It is from such contrary evidences as these that the true character of aboriginal beliefs must be reconstructed. Im Thurn says of the native names that they "to some extent acquired a sense which the missionaries imparted to them"; and when we meet, in such passages as that quoted from Brett, the ascription of attributes like omniscience and omnipotence to primitive divinities, there is indeed cause for humour at the missionary's expense. But there are logical idols in more than one trade; the ethnologists have their full share of them. Im Thurn gives us a list of indigenous appellations of the Great Spirit of Guiana:
Carib Tribes:
True Caribs: Tamosi ("the Ancient One"); Tamosi kabotano ("the Ancient One in the Sky").
Ackawoi: Mackonaima (meaning unknown).
Macusi: Kutti (probably only Macusi-Dutch for "God").Arawak Tribes: Wa murreta kwonci ("our Maker"); Wa cinaci ("our Father"); Ifilici wacinaci ("our Great Father").
Warrau-Wapianan: Kononatoo ("our Maker"); Tominagatoo (meaning unknown).
Of all these names im Thurn remarks that in those whose meanings are known "only three ideas are expressed—(1) One who lived long ago and is now in sky-land; (2) the maker of the Indians; and (3) their father. None of these ideas," he continues, "in any way involve the attributes of a god...."[160] Obviously, acceptance of this negation turns upon one's understanding of the meaning of "god."
The Cariban Makonaima (there are many variants, such as Makanaima, Makunaima, and the like) is a creator-god and the hero of a cosmogony. It is possible that his name connects him with the class of Kenaima (or Kanaima), avengers of murder and bringers of death, who are often regarded as endowed with magical or mysterious powers; and in this case the term may be analogous to the Wakanda and Manito of the northern continent. Schomburgk[161] states that Makunaima means "one who works in the night"; and if this be true, it is curious to compare with such a conception the group of Arawakan demiurgic beings whom he describes. According to the Arawak myths, a being Kururumany was the creator of men, while Kulimina formed women. Kururumany was the author of all good, but coming to earth to survey his creation, he discovered that the human race had become wicked and corrupt; wherefore he deprived them of everlasting life, leaving among them serpents, lizards, and other vermin. Wurekaddo ("She Who Works in the Dark") and Emisiwaddo ("She Who Bores Through the Earth") are the wives of Kururumany; and Emisiwaddo is identified as the cushi-ant, so that we have here an interesting suggestion of world-building ants, for which analogues are to be found far north in America, in the Pueblos and on the North-West Coast. There is, however, a fainéant god high above Kururumany, one Aluberi, pre-eminent over all, who has no concern for the affairs of men; while other supreme beings mentioned by Schomburgk are Amalivaca—who is, however, rather a Trickster-Hero—and the group that, among the Maipuri, corresponds to the Arawakan family of divine beings, Purrunaminari ("He Created Men"), Taparimarru, his wife, and Sisiri, his son, whom she, without being touched by him, conceived to him from the mere love he bore her—a myth in which, as Schomburgk observes, we should infer European influence.
Humboldt, in describing the religion of the Orinoco aborigines says[162] of them that "they call the good spirit Cachimana; it is the Manitou, the Great Spirit, that regulates the seasons and favours the harvests. Along with Cachimana there is an evil principle, Iolokiamo, less powerful, but more artful, and in particular more active." On the whole, this characterization represents the consensus of observation of traveller, missionary, and scientist from Columbian days to the present and for the wilder tribes of the whole of both South and North America. There is a good being, the Great Spirit, more or less remote from men, often little concerned with human or terrene affairs, but the ultimate giver of life and light, of harvest food and game food. There is an evil principle, sometimes personified as a Lord of Darkness, although more often conceived not as a person, but as a mischievous power, or horde of powers, manifested in multitudes of annoying forms. Among shamanistic tribes little attention is paid to the Good Power; it is too remote to be seriously courted; or, if it is worshipped, solemn festivals, elaborate mysteries, and priestly rites are the proper agents for attracting its attention. On the other hand, the Evil Power in all its innumerable and tricky embodiments, must be warded off by constant endeavour—by shamanism, "medicine," magic. The tribes of the Orinoco region are, ab origine, mainly in the shamanistic stage. The peaiman is at once priest, doctor, and magician, whose main duty is to discover the deceptive concealment of the malicious Kenaima and, by his exorcisms, to free men from the plague. That the Kenaima is of the nature of a spirit appears from the fact that the term is applied to human malevolences, especially when these find magic manifestation, as well as to evils emanating from other sources. Thus, the avenger of a murder is a Kenaima, and he must not only exact life for life; he must achieve his end by certain means and with rites insuring himself against the ill will of his victim's spirit. Again, the Were-Jaguar is a Kenaima. "A jaguar which displays unusual audacity," says Brett,[163] "will often unnerve even a brave hunter by the fear that it may be a Kanaima tiger. 'This,' reasons the Indian, 'if it be but an ordinary wild beast, I may kill with bullet or arrow; but what will be my fate if I assail the man-destroyer—the terrible Kanaima?'"
