tried to explain the matter to me, though it was apparent that
she could not conceive how so natural a condition should demand
explanation. She told me that among the Galus there were a few
babies, that she had once been a baby but that most of her people
"came up," as he put it, "cor sva jo," or literally, "from the
beginning"; and as they all did when they used that phrase, she
would wave a broad gesture toward the south.

"For long," she explained, leaning very close to me and whispering
the words into my ear while she cast apprehensive glances about
and mostly skyward, "for long my mother kept me hidden lest the
Wieroo, passing through the air by night, should come and take me
away to Oo-oh." And the child shuddered as she voiced the word. 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