tiger, taking a spring ahead, was soon out of sight. Turtle utilized the opportunity by slipping into the bush, taking a short cut, and reaching the spot agreed on, where he awaited his opponent. Tiger, racing along, called out "Hullo!" on seeing just in front of him a turtle, whom he believed to be his friend. He raced on, finds another turtle ahead of him, thinks the same thing, and so meeting turtle after turtle finally reaches the goal, where his original "friend" had certainly arrived first. Tiger therefore had to admit, "Yes, man, you have beaten me," 

Turtle adding: "So you are not after all either the stronger or the faster. Come, let us see who is now the cleverer. I will put marks on you and you put marks on me: that will be a good test." 

The Tiger again agreed. They then started painting each other. As to the Tiger's handiwork, just look at a Turtle's shell, and you will see how roughly and slovenly the marking was done. Of course Tiger was planning to get the better of his opponent if he could, but Turtle well knew this and so had to be very smart in pleasing the Tiger. 

Look at the beautiful spots and stripes that Turtle put on him—and of course Tiger was delighted at seeing how handsome he looked, and had to admit that Turtle was cleverer than he. Now all the time that they had been talking, racing, and painting, they had had nothing to eat, and hence Tiger suggested their going into the depths of the bush, and finding some game, but Turtle, who had good reasons for not trusting his companion, refused. 

"No!" he said, "You can go and raise the deer and I will catch and kill it for you." 

So Tiger went and raised a deer, and drove it down the pathway. In the meantime Turtle climbed up a dead log that was lying across the road, and waited: as the deer raced underneath he dropped off the log and, falling straight on the animal's neck, broke it. Turtle then sucked the dead deer's blood and smeared it all over his mouth, so as to make Tiger, who just then came up breathless, believe that he had caught and destroyed the animal. 

"I have killed the deer and eaten my share; you can come and eat yours now." 

After having gorged himself, Tiger said, "Let us have a nap now," and curling himself up, soon fell asleep. Turtle, who kept awake, saw what a pretty necklace his companion was wearing (what we Indians call a "tiger-bead") and became envious of it.Turtle watched very carefully and, assured that he was in a deep slumber, quietly and softly removed the necklace, which he handed to one of his friends in the neighborhood, telling the latter to make off with it. When Tiger at length woke, he missed his necklace and asked Turtle where it was, but Turtle of course said he did not know. Tiger however, accused him of being the thief, and said that whether he had stolen it or not he would eat him unless he replaced it. 

Turtle, however, protested that necklaces were of no use to the like of him: he had no neck to put one on: all he had was a back! Tiger, however, insisted on killing him if he didn't return it, but Turtle, who was now on his mettle, let him know that he could not kill him if he tried. Had he not already proved to him that he was the stronger, the quicker, and the cleverer? On the other hand, there was much more reason for believing that he, the little Turtle, could easily kill him, the big Tiger, if he only wanted to. And thus they continued, contending, and finally they arranged to fight it out to a finish, the Turtle only insisting that each be allowed a little time to get ready for the fray. The conditions were that they should go in opposite directions, and return within a short interval to the same spot, when the fight must be fought to a finish and no quarter shown. Tiger went his way, and on a given signal returned to the trysting place. 

But there was no Turtle to be seen. Of course not! hadn't he crawled into a hole in a log for safety? And there he still is, and there Tiger is continually on the watch for him to emerge.




An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians, Walter E. Roth, from the Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-1909, pp. 103-386, Washington D.C., 1915, and is now in the public domain.[ British Guiana ][ South America ] 

Guiana story of Beginnings!

HOW PAIN, MISERY, AND DEATH CAME INTO THE WORLD – Guiana

In the olden times, there was no contention, all were happy, and no one became sick or died. It was then that the Yurokons used to come and live among us as our friends and associates; they were short people like ourselves. One Yurokon in particular used to come and drink paiwarri with my people, whom he would visit for the purpose regularly once a month. The last time he came, he appeared as a woman with a baby at the breast. The Caribs gave her of the pepper-pot, into which she dipped the cassava, which she then sucked and ate. The pepper-pot was so hot, however, that it burned the inside of her mouth and "heart," and this made her ask for water, but her hostess told her that she had none. 

Yurokon therefore asked for a calabash, and leaving her baby up at the house, she went down to the waterside, where she quenched her thirst. On her return, she looked for her little child, but it was nowhere to be seen: she searched high and low, but all in vain, because during her absence some worthless woman among the company had thrown it into the boiling cassiri pot. By and by Yurokon went to stir the cassiri with the usual paddle-spoon, and, while she stirred, the body of her baby rose to the surface. She wept, and then, turning on the people, upbraided them: "Why have you punished me in this way? I have never had a bad mind against any of you, but now I will make you pay me. In future your children shall all die, and this will make you weep as I am weeping. And when children are born to you, you shall suffer pain and trouble at their birth. Furthermore, with regard to you men," continued Yurokon, as she addressed the male members of the company, "I will give you great trouble when you go out to catch fish." 

