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Overview
In Roth's Arawak story, a hunter regularly brings home four or five maam birds. People warn that their mother or spirit will punish him for killing so many of her offspring, but he continues. Following a call deeper into the forest, he first has to turn back before darkness. On his next pursuit he reaches the calling tree, where the branches hold a woman's leg rather than a visible bird. Recognizing the maam spirit, he shoots an arrow into the foot. When the limb strikes the ground it changes into an exceptionally large maam, which he kills and carries home.
His companions tell him to eat the entire creature himself, sharing none of it. He follows their instructions, and thereafter becomes still more successful: the conclusion says that he no longer fears the spirit's retaliation. This ending complicates a simple conservation lesson, even though the opening condemns wasteful hunting. Roth separately connects the astral leg's appearance before dawn with the bird's call. His separately attributed Warao Nohi-abassi story supplies a different leg. Nohi-abassi tires of catching enough fish for his voracious mother-in-law Nahakoboni and arranges for a shark to kill her. Her older daughter discovers the death, sharpens a cutlass until it can sever a tree trunk, and pursues him and her younger sister. As they climb a tree, she cuts off part of his leg, which remains on a branch. It calls like a maam and sometimes falls to kill hunters. The couple and severed limb also become stellar figures. This explanation retains a male leg and a revenge pursuit, alongside the Arawak hunter’s encounter with a woman’s leg.
Origins & earliest records
Roth's inspected section 98, page 173, records the Arawak story The Man Who Always Hunted Scrub-Turkey. Its date of oral composition is unknown. His scientific label Tinamus and English scrub-turkey are historical identifications attached to the account; the profile's name follows the narrated bird mother rather than inventing a new zoological species.
Records & interpretation
The complete Arawak encounter ends with the hunter’s increased success, complicating its initial warning against overhunting. Roth’s separate Warao episode, pp. 264–265, gives a revenge pursuit, a severed male leg and a danger to later hunters. His alternative alligator-trap footnote concerns Nahakoboni’s killing; it does not replace the leg’s transformation. Astronomical identifications remain those of the historical telling.
In the literature
“changed into an extraordinarily big scrub-turkey”
Section98, printed p.173
The fallen woman’s leg becomes the large bird; later successful hunting is retained.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
An inquiry into the animism and folk-lore of the Guiana Indians
Section 98, p. 173, complete Arawak hunting story; comparison with Warao section 210, pp. 263–265. Complete Nohi-abassi pursuit and severed-leg explanation also inspected, pp. 264–265.
Family, evolution & connections
Scrub-turkeys (maam) in Roth’s section 98
Roth’s translated tale calls the protective spirit the birds’ mother and the hunted birds her brood. This is a narrated spirit relationship, not a scientific pedigree or proof of a particular modern Tinamus species.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
An inquiry into the animism and folk-lore of the Guiana Indians
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,1915; selected Cornell scan. Catalogue year independently checked; field preface dated Pomeroon,June1913.
- A hunter ignores warnings that excessive killing will anger the maam’s spirit mother. Following the call, he sees a woman’s leg on the roost and shoots its foot. The fallen leg becomes an unusually large scrub-turkey; he kills it and eats it alone after his companions identify the spirit mother. The account explicitly ends with greater hunting success and continued lack of restraint.
- Roth’s separate Warao Nohi-abassi episode gives the bird-spirit connection to a man’s severed leg, unlike the woman’s leg in the Arawak hunting episode. The Warao constellation story has different named protagonists from Brett’s Serikoai account.
Actual ending retained, rather than rewritten as an enforced conservation punishment. Historical Tinamus reference does not identify a modern species or a Meleagris turkey. Comparison is explicitly regional and source-specific, not one merged character biography. Variant shark versus alligator deaths in the Warao notes are not combined.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- ResearchRoth 1915: The Man Who Always Hunted Scrub-TurkeyResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
