How Turtle Fooled The Yawarri – Guiana It was a time of scarcity and drought, and the Bush-rat [yawarri] in the course of his search for food came upon Turtle, also on the lookout for a bite. After saying "How day?" to each other and inquiring after their respective business—whence they had come, and whither they were going—they began to discuss the hardness of the times, and thus from one thing to another, the question finally arose as to which of them in case of necessity could fast the longer. Each one's assurance of his own superiority in this respect led them to arrange a competition, it being agreed that the one party should choose any tree, and the other party abstain from food until this tree should bear fruit. Yawarri accordingly chose a plum tree and, fencing it all round, put Turtle inside the inclosure. Every month did Yawarri visit his willing captive and ask whether he were still alive. "Still alive! Why not? No harm can befall me," was the reply he received. This conversation was repeated once a month for six months, at the end of which time, the plum-tree buds had opened, the flowers had bloomed, and the ripe fruit had fallen. So the fence was broken down and the Turtle let out. It was now Yawarri's turn to show what he could do, so Turtle built him a fence around a wild cashew tree, shut him in, and went away. At the end of a month Turtle came up to the fence and shouted out to Yawarri, asking him if he were still alive. "Yes! alive!" was the answer. After the lapse of another month Turtle visited him again with the same question, "Yes! alive! but a bit exhausted," was the reply on this occasion. On completion of the third month, Turtle came again, but this time he received no reply at all. Yawarri was no longer alive: only the flies on his dead body were alive. Yawarri did not know that the wild cashew bears fruit only once in every three or four years. An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians, Walter E. Roth, from the Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-1909, pp. 103-386, Washington D.C., 1915, and is now in the public domain.[ British Guiana ][ South America ]