And so she did, because in those days we Caribs only had to go to the waterside, bail the water out with our calabashes, and picking up the fish that were left exposed at the bottom of the stream, just put the water back again to breed fish once more. Yurokon altered all this, and made us go to the trouble, annoyance, and inconvenience of poisoning the pools with various roots. What is more, Yurokon killed the worthless Indian who had thrown her boy into the cassiri, and then asked her children what had become of their mother. 

"She has gone to the field," they said. 

"No, she has not; she is hunting after genitalia unius personæ tribus meæ," was the insulting rejoinder, a reply which she purposely gave in order to provoke them into a rage. She asked them the same question a second time, and they told her she had gone to bake cassava. 

"No, she has not," replied Yurokon; "she has bored her way into my ear," an answer supposed to be even more offensive. And she asked them the same question a third time, but on this occasion they told her that she had gone to dig sweet potatoes. As soon as they mentioned the word "potatoes," Yurokon disappeared 

The general tendency of these Spirits, however, is to do bad, the degree of wickedness of which they can be guilty varying with p.180 circumstances and locality. Such a Spirit for instance may "be believed in simply as a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of all those mishaps of their daily life, the causes of which are not very immediate or obvious to their dull understandings" (HWB, 381). When in the manufacture of their native drinks anything goes wrong with the fermentation, the Indians ascribe it to Spirit machinations. The following Warrau story is illustrative of this belief.


WHY THE DRINK TURNED SOUR

A man went one day to visit some neighbors, but, when he arrived there, found they were all out: as it was already too late in the afternoon to allow of his getting home again before nightfall, he made arrangements to sleep there and return the following morning. He drew himself up on the manicole rafters and turned in. But before I go any further I must tell you that in this house there was a big jar in which drink was being prepared in anticipation of next day's festivities when the house-master, his family, and relatives would have returned. 

Our friend had not been long on the manicole flooring before he saw a lot of Hebus enter the place, and have a look round. He heard them say, "Hullo! here is some drink. Let us bathe first, and then come and taste it. It were a pity to let it spoil." 

So they all went and washed their skins, and then returned for a good carousal. But when they started drinking, they felt the want of some music, and so they arranged with a labba to play for them. All the tune it could play was its usual grunt, but they were quite satisfied with it, and really enjoyed their dance. Our friend watched them until daybreak, when they took their departure, the little labba tree sneaking away behind a plantain tree. 

Later on, the household returned, and said, just as the Spirits did: "Let us bathe first and then drink. It were a pity to let it spoil." But the watcher warned them not to touch the liquor because he had kept awake during the night, and had seen the Hebus sipping it. They therefore threw all the drink away. 

Now, among the household was a widow, who exclaimed: "Yes. I knew that the Hebus were going to spoil our drink." And when asked how she knew, she told them that she had received a sign, or token, because when she was weeping for her late husband, he suddenly appeared before her and told her to cease to cry.

If an Indian loses his way in the forest, the Spirit is the cause. The Caribs, however, know how to circumvent the latter, by making a string puzzle, which is left on the pathway: the object of this puzzle consists in removing, without cutting or breaking, an endless string from off two sticks upon which it has been placed (see fig. 1). The Spirit coming along sees the puzzle, starts examining it, and tries to get the string off: indeed, so engrossed with it does he become, that he forgets all about the wanderer, who is now free to find the p. 181 road again. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Bates speaks of his Indian boy, on the lower Amazon, making a charm to protect them from the Curupari: "For this purpose he took a young palm-leaf, plaited it, and formed it into a ring which he hung to a branch on our track" (HWB, 35).1

On the Orinoco, the Mapoyes blamed the Spirits of the Forest for damage to their fields, the Guayquiries held them responsible for all their strifes and disputes, the Guamos ascribed sickness to their occult powers, while the Betoyes regarded them as the cause of the deaths of all their children whose necks they broke so silently as not to be felt (G, II, 23-26). This belief in their being the cause of sickness and death is universal throughout the Guianas. Among the Arawaks it is the Yawahu-shimara, or Spirit's Arrow, which has the property of inflicting pains or ills, the visible causes of which are not discoverable. The Arawaks, however, are not alone in this conception: it is apparently shared by the Caribs, from whom I learned the following:

Walter E. Roth,An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians, Walter E. Roth, from the Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-1909, pp. 103-386, Washington D.C., 1915, and is now in the public domain.[ British Guiana ][ South America ]

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