An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians

Walter E. Roth

When, some seven years ago, I took up the duties of stipendiary magistrate, medical officer, and protector of Indians in this mosquito-cursed district of the Pomeroon, I determined upon devoting all my spare time--and there has been plenty of it--to an ethnographical survey of the native tribes of British Guiana, somewhat on the lines I had already followed in the case of North Queensland. As the work progressed, I recognized that, for the proper comprehension of my subject, it was necessary to make inquiry concerning the Indians of Venezuela, Surinam, and Cayenne, with the result that the area to be reviewed comprised practically that portion of the South American continent bounded, roughly speaking, by the Atlantic seaboard, the Orinoco, and the northern limits of the watershed of the Rio Negro, and the lower Amazon; and it was not long before I realized that for the proper study of the Arawaks and the Caribs I had to include that of the now almost extinct Antilleans.

Table of contents

• Preface
• Works Of Reference
• 1. No Evidence Of Belief In A Supreme Being
• 2. Tribal Heroes
• 3. Traces Of Spirit, Idol, And Fetish Cult
• 4. Creation Of Man, Plants, And Animals
• 5. The Body And Its Associated Spirits
• 6. Dreams; Idiocy
• 7. Familiar Spirits
• 8. The Spirits Of The Bush; Natural History
• 9. The Spirits Of The Bush; Animals As Sentient Human Beings
• 10. The Spirits Of The Bush; Associated With Particular Plants
• 11. The Spirits Of The Mountain
• 12. The Spirits Of The Water
• 13. The Spirits Of The Sky
• 14. Omens, Charms, Talismans
• 15. Restrictions On Game And Food, Vision, Arts And Crafts, Nomenclature (Taboos)
• 16. Sexual Life
• 17. The Mediclne-Man
• 18. Kanaima; The Invisible Or Broken Arrow
• 19. Miscellaneous Indian Beliefs Concerning Man And Animals
• 20. Animism And Folk-Tales Of Recent Introduction; Mixed Foreign And Indigenous Beliefs
• 21. Miscellaneous Folk-Lore, Independent Of Animism
• Glossary