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TO WEAVE AND SING
TO WEAVE
Art, Symbol, and Narrative in
AND SING
the South American Rain Forest

DAVID M. GUSS

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England

Copyright © 1989 by David M. Guss

First Paperback Printing 1990

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Guss, David M.
To weave and sing : art, symbol, and narrative in the South
American rain forest / David M. Guss.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-520-07185-9 (alk. paper)
1. Yekuana Indians—Basket making. 2. Yekuana Indians—Religion
and mythology. 3. Indians of South America—Venezuela—Basket
making. 4. Indians of South America—Venezuela—Religion and
mythology. I. Title.
F2319.2.Y4G87 1989
746.4l'2'08997-dcl9 88-20734
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
9 8 7 6 5 4 3
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997)
(Permanence of Paper).
To Barbara,
who not only shared it
hut made it her own
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi

1 • INTRODUCTION: The Syntax of Culture 1

2 • THE PEOPLE 5
"The Ones of This Earth" 5
Ihuruna, "The Headwater Place" 10
Ethnographic History 14

3 • CULTURE AND ETHOS: A Play of Forces 21

The House 21
Economic Activities 27
The Dual Nature of Reality 31
The Garden 33
The Geography of the Body 39
Ahacbito Hato, "The New Person" 47
The Six Souls 49
The First People 52
The Manipulation of the Invisible 61
Magic Herbs 62
Body Paints 63
Singing 65

4 • "ALL THINGS MADE" 69

Tidi'uma 69
A Cycle of Baskets 79
Marriage 79
Viii CONTENTS

The Tradition 85
The Poetics of Basketry 90

5 • ORIGIN AND DESIGN 92

Myths of the Origins of Artifacts 92
The Devil's Face Paint 101
The Designs 105
Shifting Fields 119

6 • THE FORM OF CONTENT 126

Yododai 127
Edodicha 132
Fasting 134
The Fast Baskets 139
Weed Out Mawadi: The Tingkui Yechamatojo 146

7 - TO WEAVE THE WORLD 162

A GALLERY OF BASKETS 171

Notes 223
Bibliography 247
Index 263
 Illustrations

Location of the Yekuana and neighboring tribes 9

Atta 23
Detail of atta, showing principal architectural elements 24
Floor plan of atta 25
Yuca press, tingkuiyedi 29
Women and children in traditional Yekuana dress 43
Woman with totuma cut and arm bands 44
Yekuana children in traditional dress 45
Preparations for Adaha ademi hidi festival 46
Firefan, wariwari 71
Men's carrying basket, tudi 73
Mahidi 74
Cetu 75
Cover basketry 77
Waja finishing techniques 78
Basket maker, Parupa 83
Basket maker starting a waja 84
Woroto sakedi, the Odovamo emudu or "Devil's joints"
variation 106
Awidi, the coral snake 107
Mado fedi, "Jaguar face" 110
Suhui wayntahüdi, "suhui handle" 114
X ILLUSTRATION'S

Kwekwe, the toad 116

Wanadi tonoro, the crimson-crested woodpecker 118
Detail of Woroto sakedi 123
Detail of atta roof with macoco and hiononoi 165
Infrastructure of atta roof, showing atantowoto pattern 166
A GALLERY OF BASKETS 171
 Acknowledgments

As with all long journeys, there have been many people along the way
who have lent a helping hand. Marc de Civrieux, who first invited me to
Venezuela to translate his version of Watunna, not only shared his
many years of research with me but also encouraged and aided me in
my initial visit to the Yekuana. This contact on the Paragua River was
facilitated by Juan Carlos Schwartzenberg and Carlos Sembrano, the
latter tragically killed in 1982. While in the village of Parupa, Julio
Delgado opened his house and heart to me, as did his wives Lucia and
María Pacheco and his sister Josephina. Although there are no members
of that community who did not contribute in some way to this work,
Luis Delgado, Manuel Gonzalez, Juan Castro, Philippe Pacheco, and
Antonio Contreras all aided in special ways. When I returned in 1983,
they once again welcomed me back to continue my education. It was
during this year as well that I was first invited to the village of
Canaracuni on the upper Caura. As in Parupa, the members of this
community also welcomed me into their world, sharing the wealth of
their knowledge, humor, and insight with me. Above all, however, it was
their chief, Manuel Garcia, a true towanajoni, along with Luisi and
Joseito, who made this such an extraordinary stay.
To get to Canaracuni was particularly difficult and I am especially
grateful to the people at Malariología in Ciudad Bolivar who made it
possible; and also to Capitán Martin Henríquez de Paz, Sky King of the
Amazon, who saved my life more than once. In Caracas, Luis Ignacio
Ruiz of the Ministerio de Educación helped get me under way. And in
Cumaná, Benito Yrady, Rafael Salvatore, and Steven Bloomstein kept me
going.
xi
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Financial support for this work came from various sources. During
my first stay in Venezuela from 1976 to 1978, I was sponsored by grants
from the Organization of American States, the Explorers Club, and the
Marsden Foundation. Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts
and the Tinker Foundation helped to support my second period of
research from 1982 to 1984. Even more important, however, was the
generous aid I received during this latter period from Joan Seaver.
Without her timely and tactful support, this work would never have
been completed, and I am deeply and forever grateful to her for it. I am
also grateful to Lew Langness at UCLA who did so much to make these
financial arrangements possible and then later nurtured the work as
well. Ann Walters, too, did all she could to make my time away as worry-
free as possible. The final completion of the manuscript was undertaken
with a grant from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation of Princeton,
New Jersey. A grant-in-aid from Vassar College enabled me to prepare
the index, as well as to complete other production details.
Grateful acknowledgment is also made to those who have granted
permission to reproduce certain materials included in this work: to
Walter Coppens and the Fundacion La Salle de Ciencias Naturales for
permission to reprint illustrations from Antropologica 16 and 44; to the
Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, for plates 6, 21, 25, 32, 34, and 36; to
Johannes Wilbert for permission to reprint line drawings by Helga Adibi
originally published in Survivors of Eldorado; to Princeton University
Press for permission to reprint John Gwynne's drawing of Wanadi
tonoro originally published in A Guide to the Birds of Venezuela, by
Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee and William H. Phelpsjr.; and to Jack
Shoemaker and North Point Press for permission to reproduce the work
of Barbara Brandli, along with a version of the map initially included in
Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle. I am equally grateful to Rose
Craig for her original execution of this map and to Grace Mitchell for
her careful revisions. Plates 6, 21, 25, 32, 34, and 36 were photographed
by Richard Todd of the Museum of Cultural History, and plate 9 by
Bobby Hansson. The photographs of the other baskets and artifacts
were taken by Phillip Galgiani, who generously helped in many other
ways as well.
The final preparation of the manuscript was aided by the indefatiga-
ble Marji Zintz and by the Watts family—Tony, Mary, and Sarah—and
through their careful readings and comments by Cesar Paternosto and
Cecilia Vicuna. I also wish to note the enthusiasm and support of my
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii

editor at the University of California Press, Scott Mahler, and the many
fine suggestions made by John Sposato. To them and all of the above, I
offer my most heartfelt thanks.
But there are two people for whom thanks is hardly enough.
Johannes Wilbert, who encouraged this project from the start, has been
a loyal friend and inspiration throughout. And finally, Barbara Einzig,
my companion and collaborator of many years, joined me in both
Canaracuni and Parupa and then kept on helping long after. Her love
for not only the material but also the landscape and the people by
whom she was held so dear helped enrich even' judgment of my own.
And so it is to her, whose hand has touched each page, that this book
is dedicated.
This page intentionally left blank
1 • INTRODUCTION:
The Syntax of Culture

'/"here are many gods, many spirits, and many people who live above the
earth and below the earth. I know them all because I am a great singer.
There is the one who created the baskets, and the baskets began to ivalk, and
they entered the water after having, eaten many Indians. They are the
cayman alligators—you've only got to look at their skins to see that. An
Indian doctor saw this spirit creating the first basket, and he managed to
escape in time to avoid being eaten. It was a Yekuana. That's why our bas-
kets are better made than anyone else's.
— Kalomera, quoted by Alain Gheerbrant,
Journey to the Far Amazon

I went to the Yekuana for the first time in 1976 as part of a grant from
the Organization of American States to translate their creation epic
known as the Watunna. While this translation was based on a Spanish
version prepared over the course of nearly two decades by the French
paleontologist Marc de Civrieux (19706, 1980), I nevertheless wished to
hear these tales told within their own context and language. So with a
tape recorder perched on the top of my pack, 1 arranged to visit the
village of Parupa, also known as Adujana, on the upper Paragua River.
But listening to stories among the Yekuana turned out to be an entirely
different proposition than I had originally imagined. There were no
neatly framed "storytelling events" into which the foreign observer
could easily slip, no circles of attentive youths breathing in the words of
an elder as he regaled them with the deeds of their ancestors. Rather,
Watunna was everywhere, like an invisible sleeve holding the entire
culture in place. Derived from the verb adeu, "to tell," it existed in even7
evocation of the mythic tradition, no matter how fragmentary or allu- 1
2 THE SYNTAX OF CULTURE

sive. "That's Watunna," a Yekuana would say, and yet there would be no
semblance of a narrative. To hear a story with anything remotely ap-
proaching completeness would take many years, and even then new
details and episodes would continue to surface. But it was not only this
open-ended quality of storytelling, the "stitching together" (rhapsoi-
deiri) of narrative into the fabric of daily life, that made recording myths
so difficult. For even when tales were organized into self-contained
units of expression, such as during the Garden and House Festivals,
other problems still prevailed. First among them was the mode of com-
position, the specialized shamanic language unknown even to many of
the participants themselves. Designed to communicate directly with the
spirits of the invisible world, these songs had a purposefulness resistant
to any electronic interference. And so, added to the difficulty of under-
standing these lengthy epics was a strict proscription against tape-
recording them (Guss 19866). In short, I soon began to realize that to
understand even a single story among the Yekuana required a long and
active apprenticeship.
It was this recognition, along with the initial limitations of my
linguistic skills, that led me to seek another entrance into the mythic
universe I had come to explore. For it soon became obvious that al-
though I could not yet understand the myths as told, I could at least see
them. It was with this in mind that I began to concentrate on basketry,
particularly the round serving trays known as waja. Of course, it was
hard to avoid focusing one's attention on these beautiful objects, not
only because of their dramatic geometric designs but also because they
were inevitably where the attention of the Yekuana one was speaking to
was also focused. Conversation simply did not occur without someone
making a basket. It was the principal activity of almost every male while
in the village and, as such, orchestrated each dialogue, with pauses and
transitions paralleling the critical moments of a basket's construction.
To really communicate it often seemed one had to be making a basket.
And so, it was not long before I too entered into the long process of
becoming a basket maker.
My teacher was the eldest member of the village, a taciturn and
brooding man named Juan Castro.1 Although he had once been chief,
his deposal had left him isolated and bitter. His days were now spent
with his wife and daughters and small grandchildren, doing little else
than weaving baskets. There were many times when we were the only
adult males in the village, all the others being off hunting or fishing or
 THE SYNTAX OF CULTURE 3

constructing canoes. I took advantage of these moments to pursue my

interest in Watunna, to ask about details of stories, hunting lore, magic,
rituals. But Juan Castro would have none of it. He would simply give me
a blank stare and then, turning back to his basket, shrug, "Yawanacada,
I don't know." About basketry, however, he was always happy to speak.
The names of designs, the form of a weave, the preparation of a cane,
the location of a dye—these were subjects about which he concealed
nothing. So it was that our long afternoons behind his house, sur-
rounded by women preparing yuca, were occupied more and more
with talk of baskets. Until finally I asked if he would not teach me how to
make one.
No sooner had I done so than Juan Castro excitedly began prepar-
ing for our trip to find cane. Suddenly this quiet, even sullen man was
ebullient, transformed by his new role as a teacher. In the weeks and
months that followed, he closely supervised every aspect in the prepara-
tion of my basket: the cutting of the cane, the scraping of the sides, the
application of the dyes, the peeling of the strips, the plaiting of the
designs, the formation of the frame, the weaving of the finishing band
and then.finally its attachment to the body of the basket itself. There
were many nights when, too tired to continue, Juan Castro took over the
completion of a task, anxious that I should go on to the next. But it was
not only Juan Castro who was my teacher. For I now entered the circle
of elders gathered daily at the center of the roundhouse as a basket
maker. And while it was with some humor that they accepted me, they
nevertheless continued my education. Details were now exchanged
concerning the intricacies of designs, the meaning of motifs, the proper
usage of different baskets. Then, in 1977, on a cold and rainy afternoon,
I was told the origin myth of the waja. Slowly, it became obvious that I
was being introduced to a world as complex and extensive as that of the
Watunna. In fact, it was a replica of the Watunna, a parallel symbolic
system that would take just as many years to penetrate as the one I had
originally come to study.
Juan Castro died of Kanaima magic just before my return to the
Yekuana in 1982.2 As I resumed my education as a basket maker, I
wondered if he had known that he had answered all the questions I had
pestered him with during my first months living in Parupa, if he had
realized that the only way to explain the inner workings of Watunna
was to enable me to participate in its creation. For while he had been
uncomfortable, like most Yekuana, in speaking directly about Watunna,
4 THE SYNTAX OF CULTURE

