I
tried to get her to tell me more; but her terror was so real when
she spoke of the Wieroo and the land of Oo-oh where they dwell that
I at last desisted, though I did learn that the Wieroo carried off
only female babes and occasionally women of the Galus who had "come
up from the beginning." It was all very mysterious and unfathomable,
but I got the idea that the Wieroo were creatures of imagination--the
demons or gods of her race, omniscient and omnipresent. This led
me to assume that the Galus had a religious sense, and further
questioning brought out the fact that such was the case. Ajor
spoke in tones of reverence of Luata, the god of heat and life.
The word is derived from two others: Lua, meaning sun, and ata,
meaning variously eggs, life, young, and reproduction. She told
me that they worshiped Luata in several forms, as fire, the sun,
eggs and other material objects which suggested heat and reproduction.
I had noticed that whenever I built a fire, Ajor outlined in the
air before her with a forefinger an isosceles triangle, and that
she did the same in the morning when she first viewed the sun. At
first I had not connected her act with anything in particular, but
after we learned to converse and she had explained a little of her
religious superstitions, I realized that she was making the sign
of the triangle as a Roman Catholic makes the sign of the cross.
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