5 - Spells

Summary

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

Hummingbird, hummingbird, give back my arrow!

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

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