by teaching me how to make baskets he had just as clearly initiated me

into its secrets. Although this was not evident to me for some time, my
ongoing work with baskets taught me that it made little difference at
what point one entered the culture. Each activity, whether ritual or
material, was determined by the same underlying configuration of sym-
bols. Thus whatever an action's external form or particular function, it
was involved in the same dialogue as the rest of the culture, communi-
cating the same essential messages and meanings. It was truly a mutually
reflective universe in which every moment was filled with the same
possibilities of illumination as any other. To tell a story, therefore, was
to weave a basket, just as it was to make a canoe, to prepare barbasco, to
build a house, to clear a garden, to give birth, to die.
In a society such as the Yekuana's, it was possible to see the entire
culture refracted through a single object or deed. Even' part was a reca-
pitulation of the whole, a synthesis of the intelligible organization of
reality that informed every other. As such, the baskets provided a prism
through which the Yekuana universe was reflected. One could see the
basic symbolic organization that helped to determine the structure of
every other aspect of the society. One could also comprehend the ethos
and philosophy that inspired these symbols, the underlying meanings
that the culture, in all of its parts, was organized to communicate. No less
important than this was the ability to perceive the conflicts that each of
these aspects attempted to resolve. Cast in a metaphor of endless
dualities, the symbols in the baskets, like those elsewhere, confronted the
most elemental oppositions between chaos and order, visible and invisi-
ble, being and non-being. The concept of culture which they presented
was not simply one of communication, or what Geertz calls "a mode of
thought" (1976:1499), but also of transformation, of the constant meta-
morphosis of reality into a comprehensible and coherent order.
As both an observer and basket maker, I was able to participate in
this process of transformation, to experience culture not as the distilla-
tion of a set of abstract ideals but as an ongoing act of creation. To
understand the Watunna I had originally come to learn demanded
much more than just verbal skills. It required the use of all my senses
or, more precisely, a reorientation to the nature of meaning and the
manner of its transmission. The story that follows, like all good ethnogra-
phy, is, therefore, also one of personal growth and initiation. Yet the
details of that tale must await another book. The one told here is that of
the Yekuana and the world they weave and sing into being even' day of
their lives.
2 • THE PEOPLE

Our first contact with the Spanish was a long time after their arrival in
Venezuela. We met them when they came to find the famous City of Gold, El
Dorado. They thought this was in our land.
A little while later, the Spanish tried to conquer us byforce. Then we
Yekuana, together with our neighbors, the Maco, Yabarana, and others, de-
fended ourselves, and we overthrew the Spanish. That's why, for a long time, we
called ourselves "The Unconquered" and "the ones who beat the conquerors."
— Raphael Fernandez
Ye'kuana: Nos cuentan Los "Makiritares"

"THE ONES OF THIS EARTH"

If it is true that a name reflects an inner essence, then the many used
to refer to the Yekuana offer a profile of the varied character of this
highland jungle people. The earliest mention of the Yekuana occurs in
the report of the Jesuit priest Manuel Roman, who in 1744 journeyed
to the upper Orinoco to investigate rumors of Portuguese slave traders
in the area. Somewhere in the vicinity of present-day La Esmeralda, he
was surprised by a group of these Portuguese insisting they were not
in Spanish territory but on a tributary of the Amazon. To prove their
assertion, they invited Roman to accompany them back along the route
they had traveled, thus revealing for the first time that phenomenon
known as the Casiquiare—a natural canal connecting the two great
watersheds of South America via the Rio Negro. To aid in this journey,
Roman enlisted the services of a Carib-speaking group of Indians liv-
ing near the mouth of the Kunukunuma, a large river entering the
Orinoco several miles below the Casiquiare. Roman refers to these 5
6 THE PEOPLE

excellent navigators in his reports and maps as the "Makiritare," a

name which was to dominate most written reference to them for the
next two centuries. Like many ethnographic tribal denominations, Ma-
kiritare is not autogenous, but is borrowed from the neighboring
group responsible for guiding the first whites to them. Names of
places and tribes on Roman's map confirm his use of Arawak-speaking
guides (de Barandiaran 1979:739); hence the term Makiritare, derived
from the Arawak roots Makidi and ari, meaning "people of the rivers"
or "water people."
The terms used by ethnographers and explorers to identify the
Yekuana usually indicate the direction of their approach. In 1838 the
German naturalist Robert Schomburgk arrived among the Yekuana with
the aid of Carib-speaking Pemon and Makushi guides. It is therefore no
surprise that in his Reisen in Britisch Guiana (1847) he uses the Pemon
name, Maiongkong.1 It has been suggested that this name, translatable
as "Round Heads," derives from the Yekuana's distinctive totuma cut
that gives their hair the appearance of an inverted gourd. But another
interpretation of this commonly heard name is that suggested by
Armellada, who claims Maiongkong means "those who live inside their
conucos" (Salazar 1970:12). Although the Yekuana do not actually live in
their gardens, the coincidence of these two definitions is notable, as
there is a close symbolic relation between body care and gardening,
which will be further discussed at length.
Another name mentioned by Cesareo de Armellada and others
working with the neighboring Pemon tribes to the east is "Pawana" or
"Pabanoton." Meaning "those who sell," it is almost a generic term
among Carib speakers for traders from a distant tribe (Butt 1973:16).
The fact that Pawana and Maiongkong are nearly synonymous among
their Cariban neighbors is a clear indication of the importance that
trade plays among this highly mobile tribe that one writer referred to as
"the Phoenicians of the Amazon" (Gonzalez Nino n.d.:7).
The first person to actually use the autochthonous term "Yekuana"
was also the first ethnographer to spend a concentrated period of time
among them. Approaching the Yekuana in a way that no other explorer
ever has, Theodor Koch-Grunberg, on a three-year expedition spon-
sored by the Baessler Institute of Berlin, in 1912 climbed out of the
Uraricoera basin of northern Brazil and, with the aid of Wapishana and
Makushi guides, crossed the Pacaraima Mountains into the headwaters
of the Orinoco. Once in Venezuela, his expedition quickly made contact
 THE PEOPLE 7

with Yekuana villages along the Merevari and Canaracuni. Over the next
several months he gathered the material that was to form the Yekuana
section of his monumental three-volume work, Vom Roraima Zum
Orinoco.
Although throughout this seminal work Koch-Griinberg consis-
tently uses the term Yekuana, he does so with some hesitation, believing
that further investigation would reveal a more accurate division into four
separate groups representing sub-tribes or clans: the Yekuana, Dekuana,
Ihuruana, and Kunuana (Koch-Griinberg [1924] 1982:24).2 Unfortunately,
Koch-Grunberg was mistaken. These four indigenous terms, all of which
have been used on occasion by various travelers to identify the entire
tribe, indicate neither bloodlines nor sub-tribes but simply geographical
areas of such distance from one another as to permit substantial linguistic
variation. Yet for the Yekuana, these names have a mytho-historic signifi-
cance that transcends mere regional identity.
"Yekuana," the first of these divisions, was believed by Koch-
Griinberg to properly refer only to those Indians living along the
Merevari or Caura rivers. Yet for the Yekuana this name refers to the
whole tribe. Like its Arawak counterpart, the name reflects the Yeku-
ana's prodigious skills in navigating the rapids of the Upper Orinoco
and its tributaries. Derived from "tree" (ye), "water" (ku), and "people"
(ana), it can be translated as "Water-Log" or "Canoe People."
A phonetic variation of this term, "Dekuana" is said by Koch-
Griinberg to represent those groups living on the middle and lower
Ventuari. And indeed, several myths tell of a numerous band of cannibalis-
tic Indians known as Dekuana -who formerly inhabited this area. How-
ever, as a result of their unrelenting belligerence, they were all but
destroyed (Gheerbrant 1954:159-61). But the termDekuana has greater
significance: it is the name of the sacred mountain in the headwaters of
the Arahame and Kuntinamo from which the culture hero Wanadi cre-
ated the first Yekuana:

In order to populate the villages he made the new people. He

took earth. He formed it into men. Then he sat down. He
dreamed: "It's alive." He smoked. He shook his maraca. That's
the way the new people were born; the ones of this earth, of
today, now. First a man was born in Mount Dekuana, in the head-
waters of the Arahame River. He was made with the dirt from
that mountain. That's why he was called Dekuana, like us, his
8 THE PEOPLE

grandchildren. That man was the first Yekuana. Mount Dekuana

was the beginning for us. (de Civrieux 1970£>:56)

Located in the Guiana highlands, out of which flow the major tribu-
taries of the Orinoco River, Mount Dekuana is in the very center of what
the Yekuana call Ihuruna, the "Headwater Place." This is the name of their
homeland, a vast region of mountains, rain forests, savannas, rushing
rivers, and waterfalls stretching all the way from the right bank of the
upper Orinoco to the lower reaches of the Caura and Ventuari. To those
who still occupy the most sacred and remote zones nearest the source of
these rivers is reserved the term Ihuruana, the "Headwater People."
Spoken of with the special reverence due to elders, the Ihuruana are
considered the most knowledgeable and authentic Yekuana—untainted
by the criollo influence that has undermined those groups who have
migrated further downriver. Ihuruana is not a term exclusively applied to
those of the upper Ventuari as Koch-Griinberg asserted, but is more of an
honorary epithet for any Yekuana who maintains the traditional life-style
of the tribe in the original area of its settlement.
Koch-Griinberg's fourth and final tribal division, the Kunuana,
whom he claims "form the nucleus of the entire tribe," may therefore
be closer to the actual Ihuruana. The Kunuana, he maintains, are the
Yekuana of the Kunukunuma, Padamo, and Orinoco rivers—the Indians
of Kamasowoiche, the original savanna in Ihuruna from which the first
Yekuana migrated. But of all the divisions, Kunuana is in reality the most
restricted geographically, referring only to those Yekuana of the Kunu-
kunuma River, a group whose geographic isolation, early contact, and
intensive evangelization have resulted in a certain degree of cultural
variation from the rest of the tribe.
One term that Koch-Griinberg did not cite but which has been
suggested by several ethnographers (Fuchs 1962, de Civrieux 1980) as
an appropriate successor to the unfortunate but popular "Makiritare" is
"So'to." For regardless of where a Yekuana may live, "So'to" is the
accepted term for a "human" or "person." It is also the word for
"twenty," the number of digits for each individual. But more impor-
tantly, "So'to" is an expression of the common culture and language
shared by every Yekuana as distinguished from that of any other species,
human or nonhuman. It is their unique heritage as bequeathed by the
culture hero Wanadi and recalled daily in the body of oral lore and
tradition known as the Watunna.
10 THE PEOPLE

IHURUNA, "THE HEADWATER PLACE"

