In the old times, there was no contention, all were happy, and no one became sick or died. It was then that the Yurokons used to come and live among us as our friends and associates; they were short people like ourselves. One Yurokon in particular used to come and drink paiwarri with my people, whom he would visit for the purpose regularly once a month. The last time he came, he appeared as a woman with a baby at the breast. The Caribs gave her of the pepper-pot, into which she dipped the cassava, which she then sucked and ate. The pepper-pot was so hot, however, that it burned the inside of her mouth and "heart," and this made her ask for water, but her hostess told her that she had none. Yurokon therefore asked for a calabash, and leaving her baby up at the house, she went down to the waterside, where she quenched her thirst. On her return she looked for her little child, but it was nowhere to be seen: she searched high and low, but all in vain, because during her absence some worthless woman among the company had thrown it into the boiling cassiri pot.

   By and by Yurokon went to stir the cassiri with the usual paddle-spoon, and, while she-stirred, the body of her baby rose to the surface. She wept and then, turning on the people, upbraided them: "Why have you punished me in this way? I have never had a bad mind against any of you, but now I will make you pay me. In the future your children shall all die, and this will make you weep as I am weeping. And when children are born to you, you shall suffer pain and trouble at their birth. Furthermore, with regard to you men, " continued Yurokon, as she addressed the male members of the company, "I will give you great trouble when you go out to catch fish." And so she did, because in those days we Caribs only had to go to the waterside, bail the water out with our calabashes, and picking up the fish that were left exposed at the bottom of the stream, just put the water back again to breed fish once more. Yurokon altered all this, and made us go to the trouble, annoyance, and inconvenience of poisoning the pools with various roots.

   What is more, Yurokon killed the worthless Indian who had thrown her boy into the cassiri, and then asked her children what had become of their mother.

   "She has gone to the field," they said.

   "No, she has not; she is hunting after the genitalia of one of the members of my tribe," was the insulting rejoinder, a reply which she purposely gave in order to provoke them into a rage.

   She asked them the same question a second time, and they told her she had gone to bake cassava.

   "No, she has not, " replied Yurokon; "she has bored her way into my ear," an answer supposed to be even more offensive.

   And she asked them the same question a third time, but on this occasion they told her that she had gone to dig sweet potatoes. As soon as they mentioned the word "potatoes," Yurokon disappeared.



©1996, Richard Hooker

For information contact: Richard Hines
Updated 6-6-1999