How The Tapir Punished The Indian – Guiana While traveling through the forest one day an Indian came across a party of men seated, eating something that smelt very savory. Now, instead of waiting to be asked to partake of the cheer, our traveler roughly inquired of them what it was that they were smacking their lips over. They told him that it was bush-cow [tapir] liver, and that if he wanted some he would have to hunt it himself. On further questioning, they told him exactly where he would find a bush-cow sleeping, and advised him that the best and quickest way to get the liver was [manum cum cultro in ano inserere atque exscindere], and the silly old fool believed them. Proceeding to the spot indicated and finding the beast asleep [inseruit cultrum in ano]—but, with the tapir now wide awake, he found it impossible to release his arm. On rushed the animal through thicket, bush, and forest, dragging the miserable hunter behind him. So they traveled night and day, only to be released when they found themselves on a sheet of water. Here the tapir relieved himself, thus freeing his would-be captor. By the time the man reached home all the skin had peeled off his arm, and when folk asked him what had caused the trouble, he told them, and they laughed at him. He had been punished for his want of manners. 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 ]