CHAPTER XVI
Bororo Legends—The Religion of the Bororos—Funeral Rites
The Bororos believed in spirits of the mountains and the forest, which haunted special places in order to do harm to living beings. Those spirits came out at night. They stole, ill-treated, and killed. In rocks, said the Bororos, dwelt their ancestors in the shape of parrots. The Bororos were greatly affected by dreams and nightmares, which they regarded as events that had actually happened and which generally brought bad luck. They were often the communications of evil spirits, or of the souls of ancestors. The Bororos had many superstitions regarding animals, which they individualized in their legends, giving them human intelligence—especially the colibri (humming-bird), the macaw, the monkey, the deer, and the leopard.
The stars, according to these savages, were all Bororo boys. Let me give you a strange legend concerning them.
"The women of the aldeia had gone to pick Indian corn. The men were out hunting. Only the old women had remained in the aldeia with the children. With an old woman was her nephew, playing with a bow and arrow. The arrows had perforated sticks, which the boy filled with Indian corn. When the boy had arrived home he had asked his grandmother to make a kind of polenta with Indian corn. He had invited all the other boys of the aldeia to come and eat. While grandmother was cooking the children played, and among them decided to go to heaven. In the aldeia there lived an old woman and a red macaw. Both could speak. The boys, having eaten the polenta, cut off the woman's arms, cut out her tongue and eyes, and tore out the tongue of the speaking bird. Having done this, they went into the forest, where they found a liana twisted into innumerable steps (in the Bororo language, ippare, young; kugure, multitude; groiya, step). They could not speak for fear of drawing attention, nor ask any one for help. They had taken the precaution of setting free all the captive birds in the aldeia, and they had flown away, except the pio duddu (the colibri), which they took with them into the forest. The boys gave a long liana, like a rope, to the colibri, requesting him to fasten it to the top of the highest tree, and another long liana which he must tie to the sky where they all wished to ascend. The colibri tied the vegetable ropes as requested, and all the boys climbed up.
"The mothers, missing their children, went to the old woman and the speaking macaw.
"'Where are our children?' said they in a chorus.
"No answer. They were horrified when they perceived the mutilated woman and bird. They rushed out of the hut and saw the children—up—up—high, like tiny spots, climbing up the liana to heaven. The women went to the forest, to the spot where the boys had proceeded on their aerial trip, and showing the breasts that had milked them, entreated them to come down again. The appeal was in vain. The mothers, in despair, then proceeded to follow their children skyward up the liana.
"The youthful chieftain of the plot had gone up last. When he perceived the mothers gaining on them, he cut the liana. With a sonorous bump, the mothers dropped in a heap to the ground. That was why the Bororo women were resigned to see their sons in heaven, forming the stars, while they—the women themselves—remained the transmigrated souls of their mothers upon earth."
The Bororos also said that the stars were the houses of deceased children.