The Kenaima, the man-killer, whether he be the human avenger upon whom the law of a primitive society has imposed the task of exacting retribution, or whether he be the no less dreaded inflicter of death through disease, or magically induced accident, or by shifting skins with a man-slaying beast, is only one type of the spirits of evil. Others are the Yauhahu and Orehu (Arawak names for beings which are known to the other tribes by other titles). The Yauhahu are the familiars of sorcerers, the peaimen, who undergo a long period of probationary preparation in order to win their favour and who hold it only by observing the most stringent tabus in the matter of diet. The Orehu are water-sprites, female like the mermaids, and they sometimes drag man and canoe down to the depths of their aquatic haunts; yet they are not altogether evil, for Brett tells a story, characteristically American Indian, of the origin of a medicine-mystery. In very ancient times, when the Yauhahu inflicted continual misery on mankind, an Arawak, walking besides the water and brooding over the sad case of his people, beheld an Orehu rise from the stream, bearing in her hand a branch which he planted as she bade him, its fruit being the calabash, till then unknown. Again she appeared, bringing small white pebbles, which she instructed him to enclose in the gourd, thus making the magic-working rattle; and instructing him in its use and in the mysteries of the Semecihi, this order was established among the tribes. The "Semecihi" are of course, the medicine-men of the Arawak, corresponding to the Carib peaimen, though the word itself would seem to be related to the Taïno zemi. Relation to the Islanders is, indeed, suggested by the whole myth, for the Orehu is surely only the mainland equivalent for the Haitian woman-of-the-sea, Guabonito, who taught the medicine-hero, Guagugiana, the use of amulets of white stones and of gold.
III. HOW EVILS BEFELL MANKIND
Not many primitive legends are more dramatically vivid than the Carib story of Maconaura and Anuanaïtu,[164] and few myths give a wider insight into the ideas and customs of a people. The theme of the tale is very clearly the coming of evil as the consequence of a woman's deed, although the motive of her action is not mere curiosity, as in the tale of Pandora, but the more potent passion of revenge—or, rather, of that vengeful retribution of the lex talionis which is the primitive image of justice. In an intimate fashion, too, the story gives us the spirit of Kenaima at work, while its dénouement suggests that the restless Orehu, the Woman of the Waters, may be none other than the authoress of evil, the liberatress of ills.
In a time long past, so long past that even the grandmothers of our grandmothers were not yet born, the Caribs of Surinam say, the world was quite other than what it is today: the trees were forever in fruit; the animals lived in perfect harmony, and the little agouti played fearlessly with the beard of the jaguar; the serpents had no venom; the rivers flowed evenly, without drought or flood; and even the waters of cascades glided gently down from the high rocks. No human creature had as yet come into life, and Adaheli, whom now we invoke as God, but who then was called the Sun, was troubled. He descended from the skies, and shortly after man was born from the cayman, born, men and women, in the two sexes. The females were all of a ravishing beauty, but many of the males had repellent features; and this was the cause of their dispersion, since the men of fair visage, unable to endure dwelling with their ugly fellows, separated from them, going to the West, while the hideous men went to the East, each party taking the wives whom they had chosen.
Now in the tribe of the handsome Indians lived a certain young man, Maconaura, and his aged mother. The youth was altogether charming—tall and graceful, with no equal in hunting and fishing, while all men brought their baskets to him for the final touch; nor was his old mother less skilled in the making of hammocks, preparation of cassava, or brewing of tapana. They lived in harmony with one another and with all their tribe, suffering neither from excessive heat nor from foggy chill, and free from evil beasts, for none existed in that region.