A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
Brett attributes this prose outline to Arawak people of Tapacuma. Royal vultures live above the sky, where they take human forms. A hunter captures a female bird, the daughter of their ruler Anuanima. She removes her feathers, becomes a woman and marries him, eventually persuading her family to receive him above the clouds. When he wishes to visit his elderly mother, however, they abandon him atop a tall thorn-covered tree. Spiders provide cords and birds assist his descent.
His attempts to regain his wife continue for years. He overcomes attacks and leads allied birds into the sky, but a warrior who resembles him kills him. The killer is his own son, born after the father’s expulsion and raised without knowing him. The royal vultures’ house burns; surrounded by enemy birds, its occupants cannot use their wings and die fighting as humans. Appended episodes account for birds’ markings and habits: a pretended white head-band remains in kiskedee plumage, ashes mark the trumpeter, and a captured packet of darkness leaves the owl unable to bear daylight. This is Brett’s expressly fragmentary outline of a larger cycle, not its complete oral performance.
Origins & earliest records
William Henry Brett’s Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana is catalogued as 1880. Its missionary author rewrote selected traditions in English verse and commentary; his colonial judgments and claims of religious replacement are not adopted as historical conclusions.
Records & interpretation
Note to Arawidi, pp.28–30; complete Tapacuma royal-vulture outline and appended bird episodes read.
In the literature
“they cease to be birds, and assume the form and habits of human beings.”
Note to Arawidi: Royal Vultures, printed p.29 · William Henry Brett (English literary adaptation; source-language transcript not retained here)
Brett explicitly attributes this prose outline to Arawaks of Tapacuma. A hunter captures Anuanima’s daughter, a royal vulture whose people become human above the sky. She removes her feathers, marries him and brings him to her family. When he asks to visit his aged mother, they abandon him atop a prickly tree. Spiders and birds help him descend. Years of efforts to regain his wife end in a bird-led assault on the sky people; his own son, born after his expulsion and unaware of his identity, kills him. The vultures’ house burns and hostile birds prevent escape in winged form. Appended episodes explain a kiskedee head band, grey plumage after an ashes quarrel and the owl’s aversion to daylight after opening a package of darkness.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana
Note to Arawidi, pp.28–30; complete Tapacuma royal-vulture outline and appended bird episodes read.
- 02
Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana — Note to Arawidi: Royal Vultures
London: William Wells Gardner, catalogue1880. Actual original title image read: year is a bracketed handwritten1880, not a printed imprint date. Preface explicitly describes Brett’s metrical adaptation. Cornell scan text with selected complete episode and notes read; no whole-book claim. Printed excerpt folio visually checked. Selected complete printed Note to Arawidi: Royal Vultures, pp.28–30.
Family, evolution & connections
Anuanima’s daughter and grandson — Brett’s Tapacuma outline
Three explicitly linked generations in the Note to Arawidi, pp. 29–30.
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- Anuanima — father
- Unnamed warrior son — Anuanima’s grandson
Express daughter-of-Anuanima statement, marriage and identification of the hunter’s own son. Brett presents a fragmentary outline attributed collectively to Arawaks of Tapacuma, without an individually named narrator. The daughter and grandson have no personal names. Their human and bird forms do not create different people; no kinship among the supporting birds is inferred. The grandson’s father is the hunter, not Anuanima.
Anuanima in Brett’s Tapacuma outline
The captured royal vulture is expressly Anuanima’s daughter. In the sky country she appears as a woman; her father later receives her hunter husband. This is Brett’s attributed Tapacuma outline, not a universal vulture genealogy.
Arawak hunter husband in Brett’s Tapacuma outline
The vulture woman becomes the hunter’s wife and takes him above the clouds. His subsequent expulsion does not annul the narrative’s stated marriage.
Unnamed warrior son in Brett’s Tapacuma outline
The warrior who kills the returning hunter is explicitly his own son, born after his expulsion and raised without knowing his father. No personal name is supplied.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana
London: William Wells Gardner, catalogue1880. Actual original title image read: year is a bracketed handwritten1880, not a printed imprint date. Preface explicitly describes Brett’s metrical adaptation. Cornell scan text with selected complete episode and notes read; no whole-book claim. Printed excerpt folio visually checked. Selected complete printed Note to Arawidi: Royal Vultures, pp.28–30.
- Brett explicitly attributes this prose outline to Arawaks of Tapacuma. A hunter captures Anuanima’s daughter, a royal vulture whose people become human above the sky. She removes her feathers, marries him and brings him to her family. When he asks to visit his aged mother, they abandon him atop a prickly tree. Spiders and birds help him descend. Years of efforts to regain his wife end in a bird-led assault on the sky people; his own son, born after his expulsion and unaware of his identity, kills him. The vultures’ house burns and hostile birds prevent escape in winged form. Appended episodes explain a kiskedee head band, grey plumage after an ashes quarrel and the owl’s aversion to daylight after opening a package of darkness.
Note to Arawidi: Royal Vultures, complete printed pp.28–30; prefacev–vi
Complete printed outline and appended examples, not the full underlying oral epic. Wife is explicitly Anuanima’s daughter; boy’s killing of his father is unwitting. No independent biological identification of these supernatural people with all ordinary vultures. No named individual Tapacuma narrator.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textBrett: Note to Arawidi, pp.28–30; complete Tapacuma royal-vulture outline and appended bird episodes read.Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.