he _bu-ku-ru_. A house long unused must be swept, and then the person
who is purifying it must take a stick and beat not only the movable
objects, but the beds, posts, and in short every accessible part of the
interior. The next day it is fit for occupation. A place not visited for
a long time or reached for the first time is _bu-ku-ru_. On our return
from the ascent of Pico Blanco, nearly all the party suffered from
little calenturas, the result of extraordinary exposure to wet and cold
and of want of food. The Indians said that the peak was especially
_bu-ku-ru_ since nobody had ever been on it before." One day Mr. Gabb
took down some dusty blow-guns amid cries of _bu-ku-ru_ from the
Indians. Some weeks afterwards a boy died, and the Indians firmly
believed that the _bu-ku-ru_ of the blow-guns had killed him. "From all
the foregoing, it would seem that _bu-ku-ru_ is a sort of evil spirit
that takes possession of the object, and resents being disturbed; but I
have never been able to learn from the Indians that they consider it so.
They seem to think of it as a property the object acquires. But the
worst _bu-ku-ru_ of all, is that of a young woman in her first
pregnancy. She infects the whole neighbourhood. Persons going from the
house where she lives, carry the infection with them to a distance, and
all the deaths or other serious misfortunes in the vicinity are laid to
her charge. In the old times, when the savage laws and customs were in
full force, it was not an uncommon thing for the husband of such a woman
to pay damages for casualties thus caused by his unfortunate wife." See
Wm. M. Gabb, "On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica,"
_Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at
Philadelphia_, xiv. (Philadelphia, 1876) pp. 504 _sq._

[156] J. Chaffanjon, _L'Orenoque et le Caura_ (Paris, 1889), pp.
213-215.

[157] Shib Chunder Bose, _The Hindoos as they are_ (London and Calcutta,
1881), p. 86. Similarly, after a Brahman boy has been invested with the
sacred thread, he is for three days strictly forbidden to see the sun.
He may not eat salt, and he is enjoined to sleep either on a carpet or a
deer's skin, without a mattress or mosquito curtain (_ibid._ p. 186). In
Bali, boys who have had their teeth filed, as a preliminary to marriage,
are kept shut up in a dark room for three days (R. Van Eck, "Schetsen
van het eiland Bali," _Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie_, N.S., ix.
(1880) pp. 428 _sq._)