Aboré (Brett’s Warao account)

Overview

Brett explicitly attributes the Aboré account to McLeod, the Warao narrator of the preceding sky-descent and Korobona stories. Wowtah raises the young inventor, compels him through her gaze and repeatedly sends him for honey instead of allowing him to improve his inventions. An unnamed benevolent spirit explains that Wowtah formerly chose the shape of a great frog, entered his parents’ home as a woman and magically hastened his growth. The parents’ deaths are treated as suspicious, not directly witnessed murders.

Aboré cannot escape through the forest because Wowtah always finds him. A falling palm fails to kill her. Remembering the helper’s advice to cross the sea, he experiments with floating forms, eventually shaping a wax canoe after an elongated seed-pod. Wowtah destroys the first craft. A younger cousin, whom the source says he calls brother, helps him prepare another in secret. Aboré traps Wowtah inside a honey tree and departs with his companion, warning onlookers to copy the boat’s shape in wood.

After people refuse to release her, Wowtah escapes through a crack by becoming a frog. Her mournful croak is associated with the departed young man. The narrative then continues beyond the point where Brett expects an ending: McLeod says that Aboré reaches other lands, replaces the wax craft with wood and teaches impoverished white people weaving, sewing, woodwork and metalwork. His ships send useful goods abroad. The supernatural power received in youth prolongs his life, but the danger of renewed captivity prevents his return.

The sequel explains formerly distributed colonial goods as Aboré’s annual gifts and suspects that officials still receive them after the distribution stops. Brett offers a different colonial explanation and a moral defense of its cessation; that judgment is the missionary’s, not the narrator’s. The closing frame says McLeod traveled six days to tell these accounts and returned near the Barima. This provenance gives a named contributor without establishing an exact interview date. Wowtah’s resemblance to Roth’s later Wau-uta story remains a comparison rather than a silently harmonized biography.

Origins & earliest records

Brett’s Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana (1880 catalogue date), Legend of Aboré and its sequel. The frame names the Warao narrator McLeod, who returned to the Barima area after the visit. English verse and missionary interpretation mediate his account.

Records & interpretation

Complete Legend of Aboré, sequel and closing frame, pp. 76–86, read. Suspicion about the parents’ deaths, cousin/brother terminology, the overseas continuation and Brett’s competing explanation of colonial gifts are distinguished.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana

   William Henry Brett, collector and literary adapter; narrative attributed to McLeod · 1880

   Complete Legend of Aboré, sequel and closing frame, pp. 76–86; initial McLeod frame53–55.

Family, evolution & connections

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textBrett: Aboré and the sequel attributed to McLeodResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.