Peccary owners (Conzemius’s Sumu account)

Overview

Conzemius describes a keeper of peccaries under Miskito wari dawan and several Sumu-language forms. The keeper can withdraw with the animals into caves and is said to accompany especially fierce white herds. A bird travelling with a herd acts as its guide; killing this companion is said to provoke the owner. The general description introduces a separately narrated Sumu journey, in which the keepers appear as a community rather than one solitary master.

A hunter encounters extraordinarily fat white peccaries with long tails and tusks. Repeatedly they escape just before he can shoot, drawing him to a cave. He follows them by sound and smell, opening successive rock barriers with blood from an incision beneath his tongue. Beyond the darkness lies an inhabited country full of peccaries, where every household is preparing the prized white kind. The inhabitants resent his arrival until he explains that he needs meat for his family.

The owners explain that they send ordinary herds to the human country but reserve these white animals for themselves. They nevertheless feed the hunter and give him a whole white peccary to take home. Their condition is absolute silence about his visit, with death as the penalty. With his eyes closed, he is led away and soon finds himself near his own house. He first tells his wife that he was lost, but she presses him to explain the exceptional animal. Finally he recounts the entire journey before the neighbours; he dies at the moment his narration ends.

Bell’s1899 memoir preserves a different Warree Dawan story, told by an unnamed old man after Bell shot the keeper’s companion bird. A small, fierce keeper lives among rocks and moves herds at night toward ripe fruit reported by warree yoola. In the narrative a camp kills many peccaries and keeps two piglets tied up for children to tease. The bird reports their cries and the slaughter. At night the keeper, faintly blue-lit, directs an attacking herd against the camp.

The people kill the captive piglets and take refuge in deep creek water. Peccaries cross a ford to surround them, and men fend off swimming attackers with machetes. Blowfly seeks help because it has benefited from the camp’s discarded offal. Thunder and Water-spirit decline, occupied with the storm; Deewass, the land-wind, agrees. A cold, flower-scented mist makes the supernatural attackers withdraw, allowing the people to leave the water alive.

The old man’s closing explanation permits limited hunting to feed families while forbidding his people to kill the companion bird; he treats Bell differently. This is neither a blanket prohibition on eating game nor the same ending as Conzemius’s secret-breaking hunter. Bell first says that former witnesses were invariably killed, yet then recounts this rescued camp; the particular rescue should not be erased to make the general claim absolute.

Origins & earliest records

Conzemius prints this as a Sumu story without naming the teller or recording an individual interview date. The preceding general account supplies distinct Miskito, Twahka/Panamaka and Ulwa terms; it also cites Charles Napier Bell, whose separate work is not substituted for this printed narrative.

Records & interpretation

Complete selected narrative and its immediate collector framing read in Conzemius’s1932 original edition. Complete Peccary Owner section and The Adventures of the Peccary Hunter,pp.165–167. Complete relevant Bell episode and surrounding attribution independently read; distinct from later Conzemius portrayal.

Selected bibliography

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

1. 01

   Ethnographical Survey of the Miskito and Sumu Indians of Honduras and Nicaragua

   Eduard Conzemius · 1932

   Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin106. Complete Peccary Owner section and The Adventures of the Peccary Hunter,pp.165–167.

2. 02

   Tangweera: Life and Adventures Among Gentle Savages

   C. Napier Bell · 1899

   Complete Warree Dawan and Warree-yoola account,pp.221–224, including old man’s closing explanation. Prefacev–vi: late-life arrangement of youthful notes, not1899 interviews.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

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

1. Primary textConzemius1932 original Smithsonian collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05
2. Primary textBell1899 original editionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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