Sometimes even the skill of the natives fails to overcome all the difficulties, and the canoe is upset, the crew barely escaping with their lives. It was in descending one of these falls that Mr. Waterton’s canoe was upset, and flung into the Essequibo the precious store of materials from which the wourali is made.

The simplest kind of boat, called by the colonists a “woodskin,” is nothing more than the flexible bark of the purple-heart trees stripped off in one piece, forced open in the middle, tied together at the ends, and so left until dry. In order to prevent these bark canoes from taking in water at the ends, a large lump of clay is pressed firmly into the end, so as to make a barrier against the water. This mode of caulking is necessarily but temporary, and the “back-dam,” as it is called by the colonists, is sure to be washed away sooner or later, according to the state of the river. The reader will remember that a similar appliance of clay is found among the Australian savages.

CHAPTER CXXXIV.
THE TRIBES OF GUIANA—Concluded.
RELIGION—BURIAL.

BELIEF IN ONE CHIEF DEITY AND MANY DEMI-GODS — THE SORCERER OR PIAI-MAN, AND HIS TRAINING — THE SACRED RATTLE — DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF THE PIAI-MAN — CURING DISEASE AND DRIVING OUT THE EVIL SPIRIT — MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS — THE WATER-MAMMA — THE ORIGIN OF THE CARIB RACE — A WILD LEGEND — DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD — THE LAKE-DWELLING WARAUS — THE ITÁ PALM AND ITS USES — AN AËRIAL HOUSE — THE LAKE-DWELLERS OF MARACAIBO.

We will conclude this history of the Guianan tribes with a few remarks on their religion.

As far as is known of their religious ideas as they were before they became intermixed with those taught to them by the white man, the Guianan natives believe in one supreme Deity, and a vast number of inferior divinities, mostly of the evil kind. All pain is said to be caused by an evil spirit called Yauhahu, and is said to be the Yauhahu’s arrow.

As it is necessary that these evil beings should be propitiated when any calamity is feared, a body of sorcerers, called piai men, are set apart in order to communicate between their fellow men and the unseen world. In order to qualify themselves for the task, the piai men are obliged to go through sundry strange ceremonies, under the charge of some venerable professor of the art. The neophyte is taken to a solitary hut, and there compelled to fast for several days before his spirit is fit to leave his body and receive the commands of the Yauhahu.

For this purpose a quantity of tobacco is boiled, and the infusion drunk by the aspirant to priestly honors. The natural effect of this dose is to exhaust the already weakened body, and to throw the recipient into a state of fainting, during which his spirit is supposed to leave his body, and receive a commission from the Yauhahu. Indeed, he undergoes a civil death, he is proclaimed as dead, and his corpse is exposed to public view.

He recovers very slowly from the terrible state of prostration into which he has been thrown, and when at last he leaves his hut, he is worn almost to a skeleton. As a mark of office, he is solemnly presented with the marakka, or sacred rattle. This is nothing more than a hollow calabash, some eight inches in diameter, having a stick run through it, and a few white stones within it, so as to make a rattling sound when shaken. The calabash is painted red, and a few feathers are generally hung to the sticks. It is two feet in length, and adorned with scarlet and blue feathers. These rattles are held in the greatest veneration by the uninitiated, who will not venture to touch them, and are chary even of entering a house in which a marakka is hung. In consequence of the value set upon these instruments, the natives can scarcely be induced to part with them, and the few which have been sent to England have in nearly every case been procured from sorcerers who have been converted to Christianity, and, as a proof of their sincerity, have given up the emblems of their order.

The piai man is called in on almost every occasion of life, so that his magic rattle has but little rest. He is present at every piwarri feast, when he decorates himself with feather plumes, the skins of snakes, and similar ornaments, and shakes his rattle over the bowl before the contents are drunk.