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Overview
Wau-uta first appears as a powerful older woman who shakes a rattle and sings. She shelters two fleeing women and the boy Haburi, deceiving their pursuer, a Tiger-man, and killing him by shutting a thorn-covered doorway on his head. While the women work in a cassava field, Wau-uta transforms Haburi into a young man. She denies that he is the child they brought and seeks him as a lover, later instructing him to call her his mother. She also tells him to reserve large game birds for her and give inferior birds to his real mother and aunt. Water-dog uncles reveal the deception and help him recognize his family.
Haburi secretly prepares a canoe to escape. He commands the house posts to keep his whereabouts secret, but forgets a parrot, which tells Wau-uta where he has gone. She grips the canoe and refuses to release it despite repeated paddle blows to her fingers. Haburi therefore leads her to a hollow tree containing honey, makes an entrance and closes it after she crawls inside. Roth's Warao account ends with her becoming the frog heard in hollow trees: its swollen fingers recall the paddle blows, and its repeated call expresses grief for her lost lover. Wau-uta's earlier rescue and later possessiveness both remain part of the same narrative. In the separate Warao Broken Arrow story, an unsuccessful hunter defeats Black Tiger and asks Wau-uta for hunting ability. Through the night birds arrive in size order to peck his feet, followed by other animals that lick them; at dawn she shows him the fungus covering his arms. After he removes it, she supplies an arrow made from several spliced pieces. Shots aimed into the sky strike game he cannot yet see. He may retain the arrow only if he conceals who taught him. Despite initial resistance to questioning, he reveals the secret at a drinking feast. Next morning his original arrow has replaced her gift, and his extraordinary success ends. This helper episode extends Wau-uta's role beyond the Haburi tale's possessive transformed woman.
Origins & earliest records
The inspected account occurs in Roth's 1915 inquiry, sections 11–18, within the Warao Haburi cycle, pages 123–125. It links a named woman's transformation with recognizable frog behavior and appearance. The recorded story has no secure first oral date, and Roth's later comparison with a Carib version should not erase its Warao attribution.
Records & interpretation
Both complete endings were inspected: the hollow-tree transformation in the Haburi cycle and loss of the exchanged arrow after disclosure in section 144. Roth distinguishes fungus on the hunter's arms here from fungus on arrows in the Arawak Adaba account. His tentative scientific frog identification remains separate from the narrative figure.
In the literature
“told Haburi to say she, Wau-uta, was his mother”
Section12, printed p.124
Wau-uta instructs a false mother claim; actual mother and aunt remain distinct.
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
Sections 11–18, pp. 123–125, Wau-uta in the Haburi narrative; separate complete section 144, Black Tiger, Wau-uta, and the Broken Arrow, pp. 213–214.
Family, evolution & connections
Haburi (Roth’s Warao narrative)
Wau-uta shelters Haburi’s family and makes him grow suddenly, then orders him to call her mother. The narrator explicitly distinguishes his actual mother and aunt, and explains Wau-uta’s desire to make him her lover. Her maternal claim is deception, not genealogy.
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.
- Wau-uta first protects the two sisters and infant Haburi from a Tiger-man with a thorned door. She later makes the child mature in his mother and aunt’s absence, intends him as a lover, tells the women he has run away and instructs Haburi to call her his mother. Food allocation is part of her attempt to drive the real mother and aunt away.
Sections11–13, printed pp.123–124; false mother instruction in§12p.124
- Water-dogs called Haburi’s uncles reveal his actual mother and aunt. He reverses the food distribution and plans their escape. A forgotten parrot alerts Wau-uta; striking her fingers with paddles fails to release her grip. Haburi finally confines her in a hollow tree by a honey lure. Her swollen-fingered frog form is heard in hollow trees, still longing for her former lover.
Sections13–17, printed pp.124–125; water-dog revelation, escape and hollow-tree ending
- Roth tentatively compares the transformed frog with the historical name Hyla venulosa through Schomburgk’s comparative account. He separately labels a government-and-gifts continuation as a modern addition. Neither is silently folded into an ancient universal version.
Section18, printed p.125; comparative identification and explicitly modern addition
Her claimed motherhood is explicitly deceptive, not biological parentage; protective and predatory roles belong to the same selected account. Ending is confinement and transformation, not a stated death. Kinship is reported from this specific narrative. Tentative historical identification; no equivalence to a currently accepted species or empirical frog biology established.
An inquiry into the animism and folk-lore of the Guiana Indians
Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,1915; selected Cornell scan. Preface dated Pomeroon,June1913 explains A=Arawak, C=Carib, W=Warrau source labels. Named episodes read in full; individual contributors not named in these headings.
- After killing Black Tiger, a hunter seeks Wau-uta’s help. Animals approach in sequence, and she eventually brings a spliced arrow. He removes fungus from his arms and learns miraculous skyward shots. She permits an exchange of arrows only if he keeps her teaching secret; after he discloses it while drunk, his own arrow replaces the gift and his luck disappears.
Section144, printed pp.213–214, Black Tiger, Wau-uta, and the Broken Arrow
Full selected Warrau-labelled helper account read. Different from Haburi’s earlier frog story and from Adaba’s fungus-on-arrows account; no new species equivalence or actual ritual instructions inferred.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- ResearchRoth 1915: complete Wau-uta Haburi and Broken Arrow episodesResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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