With a total population of less than 3,100 people, the Yekuana are but
one of the many Carib-speaking tribes that migrated north along the
Amazonian waterways of Brazil, entering southern Venezuela several
hundred years ago to begin the displacement of the Arawak bands who
had preceded them.3 Although it is impossible to say precisely when the
Yekuana arrived, they were certainly well established in the Kunuku-
numa and Padamo area by the time the first Border Commission visited
them in 1758.4 In fact, there were so many Yekuana settled along the
Padamo and its upper tributaries, the Kuntinamo and Arahame, that this
river soon came to be known as the "Maquiritare." As for the other areas
the Yekuana now occupy—the Ventuari, Erevato, Caura, and Paragua in
Venezuela, and the Labarejudi in Brazil—it would appear that settle-
ment occurred only after the arrival of the Spanish.
Much of this territory had been too hostile for the Yekuana to
occupy any earlier. The fierce Karina cannibals trafficking along the
Caura and Ventuari rivers to the north were the Yekuana's habitual
enemies, and it was only with their reduction by the Spanish that these
large and attractive rivers became available for settlement.5 It therefore
comes as no surprise that de Barandiaran (1979:781) and Arvelo-
Jimenez (1971:15) should estimate the beginning of this Yekuana expan-
sion at around 1750. But there were other factors in this diffusion.
Warlike bands of Yanomami, arriving from Brazil and the territory south
of the Orinoco, began to attack the Yekuana, pushing them north.
Known also as Waika, Guaharibo, and Shirishana, these newcomers
proposed to dislodge the Yekuana in the same way the latter had the
Arawak. The hostility between these two groups, which has been noted
by travelers and ethnographers, raged for well over a hundred years,
and according to tribal tradition only subsided around 1940, when a
large group of armed Yekuana slaughtered a band of Yanomami in
reprisal for past raids (Gheerbrant 1954:157, de Civrieux 1980:150-
51,168). Today these two groups, though still suspicious of one another,
coexist peacefully in a truce maintained by trade and labor exchange.
Far more destructive than the raids of the Yanomami was the incur-
sion of the rubber gatherers that began early in this century. By 1913,
this had degenerated into full-scale genocide. In iMay of that year, Tomas
Funes, a rubber merchant, marched into the provincial capital of San
Fernando de Atabapo and murdered the governor and 140 other peo-
 THE PEOPLE 11

pie. For the next eight years, Funes ruled the Territorio Amazonas as an
independent fiefdom with no ties whatsoever to the central government
in Caracas. Not satisfied with the enslavement of the Yekuana male
population for the gathering of rubber, Funes sent out expeditions to
destroy villages and to murder and torture the inhabitants. De Barandi-
aran calculates that no fewer than one thousand Yekuana along with
their twenty villages were destroyed before Funes's reign of terror came
to an end in 1921 (1979:791). The migration northward that the
Yanomami had encouraged was now accelerated, with a large group of
Yekuana moving away from the Territorio Amazonas entirely and set-
tling along the Paragua River in the southern part of Estado Bolivar.
But the diffusion of the Yekuana from their original homeland in
the upper Padamo and Kunukunuma was not just northward. Their
furthest migration, recounted in a series of legends called the "Waitie,"
was eastward toward Brazil, at one point penetrating to the island of
Maraca on the Uraricoera River. Unlike their resettlement on the
Ventuari and Caura, this move was less the result of hostile pressures
than an attempt to exploit new trade possibilities created by the arrival
of the Europeans.
After Manuel Roman's brief visit in 1744, contact was firmly estab-
lished with the appearance of an official Border Commission sent out to
both verify the Jesuit explorer's claims of an Orinoco-Amazon link and
to adjust the southern limits with Brazil. Led by two lieutenants, Fran-
cisco Fernandez de Bobadilla and Apolinar Diez de la Fuente, the expe-
dition also hoped to investigate the availability of cacao and any miner-
als that might lead to that ever-illusive kingdom known as El Dorado.
Arriving in 1758, they soon made contact with Yekuana living around
the mouth of the Kunukunuma, as well as along the Padamo. Goods
were exchanged and an alliance quickly forged that promised to give
the Yekuana protection from the Karifia slave traders who regularly
attacked them in search of slaves for themselves and their Dutch allies.
Initial contact was so cordial that the Yekuana concluded these new
visitors must be the creation of their culture hero Wanadi. Their white
skin was simply the result of the color of earth used in their formation,
and their miraculous gifts of iron and cloth, presents bestowed upon
them in Heaven. The Yekuana called this new being laranavi and in
1760 eagerly assisted in the creation of a joint community to be known
as La Esmeralda, located on the Orinoco midway between the mouths of
the Kunukunuma and Padamo. Thev also traveled hundreds of miles to
12 THE PEOPLE

the new laranavi capital of Ankosturana (Angostura, present-clay Ciudad

Bolivar) where they traded canoes, baskets, and cassava for machetes,
knives, hooks, and cloth.6

[laranavi] was the rich man, Wanadi's shopkeeper, friend to the

poor. He was always traveling around, trading goods. Our grand-
fathers traveled to Ankosturana to get goods from laranavi. They
learned how to trade there, how to exchange their stuff for the
things they didn't have, (de Civrieux 1980:148)

But this relation was soon to sour. By 1767, a new governor had
been installed in Angostura and the Spanish embarked upon a more
aggressive policy of colonization on the upper Orinoco. In an attempt to
secure the entire region, a new expeditionary force was sent out to
build a road and nineteen small forts connecting Angostura with La
Esmeralda. This ambitious plan, which to this clay has never been accom-
plished, was to cut directly through the homeland of the Yekuana.
Refusing to cooperate, the Yekuana were forcibly relocated and set to
work on chain gangs. They were also exposed for the first time to the
ideas of Capuchin and Franciscan missionaries sent out to administer
their conversion. Amazed by this sudden change in behavior, the
Yekuana decided that this was no longer laranavi, but a different species
altogether. Faiiuru, as they called him, was not a creation of Wanadi, but
of his demonic arch-rival Odosha." Along with their allies, the Fadre
(Padres, "Priests"), they had come from Caracas to overrun their friend
laranavi in Angostura (de Civrieux 1980:11, 154). Left with no alterna-
tive, the Yekuana organized several neighboring tribes and, in a single
evening in 1776, rose up and destroyed all nineteen forts, driving the
Spanish out of the upper Orinoco for what turned out to be the next 150
years.
The sudden severance of all contact with the Spanish created a
crisis for the Yekuana, who had developed a trade dependency upon
them. In a period of less than two decades their economy had been
dramatically transformed by the availability of iron and other European
trade goods. In an attempt to escape Spanish reprisals and to locate new
sources for these goods, a group of Yekuana crossed the Pacaraima
Mountains and entered Brazil. Led by the legendary dynasty of Waitie
chiefs, they descended the LIraricoera River, creating settlements all the
way to the mouth of the Traenicla beside Maraca Island. It was here that
 TI IE PEOPLE 13

they established trade contacts with the Makushi. But they soon tired of
dealing with intermediaries and decided to trace these new goods to
their source, embarking on a long and dangerous journey to the princi-
pal Dutch fort of Kijkoveral in the mouth of the Essequibo. This journey
by dugout canoe along the Uraricoera, Rio Branco, Sao Joaquin, Tacutu,
Mahu, Rupununi, and finally the Essequibo, took well over a year and
was the greatest odyssey ever undertaken by any member of the tribe.
When at last they had come to the Caribbean, they were so amazed by its
size that they pronounced it the shore of Lake Akuena, that mythical lake
located in Heaven. They also claimed that the Dutchman must be the
new favored child of Wanadi. They called him Hurunku and his village
Amenadina:8

Now they saw a village there called Amenadina. It wasn't a So'to

village, but a spirit village. The chief of Amenadina was Hurunku.
He was Wanadi's friend. He went to Heaven with all his people
to visit Wanadi. That's why such big boats would come to
Amenadina. They'd travel across Dama, the Sea, and go to
Wanadi's village, to Motadewa. Hurunku's boats would leave
empty. Then they'd come back across Dama full and unload all
the goods from Heaven in Amenadina. They'd just go and come
back, go and come back, (de Civrieux 1980:170)9

A combination of factors that included trade agreements with the

Makushi, Yanomami hostility, and isolation from the main branch of the
tribe, led to the Yekuana's eventual withdrawal from Brazil. By the time
of Koch-Grtinberg's arrival in 1912 only one community remained on
the east side of the Pacaraima Range. (Today the situation is much the
same, with the village of Fuduwaruna, located in the headwaters of the
Uraricoera on the upper Labarejudi, the only Yekuana village left in
Brazil.) However, the Yekuana continued their special trade relation
with the Dutch (and subsequently the British) and, as historical records
corroborate, continued to make the remarkable journey from the head-
waters of the Orinoco to the mouth of the Essequibo on the Caribbean.
In 1840, the German explorer and naturalist Robert Schomburgk re-
ported his astonishment at meeting a group of these navigators on the
Rupununi headed for Georgetown (Coppens 1971:35). A missionary
named W. H. Brett also reported encountering them in British Guyana
during one of their long voyages in 1864 (Butt 1973:10). And even into
14 THE PEOPLE

this century, with goods accessible to them at much closer locations,

they have been known to make such journeys (ibid.).
Not only Europeans have recalled these epic voyages. The collec-
tive body of oral tradition referred to by the Yekuana as Watunna is
filled with detailed accounts of not only their migration into Brazil and
subsequent voyage to Amenadina, but of the entire history of Yekuana
contact with Western culture. Through a process of "historical incorpo-
ration" (Guss 198lc, 19866) these verifiable events are recontextualized
within an already established mythic universe; hence the recasting of
such occurrences as the Spanish-Yekuana conflict after 1767 into the
familiar dualistic motif of Wanadi's battle against Odosha and his forces
of darkness (such as the Fanuru and the Fadre).10 History becomes its
own exegesis as calendrical time is replaced by that of the atemporal
mythic, and historical personalities by the culture heroes and demons
who inhabit it. But this mythopoesis is far more than a mnemonic
device with moral overtones. It is one of the many ways in which the
Yekuana transform the foreign into the currency of their own culture,
making it safe and familiar. Through such adaptability to new historical
situations the Yekuana are able to reaffirm a cosmology that forever
locates them at its center.

ETHNOGRAPHIC HISTORY

The ability to "metaphorize" (Wagner 1981:31) new historical realities

into the symbols of one's own universe is an important mechanism
through which any culture maintains its vitality and psychic health. The
success of the Yekuana in confronting a hostile European ideology for
more than two hundred years is a testimony to their creativity and
resourcefulness in responding to the potentially catastrophic influx of
both spiritual and material contradictions. Instead of permitting these
challenges to undermine the stability of their society, the Yekuana have
consistently defused them by incorporating them into the traditional
structures that order their world. By continually reaffirming these struc-
tures along with the values they represent, the Yekuana have achieved a
level of organization and self-esteem unique among the tribes of Vene-
zuela today. This self-assurance has been noted by travelers and
ethnographers who often, as in the following statement of Koch-
Griinberg, react with surprise to what they perceive as an attitude of
superiority:
 THE PEOPLE 15

The Yekuana are arrogant beyond belief. They consider them-

selves a chosen people and without any reason look down on all
the other tribes. As Robert Schomburgk has already said of them:
"They are a proud and conceited tribe. The Maiongkong are al-
ways strutting about with great self-confidence, as if the entire
world were their domain." ([1924] 1982:302)

What Koch-Griinberg perceived as arrogance was the Yekuana's

unabashed confidence in the absolute propriety of their way of life as
opposed to any the Europeans might wish to substitute for it. Combin-
ing this attitude with an already existing institutionalized xenophobia
(fed by two hundred years of intermittent abuse) and a highly disci-
plined social organization, it is no surprise that the Yekuana have sur-
vived so successfully. For of all the Carib-speaking tribes that once
dominated Venezuela, none have succeeded in maintaining their cul-
tural identity as have the Yekuana.
An additional factor in this ability to resist the devastating effects of
acculturation (and worse) that have befallen so many neighboring
groups has been the Yekuana's ability to isolate themselves behind an
almost impregnable landscape. The rivers along which their thirty vil-
lages are located—the Paclamo, Kunukunuma, Erevato, Ventuari, Caura,
and Paragua—are all tributaries of the Orinoco, with their sources in
the high tepui and mountains of southern Venezuela's Guiana massif. It
is a rugged landscape of dramatic contrasts, with huge tabletop moun-
tains rising directly out of the jungle floor to heights of over eight
thousand feet. Understandably, few outsiders have been able to pene-
trate this dense rain forest homeland with its natural barriers of rapids
and waterfalls. Aside from the twenty years of contact during the eigh-
teenth century and the influx of rubber gatherers in this one, the only
Europeans to enter Ihuruna have been the isolated explorer and
ethnographer.
By the time of Alexander von I lumboldt's brief visit to La Esmer-
alda in 1800, the only European settlement to ever exist in the region
was already nearly defunct (1852,2:434).n And by 1818 the few Catholic-
missionaries remaining in the upper Orinoco were forcibly removed by
order of the new Republic. In 1838, while making his memorable jour-
ney from British Guyana to the upper Orinoco by way of the Merevari
(upper Caura) and Padamo, Robert Schomburgk observed that the
Yekuana in this area were already embattled with bands of Yanomami
pushing north. His account of his ascent of the Orinoco reports only
16 THE PEOPLE

