Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T23:24:52.814Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Spells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2010

Get access

Summary

They are setting out into the forest early in the morning to gather the morē fruits, which look like dark olives. Kaōmawë is walking in front, looking up to scan the trees and determine whether the fruits are ripe. When he points out a trunk to Hebëwë, the youth climbs up, carrying a coil of vines around his feet, and cuts the branches, which fall down noisily. When he is finished, he lowers his machete tied to the end of a vine. The women then gather around to pick the fruits, which they put into leaves rolled into cones. Tiyetirawe has no liking for this task; he is busy in the vicinity killing small birds that he then carries on his back. Sometimes his arrow remains caught in the foliage, and then he addresses to the hummingbird the propitiatory formula:

Hummingbird, hummingbird, give back my arrow!

Then he throws pieces of wood to make it fall down, or else he climbs the trees.

The carrying baskets are full. Hebëwë, weary of the gymnastics demanded of him, leaves his father and the women to go home by another route. He asks Tiyetirawë to accompany him. They are walking upstream along a river when Hebëwë leaps onto the bank and creeps through the dense undergrowth. Presently he stops short and draws his bow; his arrow sinks into the shoulder of an otter; but the badly secured arrowhead loosens from the shaft, and the animal carries it away in its mad flight.

Type
Chapter
Information
Tales of the Yanomami
Daily Life in the Venezuelan Forest
, pp. 106 - 123
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Spells
  • Jacques Lizot
  • Book: Tales of the Yanomami
  • Online publication: 17 May 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720260.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Spells
  • Jacques Lizot
  • Book: Tales of the Yanomami
  • Online publication: 17 May 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720260.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Spells
  • Jacques Lizot
  • Book: Tales of the Yanomami
  • Online publication: 17 May 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720260.009
Available formats
×