Venezuela

by Leonard V. Dalton

The staple diet of these people is manioc and sago, with chicha (a mixture of manioc meal and water). For clothing they dispense with everything in their homes, except the buja or guayuco, a tiny apron of palm-fibre or ordinary cloth, held in position by a belt of palm-fibre or hair. That worn by women is triangular, and often ornamented with feathers or pearls. Among the whites the men always wear a long strip of blue cloth, one end of which passes round the waist, the other over the shoulder, hanging down in front; the women have a kind of long-sleeveless gown. For ornament they wear necklaces of pearls, or more frequently of red, blue, and white beads, and tight bracelets and bangles of hair or curagua (palm-fibre); some pierce ears, nose, and lower lips for the insertion of pieces of reed, feathers, or berries on fête days. The characteristic dull red paint on their bodies is intended to act as a preventive against mosquitoes, and it is made by boiling the powdered bark and wood of a creeper in turtle or alligator fat. All hair is removed from the body by the simple but painful process of pulling each one out with a split reed.

Marriage, as is usual among savage races, takes place at a very early age, the husband being often only fourteen, the wife ten or twelve years of age. Polygamy is common, but not universal; where a chief or rich man has several wives the first, or the earliest to become a mother, takes charge of the establishment during the absence of the owner on his hunting or fishing expeditions. The girls are sometimes betrothed at the age of five or six years, living in the house of the future husband from that time on.

At birth the mother is left in a separate house alone, where all food that she may need is placed for her, though she remains unvisited by any of her companions throughout the day; meanwhile the father remains in his hammock for several days, apparently owing to a belief that some evil may befall the child; there he receives the congratulations of the villagers, who bring him presents of the best game caught on their expeditions. This male child-bed or couvade is common to many of the Indian tribes.

The dead are mourned with elaborate ceremony—shouting, weeping, and slow, monotonous music; the nearest relatives of the defunct cut their hair. The body is placed in leaves and tied up in the hammock used by the owner during life, and then placed in a hollow tree-trunk or in his canoe. This rude coffin is then generally placed on a small support, consisting of bamboo trestles, and so left in the deserted house of the dead man.

LA GUAIRA HARBOUR.

The beliefs of the Warraus have been somewhat modified by contact with foreigners, and perhaps on this account they speak, according to Plassard, of one Supreme Being, the Gébu, superior to all the lesser spirits of plenty, famine, fire, and all phenomena of Nature. Earthquakes are looked upon as good signs, indicating the presence of a healthy, invigorating spirit in the earth; a belief not so strange when it is remembered that in the alluvial plains where the Warraus live earthquakes have seldom been sufficiently violent to do harm.

The religious rites of the communities are presided over by the Wicidatu, like the piache, a mixture of priest and medicine-man. Their worship includes invocations against disease and famine, and prayers for good hunting. To Gébu and the lesser spirits they offer the first-fruits of their harvest, vegetable and animal alike, at the one great festival of the year, for which elaborate preparations are made. All the previous day is spent in preparing provisions, and at dawn on the feast day, their bodies decorated with lines in blue and red, they surround the house of the wicidatu. The priest shortly comes forth, a crown of feathers on his head, and holding a pair of maracas. Shaking these, he leads the crowd to the rancho, or hut, set apart for the offerings, and there, sitting on the trunk of a tree, smokes and chants (accompanying himself with the maracas) to Gébu, in whose name he presently takes the offerings. After this he holds a maraca in the air at the length of his arm, shaking it, and after a time bringing it down to his mouth. Then, in a disguised voice, supposed to be that of Gébu, he asks why he is called; in reply the wicidatu salutes and offers the first-fruits, which are accepted. This acceptance is the signal for a general chant of the assembly recounting their petitions, which Gébu, speaking as before through the priest, promises to consider. Finally, the priest alone sings a song of farewell, and Gébu returns to his heaven. The ceremonies over, the wicidatu takes the best of the food and drink, and the remainder provides refreshment during the dancing and revels which occupy the rest of the day.

In addition to conducting this public worship the wicidatu acts as doctor in times of sickness, making use of certain simples and invocations to the spirits of the disease. Religious ceremonies are performed round the hut by night, and the medicine-man enters with a cigar of tobacco and herbs and blows the smoke on to the abdomen and chest of the patient. After the fumigation he is left alone for some time, until the wicidatu returns, dances and prostrates himself round the hut, performs the fumigation once more, and finally retires, leaving the sick man to recover or die, according to the manner in which the spirit has been affected by the supplications.

Not only are the Banibas probably the most numerous of the many tribes of the hinterland of Guayana, but they are considered by Tavera-Acosta to be the most advanced of them all. A description, therefore, of their principal customs may be taken as a sufficient indication of the tendency of the beliefs and practices of other aborigines of the interior.