one family remaining in La Esmeralda. A French explorer named Jean

Chaffanjon passed through this same region fifty years later in a re-
newed attempt to discover the headwaters of the Orinoco. His contact
with the Yekuana of the Caura and Kunukunuma is detailed in his
memoir,L'Orenoque et le Caura (1889).
It was not until Theodor Koch-Griinberg's expedition of 1911 to
1913 that any serious study of the Yekuana was undertaken. Visiting
several communities along the Caura, Ventuari, and upper Padamo,
Koch-Grunberg documented Yekuana material culture, depositing his
collection of photographs, recordings ("phonograms"), and artifacts in
the Berlin Museum of Ethnography. Hindered by inadequate translators
and his own inability to speak Yekuana, he confessed his frustration at
being unable to penetrate the mysteries of their religion and mythology
([1924] 1982:317). It was while returning to the Yekuana in 1924 as
ethnologist for the Hamilton Rice Scientific Expedition that this impor-
tant pioneer of South American ethnography died of malaria in Brazil.
Twenty-five years later a young Frenchman named Alain Gheer-
brant along with three companions left Bogota, Colombia, in an attempt
to reverse Koch-Griinberg's journey and retrace his path all the way
back to Boa Vista. After descending the eastern slopes of the Andes, they
crossed the llanos to Venezuela and canoed up the Orinoco to the
Ventuari in search of Yekuana to guide them. The record of this remark-
able journey, published in 1952 as L'expedition Orenoque-Amazone, is
particularly valuable in that it is our only written description of the three
greatest Yekuana leaders of this century—Kalomera, Cejoyuma, and
Frenario. Laden down with hundreds of pounds of recording and photo-
graphic equipment, Gheerbrant and his companions visited all three of
these chiefs' villages in the hope of taping and filming their rituals.
Unfortunately, a canoe accident during the last days of the journey
resulted in the loss of these invaluable documents. Nevertheless,
Gheerbrant's written record of what was no more than seven or eight
months with the Yekuana is filled with accurate and perceptive detail,
presenting us with the most readable and enjoyable account we have of
Yekuna life.
Sustained and systematic investigation of the Yekuana did not
begin until the early 1950s, when not only ethnographers but also
missionaries and government officials began to enter the region with
greater frequency. This period of renewed interest was inaugurated by
a well-publicized 1952 French-Venezuelan expedition to discover the
 THE PEOPLE 17

headwaters of the Orinoco. One member of this expedition who be-

came interested in learning more about the Yekuana guides and por-
ters accompanying it was Marc cle Civrieux, a young paleontologist
who had migrated to Venezuela from France in 1939. Using this oppor-
tunity to make contact with various Yekuana living along the Kunuku-
numa, cle Civrieux began a relationship that was to last for twenty
years. Returning again and again, he dedicated himself to the collec-
tion of the myths and legends that were to compose his Watunnci:
Mitologia Makiritare, an invaluable contribution to not only Yekuana
ethnology but to that of all of South America (19706, translated as
Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle, 1980).
Other investigators to work in this region during this period were
Meinhard Schuster along the Padamo and Kunukunuma from 1954 to
1955 as part of the Frobenius Expedition, and Johannes Wilbert and
Helmuth Fuchs along the Ventuari, albeit on separate expeditions, in
1958. It was also in the Ventuari area that Nelly Arvelo-Jimenez, from
1968 to 1969. did the lieldwork for the only dissertation ever done on
the Yekuana. Entitled Political Relations in a Tribal Society: A Study of
the Ye'cuana Indians of Venezuela (1971), it is an analysis of how social
control is exerted in the absence of institutionalized political authority.
A particular focus of Arvelo-Jimenez, both in this and subsequent works
(1973, 1977) is the process by which Yekuana villages are formed and
dissolved.
During the same period in which Arvelo-Jimenez was conducting
her fieldwork, Walter Coppens was working with various Yekuana
groups along the Caura, Erevato, and Paragua. Based on sporadic visits
of no longer than one month, his studies deal with issues of accultura-
tion (1972, 1981) and intertribal trade (1971). iMore recent work among
the Yekuana has been carried out by Raymond and Ilene Hames, who
conducted a preliminary survey of Yekuana basketry on the Padamo
from 1975 to 1976, and by Alcida Rita Ramos, who concentrated on
relations with the Yanomami while working in the only remaining
Yekuana community in Brazil in 1974.
Of particular interest is the work of Daniel de Barandiaran, a
former missionary with the Fraternidad de Foucauld, who helped to
found the community of Santa Maria de Erevato in 1959. Despite a
highly polemical style and the lack of anthropological training, de
Barandiaran's work is nevertheless informed by years of daily contact
with the Yekuana. lie has produced several important studies, including
18 THEPEOPI.K

those on Yekuana shamanism (1962fo) and the roundhouse (1966), and

is the author of the only two articles on the Yekuana language, pub-
lished under the pseudonym of Damian de Escoriaza (1959, I960).
Ironically, it is de Barandiaran, in his most recent work, who coun-
sels against the dangers of increased centralization among the Yekuana
(1979:795). For the village of Santa Maria, which he was so instrumental
in organizing, was not only the first Catholic mission located in Yekuana
territory but also the principal model for the demographic upheaval
that threatens to revolutionize Yekuana settlement patterns. Unlike com-
munities of the past which never exceeded one hundred people, Santa
Maria was not formed by a handful of extended families intending to
remain in the area only as long as the gardens and surrounding supply
of game lasted. This was meant to be a permanent community, with a
constant!}' expanding population. The economy was not to be based on
the traditional mix of subsistence horticulture and hunting and gather-
ing, but on a cash crop, which in the case of Santa Maria was coffee. The
Yekuana were to form their own metropolis, replete with school, infir-
mary, airstrip, radio, and generator, and in this way, it was theorized,
would best defend themselves against the encroaching criollo world.
Today, with a population of over four hundred people, Santa Maria
is the largest Yekuana community to ever exist.12 But it is not the only
one of its kind. In the late 1960s, a former Yekuana national guardsman
named Isaias Rodriguez appeared on the Ventuari announcing his inten-
tion to organize a large settlement on a plain called Asenina. Meeting
with initial resistance from several upriver villages, Rodriguez eventu-
ally attracted enough supporters to form the successful community of
Cacuri. With substantial backing from Jesuit missionaries, cattle were
shipped in to form an economic base and enough facilities provided to
continue to attract additional Yekuana from even further away. Incorpo-
rated as the Union Makiritare del Alto Ventuari (UMAV), Cacuri now has
a population of over three hundred people and an office and representa-
tives in Caracas.13
An equivalent experiment also exists on the Kunukunuma River.
But unlike the Catholics who helped organize Santa Maria and Cacuri,
the Protestant founders of Acanana—the New Tribes Missions—have no
pretentions of discovering ways of adapting Yekuana values to new
social realities. For them, all of Yekuana culture is a form of diabolic
possession that must be exorcised. As one shaman from the Kuntinamo
explained it:
 THE PEOPLE 19

They forbid all our customs, our drinks, our Watunnu, our mu-
sic and our way of life. For me this is serious. The missionary
Jaime Bou [the head of New Tribes] arrived here with a law they
had passed accusing my fathers and my grandfathers of being
liars, saying that our Watunna and our way of life is negative.
He lacked respect when he said that about our culture. They're
destroying our way of speaking to our fathers. They're creating a
huge gap. (Mosonyi et al. 1981:238)

A nondenominational Protestant organization based in the United

States, the New Tribes Missions arrived in Venezuela soon after World
War II. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish themselves in the
Ventuari area, they began to penetrate the Kunukunuma. By the end of
1958, they had attracted enough Yekuana converts to found the village
of Acanana near the mouth of the Kunukunuma. Like Santa Maria and
Cacuri, Acanana has also drained smaller upriver communities of their
members. Yet in other ways this new community has been far different
from its neighbors to the north. Whereas the Catholic missionaries of
Santa Maria and Cacuri have not demanded conversion and play only
limited roles in the organization of these communities, proselytism is at
the ven' heart of Acanana's existence. An evangelical community7 where
the practice of Yekuana traditions is strictly forbidden, Acanana has
been set up with the express purpose of training Yekuana to be sent out
as missionaries among both their own and neighboring tribes. This
strategy has not only failed to win converts outside of the Kunukunuma
area, however, but has resulted in the increased isolation of the
Kunuana. As Arvelo-Jimenez observed:

Baptist evangelization has provoked a wide schism between evan-

gelized and traditional Yekuana such as was never known be-
fore. Those who have not given up the traditional way feel very
much threatened by the religious zeal of the evangelists. They
despise the converts and at the same time fear their tactics for
gaining more and more Yekuana to their side. (1971:22-23)

This conflict, paralleled in other groups where the New Tribes

Missions have located, such as the Panare and Piaroa, has recently gone
beyond the level of intratribal strife to one of national debate. A barrage
of publicity- that has included symposia, congressional investigations,
20 THE PEOPLE

books, and such award-winning films as Carlos Azpurua's "Yo hablo a

Caracas" (1978) has galvanized the Venezuelan public against the activi-
ties of these American-based missionaries and has forced a reassess-
ment of official indigenist policy.14 For the first time, a national coalition
of artists, politicians, academics, and indigenist leaders has banded to-
gether to demand not just the expulsion of these missionaries but also
legislation to guarantee the rights of the approximate!}' seventy-five
thousand Indians remaining in Venezuela (Arvelo-Jimenez 1972:41).
Yet while such developments can only be positive for the Yekuana,
the real decisions affecting their future remain their own. For although
Acanana and other New Tribes missions in the Kunukunuma area
clearly threaten their cultural and territorial integrity, the greatest chal-
lenges to their traditional way of life may be those taken on their own
initiative. The decision to relocate in larger, permanent settlements
such as Santa Maria and Cacuri is one which the Yekuana have negoti-
ated among themselves (albeit with material incentives provided by
Catholic missionaries). The debate is not simply between "Creyentes"
and nonbelievers but also between Yekuana of smaller upriver commu-
nities and those of the newer centralized ones.15 Exactly how these new
settlements, with their committment to cash crops and nonindigenous
technology, will affect the fabric of Yekuana life may not be determined
for some time to come. Ihuruna, defended by natural barriers, strong
leadership, and disciplined organization, is still the unconquered home-
land of the Yekuana. Yet today it is a culture at a crossroads, challenged
by an ideology that knows no borders.
3 • CULTURE AND ETHOS:
A Play of Forces

THE HOUSE

The traditional Yekuana settlement, of which there are approximately

thirty dotted throughout the upper Orinoco, is a fiercely independent
community, resistant to any pan-tribal authority. Each village is a com-
pletely self-contained, autonomous unit, with its own chief and sha-
man. What unites these communities is their shared linguistic and
cultural heritage. For although kinship ties do cross village bound-
aries, "marrying-in" is regularly enforced and any attempt to break the
primacy of village relations discouraged. Village autonomy is re-
inforced in a host of other ways as well, including ideological belief,
socialization, and simple ecological necessity. In fact, virtually all sys-
tems of Yekuana thought and activity recognize some distinction be-
tween one's immediate community and the world beyond it.1 The
most important of these systems is the physical and symbolic composi-
tion of the Yekuana village itself.
Each village is refered to as a "house" or atta and is not only
conceived of as a self-contained universe but is actually constructed as a
replica of the cosmos. It is said that Wanadi himself came down to Earth
to reveal the structure of this sacred house to the Yekuana by building
the first one in Kushamakari. Today this house can be seen in the form
of a mountain located in the center of the Yekuana homeland. The atta
that Wanadi built and on which all Yekuana houses have subsequently
been modeled was based on his own house—the entire world of
Kahuna or Heaven. Each of the atta's architectural components there-
fore represents and takes the name of a part of the landscape of this
invisible world. 21
22 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

The conical roof is said to be the Firmament of Heaven and like its
namesake is divided into two concentric circles. The upper section,
made of precious and durable wahu palm, corresponds to Akuena, the
Lake of Immortality, which sits at the very center of Heaven, while the
more ephemeral, outer maahiyadi thatch may be said to represent the
six houses of Kahuna, where the various spirit beings and animal mas-
ters live. The two main crossbeams are called the ademnie dotadi, "the
spirit of the ademnie tree," and represent the Milky Way of the same
name. Emphasizing the four corners of the world, these crossbeams are
arranged on an exact North-South axis, with two doors positioned di-
rectly below them and two more precisely along the East-West axis. The
ten additional beams that form the roof's infrastructure are called
hiononoi or "sky trees," paralleling similar structures said to hold up
Heaven itself. All twelve of these roof beams stand just like Kahuna on
the "star supports," which in the case of the atta are the twelve sidityadi
posts encircling the entire structure.
Passing through the middle of the roof to the outside is a long post,
made from one of several species of hardwoods, which extends to the
very center of the house floor. This post represents the centerpost of the
universe, the axis mundi by which the two worlds, the visible and
invisible, are connected and through which they maintain contact.
Known as the nunudu, this post is the clearest expression of each
village's distinctive place at the center of the world. Derived from the
same root as the Yekuana words for "tongue" (nudu), "navel" (yenadu),
"waja drawing" (nenudu), and "tiger spot" (ichahe hato nenudu), the
term is most closely related to the nearly indistinguishable word for
"eye,"yenudu. This synonymity is more than linguistic; the eye is where
the most important of each person's six "doubles" or akato is located.
Identical to the centerpost of the village, it is the location of the celestial
spirit dispatched by Wanadi from Kahuna to animate each individual.
Surrounding the centerpost at its base are two concentric circles,
mirroring the same division found in the roof above. The inner one,
known as the annaka, "in the center," corresponds to the dimensions
of the wahu palm and, like this sacred cap, represents Heaven's inner
circle. It is the annaka, therefore, which is reserved for all ceremonial
and ritual occasions. Like Lake Akuena with its restorative waters im-
bued with kaahi,2 it is the site of initiation and rebirth. Here the men
gather daily to confer, share food, and do craftwork. It is also where
shamans perform their cures and elders discuss their dreams. Forbid-
den to the women except while serving the men or participating in
Newly constructed atta, Canaracuni. Visible are the single window (mentdna)
and the tingkuiyedi or hiyanacachi, rising above the roofline (photo David
M. Guss)
24 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

