Page:Amazonian Tortoise Myths.djvu/45

 — 37 — jealous, and insists upon fishing also in the same way, So he borrows his son-in-law's rattle and follows his example, being speedily swallowed by the fish. His wife runs home in distress and calls the son-in-law, who promptly rescues him, in rather a poor state of health.

In the continuation of this story, the kingfisher is represented as being obliged to flee from the mukúra, who is angry because the kingfisher has laughed at his plight. The wife of the latter then takes for her husband a carapato, and soon after the pair go out to gather green Brazil-nuts, the carapato climbing the tree, plucking the fruit, and throwing it down to his wife. After he has finished, he plucks a leaf, and holding on to it, comes safely to the ground. Then the jealous mukúra must needs follow his example, but when he attempts to descend by holding on to the leaf, he falls with a crash to the ground.

The myths I have placed on record in this little paper have, without doubt, a wide currency on the Amazonas, but I have found them only among the Indian population, and they were all collected in the Lingua Geral. All my attempts to obtain myths from the negroes on the Amazonas proved failures. Dr. Couto de Magalhães, who has recently followed me in these researches, has had the same experience. The probability, therefore, seems to be that the myths