Hunting Is No Part Of Woman's Work - Guiana While going to her field one morning an old woman found a Deer fast asleep on his back in the pathway. Returning to the house, she got a piece of an old knife and began sharpening it. All the grandchildren were making remarks at her, as: e. g., "Look! What is the old woman sharpening the knife for? She's going hunting." "What do you say?" She sneeringly retorted: "Yes. I am going hunting. You are all too lazy to go, but I am not. You are not fit even to hunt, but I am. I found some dead meat this morning, all spoiling, and I intend bringing it home." So saying, she went about her business, taking a little granddaughter to keep her company and give help. When they arrived at the spot where the Deer was still lying on his back, she approached the beast and commenced jagging her knife under his chin straight down his neck, and so right in the middle line of his body. The knife was blunt, however, and the old woman's arm weak, with the result that at first she did hardly more than scratch the skin. But when she tried to make an incision lower down—[videt pulchrum veterem caprum esse, qui titillatus in tanta delicata parte corporis eius], awoke with a surprised start, kicked the old woman to one side, and sprang off into the bush. "Damn you!" she cried, as she threw the blunt knife after him. When they got home, the little girl told her parents exactly what had happened to her grandmother, and how they did laugh at her! It was her first and last attempt to go hunting and do man's work. 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 ]