Detail of atta, showing centerpost and infrastructure of roof and walls

(courtesy Antropologica, 1966)
 CUl.Tl'KE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES 25

Floor plan of atla, showing the Minaka and surrounding asa, divided into
living compartments (courtesy Antropologica, 1966)
26 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

festivals, the annaka is also where all single males from the time of
puberty to marriage sleep.
Encircling the annaka are the various living compartments for
each extended family within the community. Known as the asa or "out-
side," this second circle clearly corresponds to the six divisions of
Heaven surrounding Lake Akuena. Like its celestial counterpart, the
space of the asa is divided into different living areas, in this case by bark
hangings. This pattern of two concentric circles, with the profane and
ephemeral enclosing the sacred and eternal, is reproduced not only in
the invisible landscape of Heaven but also in the Yekuana image of the
Earth.3 For it is claimed that the visible world of man also consists of two
circles: a large inner one composed of water and referred to as Dama or
"Sea," and an inhabited outer one called Nono. Although the floor plan
of the roundhouse certainly reflects this concentric image of the Earth,
it also transcends it, with the entire atta becoming a sacred inner circle
surrounded by a demonically possessed and hostile outer one. In this
sense, the atta may be said to correspond to the sacred inner space of
Dama or Akuena, and the unknown world of the outlying forest to that
of a contaminated Nono. The final phase of the roundhouse construc-
tion calls attention to this schema, when the Aschano caadi ceremony
that accompanies the application of the last mud to the outer wall lists
the name of every foreign spirit and tribe, commanding that they stay
away or face destruction.4 The circle of the house is thereby sealed both
physically and symbolically, reinforcing the autonomy and self-reliance
that is the ideal of every Yekuana community.
The atta may accommodate anywhere from forty to a hundred
people, depending upon the size of the village. If a community should
grow much beyond this number, a group of younger members will
band together to form a splinter group, setting off to establish a new and
separate house. This secession is based not merely on shortage of living
space within the atta but also on the fragility of the highland jungle,
which can only support low-density populations. It is this ecological
imperative that requires the Yekuana to locate their villages at safe
distances from one another. This is why, regardless of whether more
living space is needed, an atta will be abandoned every several years to
give the surrounding environment time to replenish itself.5
The demands the Yekuana place on their environment are twofold,
for they are both a hunting-and-gathering and a horticultural society.
Each of these subsistence activities alone would be enough to deplete
any given area of the rain forest within a short period of years. Hunting,
 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES 27

which often concentrates on mammals that are both nocturnal and

solitary, demands enormous spaces in which to range. This need, com-
bined with the constant quest for new garden territories due to rapid
soil depletion, necessitates the maintenance of village independence in
autonomous and inviolable areas.

Economic Activities
All economic activities are strictly divided along sexual lines, and
even when both sexes participate in a single activity some form of
gender differentiation will be employed. Thus when men and women
fish together with barbasco, the men do so with bows and arrows and
the women with nets called fahi. But most activities demand no such
collaboration, and the daily working lives of tribal members are spent
almost exclusively in the company of their own sex. Men are responsi-
ble for all hunting, which is carried out either in small parties or singly,
depending on the game pursued. Techniques also vary, with bows and
arrows, spears, blowguns, curare poison, dogs, machetes, and today
even shotguns being used as availability and need dictate. Prey too may
range in scale from tapir of several hundred pounds to the diminutive
but highly prized agouti, with wild boar (peccary), deer, capybara, paca,
armadillo, caiman, and tortoise falling somewhere in between. Equally
valued are such birds as the curassow, tinamou, and quail, while smaller
species are predominantly sought by young boys using blowguns.
Although fishing may be a mixed activity, the larger species are
usually caught by the men alone. If women accompany their husbands,
it is usually around dusk when the small-sized catch may serve as a
pretext for other activities, sexual or social. Drifting along in a dug-out
canoe in the silence of the late afternoon, couples may enjoy a welcome
opportunity alone, away from the commotion of the village. A more
serious form of cooperative fishing is that done with barbasco. Known
as ayadi in Yekuana, barbasco refers to any of a variety of vines that are
beaten and then released into the rivers, temporarily depriving them of
oxygen and thus stunning the fish and forcing them to float to the
surface.6 Because of the great number of fish affected, the whole com-
munity usually participates in an ayadi t'denke. The larger fish, much
more resistant to the effects of barbasco, are pursued by the men with
bows and arrows while the smaller ones, quicker to rise to the surface,
are scooped up by women using nets. Undertaken with the air of an
enormous picnic, those fish not immediately eaten are smoked and
28 CLXTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

preserved for later use. As may be imagined, barbasco fishing is destruc-

tive to a river if done too often. This danger is avoided, however, by
strong taboos restricting the use of barbasco to not more than once a
year in any given area. Nevertheless, barbasco's unusual effectiveness
and the requirements for its inclusion in various rituals encourage the
Yekuana to travel greater and greater distances in order to use it.
Hunting and fishing are regularly alternated with the various con-
struction projects occupying the rest of the men's time. Although the
need for food naturally demands that the Yekuana frequently interrupt
these more collective tasks, the men welcome this opportunity to bal-
ance village-oriented work with the more solitary and peripatetic pur-
suits afforded by hunting. In harmony with Marshall Sahlins's claim that
in tribal economies "domestic contentment" and "livelihood" are val-
ued more highly than the maximization of production (1972:74 passim),
the Yekuana joyously mix their activities, varying solitude with coopera-
tion, travel with domesticity, and excitement with tedium. Periods of
intensive collective work are always followed by relaxation and disper-
sion. The best example of this is the construction of the roundhouse,
the most demanding and time-consuming of all male activities. If it were
not for the regular interruptions that are ultimately just as much a part
of the construction as the building itself, the atta might be completed in
a much shorter period of time. For each of the many phases is suc-
ceeded by a long antidote of hunting and fishing or some other individ-
ual pursuit. Most construction activities, however, take nowhere near
the three to five months recjuired to build a new roundhouse. These
other exclusively male tasks include the construction of canoes, pad-
dles, arms, baskets, yuca presses, grating troughs, and work-huts for the
women. The men are also responsible for the clearing of the new
gardens or conucos, an annual responsibility that marks their only di-
rect contact with the otherwise female world of yuca production.
Less varied than the men's is the daily routine of the Yekuana
women who, faced with the constant challenge of growing food in the
acidic and sandy soils of the Guiana rain forest, are more concentrated
in both movement and activity. Although sweet yuca, bananas, pineap-
ple, sugar cane, chili peppers, squash, sweet potatoes, and tobacco are
also grown in the gardens, the main crop is bitter yuca (Manihot
utilissima), from which cassava bread and manioc meal are derived. It is
cassava bread (u) which is the only storable food and the staple of the
Yekuana diet. In fact, no food or liquid is ever ingested without some
form of yuca derivative. For cassava is not only used as a type of silver-
 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES 29

Yuca press or tingkuiyedi (courtesy Helga Adibi, Wilbert 1972)

ware with which to scoop up each morsel of food but is also the basis of
all drinks, such as the fermented iarake and nonalcoholic sukutuka.
Because yuca in its raw state contains deadly prussic acid, its prepara-
tion is extremely time-consuming and taxing. It is no exaggeration to
say that a Yekuana woman, working in necessary collaboration with all
other adult females in her extended family, spends a full ninety percent
of her working time involved in some aspect of yuca production.
Women rise early and after preparing food for their families and the
men's circle leave for their gardens before the sun is too hot. Here they
dig up and peel a quantity of the enormous tubers sufficient to fill their
wuwa baskets. Secured by tumplines, these baskets, which may weigh
well over a hundred pounds when full, are carried back to the village and
placed in the work-huts that the women of each extended family share.
The large yuca graters, which the younger women have so laboriously
made, are now brought out and the tubers grated into large wooden
troughs called kanawa. The damp pulp is stuffed into long mesh sleeves
that serve as yuca presses. When full, these great tubes, called tingkui or
sebucans (lingua geral), are capped with special leaves and hung from
hooks on elaborately constructed post devices known as tingkuiyedi,
"the sebucan teeth." At its base the sebucan has a loop into which a long
pole is inserted. The pole is then forced down into one of several notches
30 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

cut in the post of the tingkuiyedi, and in this way the prussic acid is
eventually forced out of the pulp. With periodic readjustments for pres-
sure, the sebucans are left standing for the afternoon, while the women
continue with other phases of cassava production.
They retrieve the dried \oica pulp, which has been pressed and
stored during one of the preceding days, and force the white, chalky
yuca through round manade baskets which act as sieves. The resulting
flour is now ready to be spread on hot grills, where it is transformed
into cassava bread. The grills, formerly made of stone but now commer-
cially purchased and made of iron, are several feet in diameter, enabling
the women to make enormous, flat, circular loaves. After one side has
cooked, the loaf is quickly flipped with the aid of a woven fiber fan. The
cassava is now either dried and stored for later use or brought into the
house for immediate consumption.
In addition to this lengthy preparation process, the women are also
responsible for all domestic maintenance: the drawing of water, the
gathering of firewood, the serving of food, and the collection of game
left out on the trails by the men who have shot it. When there is no game
to collect, the women may supplement the village diet by gathering
grubs, ants, or sacred worms called motto. Even when uninvolved in the
physically demanding daily regimen of food preparation, women relax
by making the two principal artifacts used in it—yuca graters and carry-
ing baskets. Because of the hundreds of pieces of jasper or tin that must
be individually hammered into each slab of cedar, these graters, known
as tarade, are extremely time-consuming to produce. Often made by
the younger women while looking after their siblings, tarade have an
additional value as a trade item highly coveted by the Yekuana's neigh-
bors, particularly the Pemon. In fact, commerce in yuca graters has
become so institutionalized that the Yekuana have given up the manufac-
ture of certain items such as hammocks and pots, preferring to trade for
them with other tribes. The other indispensable item made by the
women is the carrying basket. The only basket manufactured by them,
the wuwa is a durable, all-purpose container which serves to transport
not only yuca between garden and village but also firewood, game, fish,
and, when traveling, an entire household's possessions.
All of these economic activities, both male and female, require the
fulfillment of certain ritual actions that are as essential to providing food
and housing as the practical resolution of where to locate game and
how to process yuca. The material demands of survival are but an
integument for the far greater spiritual challenge underlying each en-
 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PIAY OF FORCES 31

counter between the village and the world that lies beyond. In a uni-
verse where every object—animal, mineral, and vegetable—is animated
with an independent and potentially destructive life-force (akato), the
problem of appropriation becomes less a practical than a spiritual one.
The conversion of a poisonous tuber into a life-sustaining food is not
only the result of an ingenious technology of graters and presses, but of
ritual skills that enable the Yekuana to detoxify these plants of even
greater malevolent forces. Ritual activity is therefore not only relegated
to specially demarcated sacred events but permeates every cultural func-
tion, no matter how mundane or material it might appear on the sur-
face. The division between sacred and profane is not denned as that
between religious and nonceremonial time. Rather it is the recognition
of a cultured, ritually safe state and an uncontrolled, toxic one. The
challenge of Yekuana subsistence is in the transcendence of this divi-
sion and the ability to transform the contaminated and impure into the
culturally-infused and human. To do so, more than mere practical exper-
tise is needed. It also requires the mastery of ritual skills, along with a
knowledge of the hidden world they are keyed to unlock.

THE DUAL NATURE OF REALITY

Among the Yekuana every object, animate or inanimate, is said to pos-

sess an invisible double or akato that is both independent and eternal.
Organized into different species with their own culture heroes (arache)
and traditions, these spirit-beings are described as living much like the
humans, in their own world obscured by this one. They have their own
roundhouses, gardens, and body decorations. Yet when humans see
them, they appear as either fish or game, concealing their true identity
behind their nonhuman disguise. Although equanimity is achieved by a
complex of ritual procedures that penetrate their world and accompany
ever\; human-nonhuman interchange, these spirit-beings can be potent
enemies when one of their members is treated in unkind fashion. As
stated by Arvelo-Jimenez:

All known systems of life, plant and animal, as well as the techni-
cal and social aspects of Yekuana society, have a double manifes-
tation: an objective, tangible form and an accompanying invisible
mirror image form.
These invisible forms are endowed with a share of the gen-
32 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

eralized supernatural power which, manifested in these invisible

forms, is potentially uncontrollable and disruptive. This means
that these invisible forms can turn against an individual and in-
flict misfortune and death. However, the art of manipulating the
supernatural power and its concomitant manifestations can and
must be learned. (1971:184)

While ritual knowledge is the most effective conduit to the invisible

world of this supernatural power, the entire Yekuana culture may be
used as a map. Every detail of their society reiterates the dual nature of
reality, providing a clear indication of where real power is located. The
fact that the observable, material manifestation of an object may be an
illusion masking yet another more powerful reality is not esoteric infor-
mation reserved for shamans and singers alone. It is the most centrally
encoded message of the culture, repeated in every symbolic system of
which it is composed.
As previously alluded to and as noted in many other societies
(Reichel-Dolmatoff 1971, Dumont 1972, Bourdieu 1977, Crocker 1985),
the house is the model par excellence for a culture's conceptualization
of the world. In addition to presenting a faithful visualization of the
structure of the universe, the Yekuana atta also provides a template
upon which all other symbolic systems may be measured. The duality so
central to Yekuana thought is reproduced in the spacio-temporal rela-
tions that determine their lives. As with all other forms, the atta is the
result of two interlocking realities—an illusionary and material outer
one encasing a more powerful and invisible inner one. It is in this latter
or "inner one," the annaka, that all ritual events take place, as communi-
cation with the unseen spirit-world is facilitated by the direct link pro-
vided through the centerpost. But the annaka and its surrounding asa
also reflect the interdependence of these two realities and as such are as
indivisible (and interpenetrating) as any daily economic activity is from
its spiritual counterpart.
The image of two concentric circles is not limited to the atta's floor
plan but as already detailed reflects that of the roof which in turn
mirrors that of Heaven. In addition, the Earth or Nono is also described
as consisting of two circles, with the sea that occupies its center parallel-
ing the sacred inner spaces of both Heaven and the house. The house
itself may simultaneously be seen as a single inner circle surrounded by
the asa of a hostile and profane Earth. This elusive landscape is further
complicated by the fact that every atta also has its invisible double, just
 C[m.IRE AND ETHOS: A PlAY OF FORCES 33

as Wanadi built an invisible roundhouse to parallel the first one con-

structed at Kushamakari, which in its turn was mirrored by that other
unseen roundhouse of Heaven itself (de Civrieux 1980:35). Forbidding
a single fixed overview, this continual unfolding of forms upon one
another proposes a world of constant movement and transformation,
wherein no sooner is one's vision focused than it is forced to shift. The
perception of reality as a series of illusions belying another more power-
ful world concealed behind it is not presented as a static opposition but
as an endless interplay of these dual structures. Their continual rejuxta-
position not only redefines their symbolic meanings but also questions
their place in the world, challenging every participant to decide what is
"real."
As oppositions shift, what was once on the outside may be trans-
posed to the inside and vice versa. Hence, the external and finite, de-
pending on its positioning and context, may suddenly be perceived as
internal and infinite. One example of this is that of the Yekuana women.
Within the confines of the house, the women are associated with the
outer circle of hearths and living spaces that rings the central, more
ceremonially related space of the men. As such, the women are both
temporally secondary to the men (in terms of eating and other activi-
ties) and spatially external to them. They represent the finite and mate-
rial that encloses and shields the infinite and invisible. Their world
within the atta is that of the profane and toxic, dependent on the central
(and centering) position of the men to render them ritually safe. But
this symbolic placement (routinely considered fixed in nearly all sym-
bolic and structuralist studies) is completely transformed in yet another
context beyond the house, that of the garden.

The Garden
Often regarded as just a further extension of the women's already
peripheral status in relation to the men, the garden is actually a system-
atic inversion of the symbolic world of the atta. Referred to by a variety
of names including adaha, guiedeca ("in the yuca"), and conuco (lin-
gua geral), the garden recreates the sacred space of the roundhouse,
with the significant difference that the ritually pure center is reserved
for the women and not the men. Consisting of two concentric circles
identical to the atta, the garden's outer one is dedicated to the material
production of food, while the inner is the special preserve of women's
ritual knowledge and herbal magic. These enormous, seemingly chaotic
34 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

spaces where the women spend the greatest amount of their time are
not only the source of their material power but also the locus of their
ritual and sacred power. They are the women's atta, based on the same
divine architecture as the men's, yet with the duality that underlies them
reversed.
Although an exclusively female space, the garden is initially cleared
of its larger trees by the men, with the women and children moving
their hammocks and hearths into the forest to support and accompany
them. Coinciding with the end of the rainy season in December or
January, this felling, adaha yakadi, may take anywhere from three to
five weeks, depending on the number of new conucos to be cleared, for
not only does each extended family possess several gardens but the
village at large also maintains several of its own." Regardless of whom
the garden is being cleared for, however, the work is undertaken collec-
tively by all the men. When this task is completed and the downed trees
are left to dry in preparation for their burning two or three months
later, the Adaha ademi hidi is held. This festival, the name of which
simply means "To Sing Garden" (or "Garden Song"), effectively marks
the transference of the gardens from the world of the men to that of the
women. It also transfers the power of the annaka with it, converting the
center of each garden into a centerpost linking it to Heaven and the
supernatural powers required to make yuca grow. To do so, the women
must use the occasion of the Garden Festival to usurp the center of the
roundhouse and carry off the power associated with it.
The festival begins during the morning, as the final section of the
last garden, left specifically for this purpose, is cut down. Once this is
done, the men gather in the forest to make siwo horns from long
lengths of bark stripped from momi trees.8 These horns, made by roll-
ing the inside part of the bark into tight, spiral funnels, are decorated
with flowers and fresh shoots, emblems of the new life soon to come.
When all the men have finished and tested their horns, they organize
themselves into a long row of dancers, one hand on the shoulder of the
person in front, the other on the siwo horn to be played. The sound of
these horns is deafening, giving the women ample warning of the men's
approach and thus an opportunity to finish their own preparations
before the dancers reenter the village. For in the men's absence, the
women have taken over the attas inner circle, converting it into a
reproduction of the annaka of each garden.
In addition to bundling long stalks of yuca around the centerpost
and leaning others up against it, each woman has hung a smoke-stained
 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES 35

gourd filled with kawai'hiyo, the leaf necessary to prepare the fer-
mented alcohol known as iarake. But most important is the large selec-
tion of "women's herbs," the wodi maadadi laid out in a large flat
basket that sits at the centerpost's base. These plants, collectively re-
ferred to as awanso catajo, "the one stuck in the center," represent the
essence of women's secret power and healing lore. Without them, yuca
will not grow, as it is claimed that the awanso catajo are the "parents"
of the yuca and that in their absence the yuca (which in Yekuana is
guiede or "child," from the word niede) "grows sad and dies."9 But the
awanso catajo does more than protect yuca. Among its various mem-
bers are plants to heal children, initiate women, ease menstruation, aid
or prevent birth, cure or produce fever, frighten snakes, stop rains,
secure lovers, induce sleep, dispel ill humor, deter evil spirits (Odo-
shankomo), protect travelers, and cause death. While men have their
own herbs or maada, some of which duplicate the work of the wom-
en's, they are separate species, kept as secret from the women as the
women's are from the men.10 The awanso catajo therefore are the
paramount expression of women's sacred knowledge and ritual inde-
pendence. Their position at the center of each conuco underlines the
parallel (but inverted) structure of house and garden, the centers of
which are both designed to facilitate communication with the supernatu-
ral. For as the Yekuana women themselves say, pointing to the awanso
catajo, "Each one of these is a nunudu, a centerpost."
The garden's recreation within the roundhouse is completed when
the men finally arrive in the village. Playing the siwo horns and dancing,
they circle the atta several times before entering. As they continue their
dance around the centerpost and the elderly women who are huddled
there chanting over the awanso catajo and yuca, their own wives ap-
proach them. They confiscate the axes and machetes that have been used
to clear the new gardens. These tools now belong to the women and as
such are placed with the other garden paraphernalia set up around the
centerpost. Soon the men toss their siwo horns there as well. At this signal
the women break in among them, joining a dance that will last for the
next seventy-two hours, or "as long as the iarake lasts."
During this entire time, an aichuriaha or "song master" leads them
in singing the Adaha ademi bidi. Sung in a syncopated responsive style,
the main body of this epic is the fourteen-part Toqui which takes its name
from the burden repeated after each phrase. These narratives, composed
in a secret, shamanic language, as is the entire "Garden Song," recount
the episodes most central to the Watunna. In addition to describing the
36 CULTURE AND ETHOS: A PLAY OF FORCES

origin of yuca and the planting of the first garden, the Toqui also explain
the genesis of the stars, lightning, Venus, honey, and various animal
species and culture heroes. But the Adaha ademi hidi is more than a
summary of the mythological events contained in the Watunna. Running
throughout is a series of chants designed to infuse the objects gathered at
the centerpost with the power they will need to protect the new gardens.
Often composed simply of lists of the various spirits' names, these chants
also cleanse the men, who have been working in the spirit-infested envi-
ronment of the forest, while at the same time protecting the women who
are about to. As one Yekuana explained it:

To make conucos we have to cut down, to kill many trees, and

the invisible masters of these can turn against us and cause ill-
ness, bad luck and even death. Through the Garden Ceremony
we admit our guilt to the invisible masters of these trees and ask
them for their favor. The song cleanses us of that guilt.
(Gimenez 1981:40)

Although the composition of dancers is continually shifting as individu-

als drift off to rest or eat, the cumulative effect of three sleepless days of
dancing, singing, and drinking leaves no one untouched. By the after-
noon of the third day the circle of dancers moves as if in a dream,
indifferent to the huge gourds of iarake they are still forced to swallow
and throw up. This trancelike state does not slow the dancers down,
however, nor does it interfere with the precision of their movements
and singing. Pushed to the limits of endurance, a new spirit seizes them,
their steps becoming even more lively and coordinated. It is then that
the women subtly disengage from the main body of dancers to reorga-
nize themselves at the centerpost once again. The two circles that began
the dance are now reconstituted with the counterpoint between them
even more accentuated, for as the men continue to sing and dance, the
women, now huddled at the centerpost, begin a completely separate
chant of their own.
The ademi, delivered in the soft, high-pitched falsetto characteristic
of all women's singing, is called the Guiede hiyacadi or "Taking Out the
Yuca." Similar to the Sichu hiyacadi ("Taking Out the Child") sung over
newborns when they are brought out of the roundhouse for the first
time after their umbilical cords have fallen off, this chant is a final
invocation to protect the "newborn" yuca and other garden plants from
the spirits they will confront in the new gardens. As the women con-
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 CHAPTER III
CONGRATULATIONS,[1] CONDOLENCES,
RESIGNATIONS, ETC.
297. From a Lady Addressing Birthday Congratulations to a
Friend.

D——, March 14, 19—.

My Dear Old Friend:—
I have not forgotten that the 16th of March is the anniversary of
your birth. I should not like the day to pass without assuring you of
my deep and sincere interest in all that concerns you. Our paths lie
widely apart, but just such occasions serve as happy opportunities
for the interchange of kindly feeling, and the revival of many happy
memories. I hope this brief note will reach you on the 16th, also a
little token of affectionate regard which I have wrought with my own
hand. Pray accept it, not for its own value, but for the sake of the
thoughts it represents.
Faithfully yours,
Elvira Jones.

298. Condoling with a Friend about His Failure in Business.

L——, August 17, 19—.

My Esteemed Old Friend:—
We were exceedingly pained to learn from the newspapers of
yesterday that, after a long struggle, you have been compelled to
yield to the resistless pressure of these hard times. Success in
business is often a mere accident and merits little praise, and in like
manner, failure in business is often the sad and only return for a
long and patient fight against tremendous odds. In these days of
merciless competition, the spirit of fair trading seems to be almost
buried out of sight. It is no longer a case of "the survival of the
fittest," so much as of the survival of "the smartest." But we should
not let undeserved defeat bring despair. As the poet says:
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast,"
and I most sincerely trust there are brighter days in store for you.
We feel sure you can have nothing to blame yourself for in these
reverses. Everybody who knows Alfred Baker knows that he is the
soul of honor, that he holds integrity by the right hand and by the
left.
I exceedingly regret that my letter must be one of words only, and
wish it were possible to ask you to draw upon me for some useful,
helpful amount. But that is utterly beyond my power. Letters are not
of much value in such a crisis as you are now passing through, and
yet we could not keep silent.
Pray accept these few words of heartfelt sympathy. Be brave! Be
hopeful! Better days will come.
Very truly yours,
Phillip Smith.

299. Informing a Wife of the Illness of Her Husband.

B——, September 10, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Oldfield:—
I have been asked by your husband to write and tell you he has a
bad attack of gout and cannot use his right arm; he feels quite
helpless, and hopes you will come to him at once. We are taking
every care of him, and he has a very good doctor, but of course he
would be very glad to have you with him, and although we have not
yet had the pleasure of meeting, I hope you will not make any
ceremony about staying with us until your husband is quite well
again. We shall be very pleased to see you in spite of the
unfortunate circumstances which occasion your first visit to us. With
best regards from Mr. Densmore and myself,
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Sylvia Densmore.

300. Informing a Gentleman of the Illness of His Wife.

S——, August 20, 19—.

Dear Mr. Lord:—
I am personally unknown to you, but your wife is a great friend of
mine, and on calling upon her, this morning, I found that she was
seriously ill. Of course, you ought to know of this at once, and I
would have sent a telegram, but the doctor said there was no
immediate danger, and that you had better be informed of her illness
by letter. The landlady of the boarding house where she is staying
seems very attentive and kind, still it would certainly be a great
comfort to Mrs. Lord if you could bring her sister down with you. In
the meantime, I will do all that is possible for her, and am happy to
say she has the best advice our place can furnish.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
Lina Stepney Gore.

301. Informing a Married Daughter of the Illness of Her

Mother.

T——, November 15, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Lester:—
 I am very sorry to have to inform you that your mother has
caught a very severe cold; the doctor seems anxious about her, and
says it is an attack of bronchitis. She has been in bed for the last
three days, but would not let me write before for fear of
unnecessarily alarming you; however, to-day, being no better, she
has desired me to do so. The doctor is coming again to-morrow, and
should there be a change for the worse I will send you a telegram
after he has seen her. She is very restless at night, and cannot be
persuaded to take any nourishment beyond a little milk. I came here
on a visit last week, with the intention of returning home yesterday,
but did not like to leave your mother as she was so ill.
With kind remembrances, believe me,
Very truly yours,
Ida Smythe.

302. Inquiring after the Health of a Lady's Husband.

R——, April 4, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Leverett:—
I sent over this afternoon to inquire after Mr. Leverett, and
was very sorry indeed to hear he is no better, and that you are very
anxious about him; but I trust there may be shortly some
improvement in his condition. Pray do not think of answering this
note; I merely write to assure you of my sympathy, and to say how
happy it would make me to be of use to you in any way; I would of
course call at once if you cared to see me.
With kindest regards, and very best wishes for your good
husband's quick recovery,
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
Alva Belden.
 303. Indirectly Inquiring after the Health of an Invalid.

C——, June 10, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Keane:—
I heard yesterday for the first time, through some friends who
have just returned home from P——, that your sister was seriously ill
when they left V——; however, I hope that you have received a
better report of her during the last few days, and that there is no
further cause for anxiety. When you write will you say everything
that is most kind from me, and please tell her I thought it best not
to trouble her with a letter until we heard how she was, as we know
how trying it is after a severe illness to answer letters of inquiry.
Believe me,
Yours most sincerely,
Ada Young.

304. Sympathizing with a Confirmed Invalid.

S——, August 27, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Silverton:—
I was deeply distressed to learn from your niece, Gertrude, of your
continued indisposition. Had hoped that by this time you would have
been fully restored to health. But the ways of Providence are
inscrutable, and all we can do is to bow in submission to the Divine
will, assured that these chastenings of affliction are not sent in
anger, but are proofs of a loving Father's care. "His paths are in the
sea, and His footsteps are in the deep waters." He causeth "all
things to work together for good" to those who put their trust in
Him. But I need not remind you of these sources of comfort in the
day of your trial and sorrow. Your long experience in the Christian
life will suggest to you a thousand secret springs of gracious
consolation. It is not necessary to assure you how ardently we all
desire your speedy return to health. With tender sympathy and
many earnest prayers
I am, dear Mrs. Silverton,
Yours affectionately,
Mary Dinsmore.

305. From a Daughter, Announcing the Death of Her Mother.

D——, May 18, 19—.

Dear Aunt Mary:—
You must, doubtless, be prepared for the sad news I have to
convey, the death of my dearest, most precious mother. It took place
yesterday afternoon at four o'clock. Father is too broken-hearted to
write himself. We were all with her, and she was conscious to the
last. Will you and uncle be able to attend the funeral on Saturday
next? Please excuse this short letter, dear aunt, as I am really too
upset to write connected sentences.
Your sorrowful niece,
Lina Black.

306. To a Brother-in-Law, Announcing the Death of the

Writer's Husband.

F——, May 17, 19—.

Dear Arthur:—
You will have received my telegram telling you that my dear
husband was sinking fast. The change for the worse took place quite
suddenly last night, and this morning at six o'clock he died. I am too
miserable to write more, pray come to me if possible; there is so
much to be arranged, and I feel quite unequal to giving the
necessary directions for the funeral.
 Your unhappy sister,
Julia C. Dudeny.

307. Condoling with a Lady on the Death of Her Husband.

P——, July 28, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Lovering:—
I was deeply grieved to hear of the death of your husband, and
write to offer you my sincerest sympathy. At present, I have no
doubt, you can hardly realize your loss, and the blank made in your
life must be very terrible to bear; you were so much to each other,
and appeared to be so truly happy in your married life. By and by I
trust the care of your boy will give you an interest in life, but fear
you must be too miserable as yet to take comfort even from this.
With kind love, believe me,
Your affectionate friend,
Harriet Singleton.

308. Answer to the Above.

R——, August 12, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Singleton:—
Thank you ever so much for your touching letter; the loss of my
dear husband has left me unspeakably desolate, and I can hardly
bear to write of my sorrow as yet. I feel too broken-hearted to do
anything but sit down and cry helplessly. Of course I ought to rouse
myself, but the knowledge that he has gone from me forever, and
that henceforward I shall be alone, deprived of his loving care, is all
that I can realize. By and by my duty toward my child will give me
something to live for, but at present I can only mourn, and pray for
resignation.
 Believe me, dear Mrs. Singleton,
Yours in great grief,
Georgiana Lovering.

309. Condoling with a Gentleman on the Death of His Wife.

C——, July 10, 19—.

Dear Mr. Stevens:—
It seems almost cruel to intrude upon you in your great
sorrow, but I cannot delay writing how much my husband and
myself sympathize with you. We saw the announcement of the death
of your dear wife in the "Journal," and were greatly shocked, as we
had not even heard of her illness. Pray do not think of answering
this letter; I only wanted to say that our hearts are with you, in this
severe bereavement, the more sad since your dear little girls are
thus deprived at so tender an age of a loving mother's care.
With our united kind regards and deep sympathy,
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Ada B. Chamberlain.

310. Answer to the Above.

C——, July 17, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Chamberlain:—
Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your kind letter of
sympathy. My dear wife's death has left me utterly miserable, and
her loss to me is irreparable. She was the dearest and best of
women, and the void created in my life is, indeed, most terrible to
bear. My darling children are scarcely old enough to understand all
the misery of the present moment.
 Remember me kindly to your husband. I remain,
Sorrowfully yours,
James Stevens.

311. Condoling with a Lady on the Death of Her Brother.

P——, April 3, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Heywood:—
I was deeply concerned to read, in the Paris edition of the "N——
Y—— H——," about the death of your brother. Although you have
not seen much of him of late years, still of course his loss must have
been a great shock to you. I remember him a handsome, most
promising young fellow; how sad that he should thus be cut off in
the prime of life! Have you heard any particulars beyond the fact of
his death? I suppose his poor young wife will return at once to her
own people, as he has left two children. I am truly grieved for you
all; and with kind regards,
Believe me as ever,
Your affectionate old friend,
Edgar Saunderson.

312. Answer to the Above.

O——, May 10, 19—.

Dear Mr. Saunderson:—
Please accept my most earnest thanks for your kind letter of
condolence. My poor brother's unexpected death was indeed a great
shock to us. All that we have as yet heard is that he was ill only
three days, and that enteric fever was the cause of death; his wife
was too overwhelmed with grief to write more fully, but we trust we
shall hear from her by next mail. Her father is very anxious that she
should come back to us at once with her children. John and I were
such great friends up to the time of his marriage, it seems too sad to
think that I shall never see him again; we were fond and proud of
him too, and his sudden death is inexpressibly terrible to us all.
With kind love believe me, dear Mr. Saunderson,
Yours affectionately,
Mary Lawson Heywood.

313. Condoling with a Young Lady on the Death of Her

Mother.

P——, October 3, 19—.

My Dear Margaret:—
I was deeply grieved to hear from you of the death of your dear
mother, and I can well imagine how greatly you must miss her every
hour. You have one consolation, however, that of having been the
best of daughters to her, and having given her the most devoted
care during her long illness. In such a trial as this, little can be said
to comfort you, and time alone will soften your sorrow for the loss of
the kindest of mothers. In her death I have lost a dear friend, and
indeed all who knew her cannot fail to regret one who was so
amiable and unselfish. Have you made any plans as yet, and what
does your brother wish you to do?—are you to live with him or with
one of your mother's relatives? I shall be much interested to hear
what you propose doing, and if you would care to come to us for a
quiet visit, do not hesitate to say so. Mr. Standish unites with me in
sending you and your brother the expression of our profound
sympathy.
Believe me, dear Margaret,
Your affectionate friend,
Helen H. Standish.
 314. Condoling with a Friend on the Loss of Her Child.

D——, Nov. 17, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Jackson:—
I never felt so much at a loss to express my feelings. If only I
could tell you all that is in my heart! It seems to me that in the
presence of your great grief, silence is the only suitable offering.
How deeply I sympathize with you no words of mine can tell, and to
utter the common words of condolence would serve no end in your
case.

"For common is the common place,

And empty chaff well meant."

One only hope can comfort you in these sad hours, the hope that
somewhere in the "many mansions" of our "Father's house," the
daughter who loved you with all the sweetness of her early affection
loves you still. The shadows of the valley of death cannot eclipse the
light of love.
Time, the great healer, will bring balm to your wounded spirit. I
have just been reading the poems of Horatius Bonar, and I recall a
stanza of his that expresses better than any words of mine could do
the calm, divine hope of a reunion of the loved and lost in that fair
land that lies beyond the boundaries of time. It runs thus:
 "Where the faded flower shall blossom,
Blossom never more to fade;
Where the shaded sky shall brighten,
Brighten never more to shade,
Where the child shall meet her mother
And the mother meet her child;
And dear families be gathered,
That were scattered on the wild——
Dear ones, we shall meet and rest,
Mid the holy and the blest!"

May the hope of a future reunion be your hope, and comfort, and
stay.
I am, my dear Mrs. Wilson,
Ever yours sincerely,
Eva Roberts.

315. Condoling with a Lady on the Death of a Friend.

L——, January 28, 19—.

Dearest Emma:—
I only accidentally heard last night of the death of poor Mrs.
Fredericks; she was a great friend of yours, and you must have been
very grieved and upset when the sad news reached you. You were
so fond of her that no doubt you felt as if you had lost a near
relation, and very naturally, as she was beloved and admired by all
who knew her. I do so pity the husband, and the little motherless
girl.
I hope you are enjoying good health; we have all been suffering
from colds lately.
 Believe me, dear Emma,
Your sympathetic friend,
Maud Dillingham.

316. Answer to the Above.

P——, February 1, 19—.

My Dear Maud:—
Poor Mrs. Fredericks' death has indeed caused a blank
amongst her many friends, but none of them will miss her more than
I shall, as we were brought up together and were quite like sisters. I
cannot tell you how greatly her loss affects me; she was so much to
us in every way, such a dear, dear friend. Her husband seems heart-
broken, he thinks of going abroad for a few months, and his little
daughter is to remain with me during his absence.
Excuse my not writing a longer letter to-day, and believe me, dear
Maud,
Your affectionate
Emma Carter.

317. Asking a Friend to Attend a Funeral.

B——, September 1, 19—.

Dear Sir:—
I have been requested by Mrs. Judson to inform you that the
funeral of her son, the late Mr. Edgar Judson, is to take place at
Grace P. E. Church, on Saturday, the 17th instant, at 12 o'clock, and
to say that she would be grateful if you could attend the services.
Believe me,
Yours respectfully,
Henry Foster.
 318. To a Lady, Offering to Attend the Funeral of Her
Husband.

C——, July 14, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Carson:—
I was deeply shocked to hear of the death of my valued old friend,
Mr. Carson, and beg to offer you my sincere sympathy. I much wish
to attend the funeral, unless you desire that only relatives should be
present. Perhaps you will kindly let me know your decision on the
subject, and when and where the ceremony is to take place.
I remain,
Very truly yours,
Henry B. Wilder.

319. Asking a Relative to attend a Funeral.

The Grove,
S——, April 13, 19—.
Dear Uncle James:—
By this time you have surely received my telegram containing
the sad news of my dear mother's death. My father is quite
overcome with grief at the suddenness of the blow that has fallen
upon us all, and is therefore unequal to writing himself, but he
wishes me to say that the funeral is to take place on Saturday next,
the 10th instant, at 2 o'clock, at the North Baptist Church, and he
hopes you will attend if possible.
With our united best love, I remain, in deep grief,
Your affectionate nephew,
Herbert Reeves.
 320. To a Relative, Offering to attend a Funeral.

D——, May 19, 19—.

Dear Aunt Julia:—
I can hardly find words to tell you how deeply we were
shocked and grieved to hear of my dear kind uncle's death. You did
not say when the funeral is to take place, but please let me know, as
I much wish to attend it and to pay this last mark of respect to one
for whom we entertained so deep and sincere an affection.
Believe me, dear aunt, with much love,
Your sorrowful nephew,
James Warner.

Footnotes:
[1] For other Letters of Congratulation, see pp.
98, 108, 150, 151, 153.
 CHAPTER IV
INVITATIONS AND REGRETS

321. Inviting a Married Couple to a Formal Dinner.

C——, March 5, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Smithson:—
Will you and Mr. Smithson give us the pleasure of your company at
dinner on Thursday the 12th instant, at a quarter to eight?
Very sincerely yours,
Ellen Morrow.

322. Answer to the Above (Acceptance).

O——, March 7, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Morrow:—
It will give us much pleasure to accept your kind invitation to dine
with you on Thursday, the 12th instant.
Very truly yours,
Gertrude Smithson.

323. Answer to No. 321 (Regrets).

O——, March 7, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Morrow:—
 I very much regret that a prior engagement will prevent our
having the pleasure of dining with you on Thursday, the 12th
instant.
Very truly yours,
Gertrude Smithson.

324. Inviting a Married Couple to an Informal Dinner.

N——, December 10, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Sunbury:—
We should be delighted if you and Mr. Sunbury would dine with us
on Wednesday the 18th instant, at 7 o'clock. It will be quite a small
party, as we have only asked Mr. and Mrs. Spencer and Mr. and Miss
Whitcomb. We trust you will be disengaged and able to give us the
pleasure of your company.
Very truly yours,
Isabella Norris.

325. Answer to the Above (Acceptance).

N——, December 11, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Norris:—
Mr. Sunbury and I have much pleasure in accepting your kind
invitation to dine with you on the 18th instant. I was so sorry to miss
seeing you on Sunday; we had gone for a long drive to Y——, and
did not return till after five. Hoping to be more fortunate the next
time you call,
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Caroline Sunbury.
 326. Answer to No. 324 (Regrets).

N——, December 11, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Norris:—
We are extremely sorry to be unable to accept your kind invitation
to dinner, but we are going up to Washington on the 10th of this
month, and shall not return home until after the Holidays, when I
hope to come and see you. With many thanks and regrets
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Caroline Sunbury.

327. Inviting a Gentleman to a Formal Dinner.

B——, April 3, 19—.

Dear Mr. Dwight:—
It would give us great pleasure if you would dine with us on
Saturday next, the 10th instant, at 8 o'clock, if disengaged.
Very truly yours,
Harriet Winthrop Cole.

328. Inviting a Gentleman to an Informal Dinner.

B——, May 8, 19—.

Dear Mr. Dwight:—
Will you give us the pleasure of your company quite informally at
dinner on Saturday, the 10th instant, at half-past seven? Please
excuse this short notice, as we have only just heard you were in
town.
 Very truly yours,
Harriet Winthrop Cole.

329. Answer to the Above (Acceptance).

B——, May 9, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Cole:—
It will be a great pleasure for me to dine with you on Saturday
next, the 10th. I should have called on you before this, but have
been so much occupied since my return to town, that I had not a
moment to pay any such civilities, to my great personal regret.
Very truly yours,
Arthur Dwight.

330. Answer to No. 328 (Regrets).

B——, May 9, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Cole:—
I would have been delighted to accept your kind invitation to dine
with you on Saturday the 10th, but unfortunately I have promised to
be present at a large public dinner on that day.
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Arthur Dwight.

331. Inviting a Lady to a Luncheon.

P——, May 3, 19—.

My Dear Miss Sanderson:—
 If disengaged, will you come to lunch with us on Monday next, at
1 o'clock? We shall be very pleased to see you.
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Bertha Meade.

332. Answer to the Above (Acceptance).

P——, May 4, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Meade:—
Please accept my thanks for your kind invitation to lunch on
Saturday next. I have much pleasure in accepting it.
Sincerely yours,
Mabel Sanderson.

333. Answer to No. 331 (Regrets).

P——, May 4, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Meade:—
To my great regret, I shall not be able to come to lunch with you
on Monday next, as I have promised to take my nieces to a matinee
at the H—— S—— Theater on that day, but shall hope to see you
next week, and will take my chance of finding you at home.
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Mabel Sanderson.

334. Inviting a Gentleman to a Luncheon.

P——, May 4, 19—.

Dear Mr. Brackett:—
Will you come and lunch with us on Monday next, 1 o'clock, if not
otherwise engaged? You will meet an old friend of yours, so do come
if you can.
Very truly yours,
Bertha Meade.

335. Answer to the Above (Acceptance).

P——, May 5, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Meade:—
I shall be most happy to lunch with you on Monday next. Your
husband seems to have had a bad attack; I was glad to see him out
again.
Very truly yours,
Robert D. Brackett.

336. Answer to No. 334 (Regrets).

P——, May 5, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Meade:—
I am sorry I cannot have the pleasure of lunching with you on
Monday next, as I shall be particularly engaged all the afternoon
with polo practice for Thursday's match, which I hope you will
attend. Please give my kind regards to the old friend you mentioned,
—I have not an idea who he—or she can be.
Very truly yours,
Robert D. Brackett.

337. Asking a Young Lady to Sing at an Afternoon Tea.

 C——, February 28, 19—.
My Dear Miss Evans:—
I enclose a card for an afternoon tea I propose giving on the 10th
of next month. We much hope you will be able to come and, should
think it so kind if you would entertain us with some of your fine
singing; several of my friends have promised their services for the
occasion, and I expect we shall have some very good music.
Thanking you heartily in advance,
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Katherine Daly.

338. Answer to the Above.

C——, March 1, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Daly:—
I shall be delighted to come to your tea on the 10th, and will bring
one or two new songs with me which I hope may please you and
your friends.
Sincerely yours,
Margaret Evans.

339. Inviting a Lady to a Formal Afternoon Tea.

C——, February 28, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Russell:—
I take great pleasure in sending you a card for an afternoon tea I
purpose giving on the 10th of March. I hope you may be able to
come, and if you care to bring any friend of yours with you, they will
be welcome.
 Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Katherine Daly.

340. Answer to the Above.

C——, March 1, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Daly:—
Please accept my thanks for your welcome invitation. I hope to be
able to come to your tea next Friday, and will bring my friend Miss
Burch with me, as you are kind enough to say I may do so.
Sincerely yours,
Alberta Russell.

341. Inviting a Lady to an Informal Afternoon Tea.

M——, January 15, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Salter:—
A few of our friends are coming to afternoon tea on Friday next,
and we hope to have a little good music. Perhaps you may be able
to look in for half an hour; if so, I should be very pleased to see you.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
Selma White.

342. Asking a Gentleman to Recite at an Afternoon Tea.

C——, February 20, 19—.

Dear Mr. Starling:—
 I enclose a card for a tea at my house, on March 10th, and hope
so much you will be able to come. I wonder whether you would
recite something during the afternoon? It would be most good-
natured if you allowed yourself to be persuaded to do so.
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Katharine Daly.

343. Inviting a Lady to an Informal Garden Party.

T——, August 10, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Duncan:—
I should be delighted if you and friends in your house would drive
over on Monday next, the 16th instant, any time between three and
seven o'clock, to play tennis. I have only asked our immediate
neighbors, but expect some good players amongst them.
Sincerely yours,
Lucy Meredith.

344. Answer to the Above.

The Cedars,
Y——, August 17, 19—.
Dear Mrs. Meredith:—
It will give us great pleasure to drive over on Monday next to join
your tennis party, weather permitting; an occasional shower would
not prevent our coming, and only a thorough downpour could keep
us away.
Sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Duncan.
 345. Inviting a Lady to a Church Sociable.

G——, August 6, 19—.

My Dear Miss Dinsmore:—
I hope you and your sister will be able to come to our church
sociable on Wednesday the 18th instant. It is to be held inside and
outside the Brick Church, between seven and eleven o'clock, and we
hope it will prove a success. There will also be exhibits of
needlework by the school children, and the prizes are to be
distributed at eight o'clock.
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
Arabella White.

346. Inviting a Lady to a Picnic.

R——, August 4, 19—.

My Dear Miss Selwyn:—
Mamma requests me to say that she will be very pleased if you
and your brother will join our Picnic party on Tuesday next, the 10th
instant. We expect about fourteen people, and we are to start from
our house in two open carriages at eleven o'clock. I trust you will be
able to come, and that we shall have a very pleasant day,
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Hattie Wilson.

347. Answer to the Above.

S——, August 5, 19—.

Dear Miss Wilson:—
 I am so sorry that we are unable to accept your kind invitation for
Tuesday next, as we are asked to an afternoon dance at the Belmont
Country Club on that day. My brother desires me to convey his
regards and many regrets, in which I join.
Believe me,
Truly yours,
Georgiana Selwyn.

348. Inviting a Gentleman to a Picnic.

R——, August 4, 19—.

Dear Mr. Darnley:—
Can I persuade you to join our Picnic, on Tuesday next. It is to be
held at Marble Hill, but we are all to assemble here at 11 o'clock,
and shall number between fourteen and fifteen, including Miss
Perkins and Mrs. Henry Shaw, both of whom you know.
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Ida Wilson.

349. Answer to the Above.

R——, August 5, 19—.

Dear Miss Wilson:—
Shall be very glad indeed to join your Picnic Party on Tuesday
next, and will be at your house at the hour named in your note.
Very truly yours,
William Darnley.
350. From a Married Lady to Another, Inviting Her to Attend
a Theatre Party.

C——, April 8, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Livermore:—
We just had box tickets sent us for Friday evening, to see the New
Orleans French Opera Company, which is having such a surprising
success at the A——. I hear it is very good. I write to say how
pleased we should be if you and Mr. Livermore would join us. We
might either meet at the theater or start from here, as most
convenient to you.
Very truly yours,
Ellen Moffat.

351. Answer to the Above.

C——, April 9, 19—.

Dear Mrs. Moffat:—
Mr. Livermore and myself should have found it a great pleasure to
accept your kind invitation to accompany you to the theater Friday
evening, but I have unfortunately been confined to the house for
some days with a bad cough, and dare not venture out in the night
air.
Believe me, with many thanks,
Very truly yours,
Kate Livermore.

352. From a Gentleman Inviting a Young Lady to Attend a

Theatre.

N——, November 10, 19—.

Dear Miss Swinton:—
If I remember right you said, last Saturday, that you would like to
see the new piece at the H—— S—— Theater. If you allow me, I will
endeavor to secure seats for any evening next week on which you
may be disengaged, and shall hope to have the pleasure of calling
for you.
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Harold Sampson Day.

353. Answer to the Above.

N——, November 11, 19—.

Dear Mr. Day:—
I should much enjoy going to the theater one day next week, and
it is very kind of you to offer to invite me. I think Monday would be
the most convenient night if it suits you equally well.
Believe me in the meantime,
Very sincerely yours,
Adelina Swinton.

354. Inviting a Lady to a Small Evening Party.

C——, January 12, 19—.

My Dear Miss Bright:—
Will you come to our house to-morrow at 9 o'clock and spend the
evening with us? We mean to have a game of cards and a little
music. I am sorry we cannot ask you to dinner, as we are in the
midst of our periodical servant trouble; but I thought perhaps you
might like to come to us in this informal way.
 Very truly yours,
Alva Story.

355. Inviting a Lady and Her Daughter to a Dance.

A——, August 10, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Stanton:—
I propose giving a little dance on the 20th, and I hope you will all
be able to attend. It is quite an impromptu affair, but I trust your
daughters will enjoy it nevertheless. Dancing will commence at half-
past nine.
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
Gertrude Manners.

356. Answer to the Above.

A——, August 11, 19—.

My Dear Mrs. Manners:—
My daughters would have been delighted to accept the invitation
to your dance, had we not decided to leave the seashore for Lenox
at the end of this week, which will preclude their having the pleasure
of doing so, much to their regret. I am sure your dance will be a
great success, and I am only too sorry that none of us can be
present.
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
Lucile Stanton.

357. Inviting a Young Lady to a Dance.

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