“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Author's Note
The Yanomama Indians, also known in anthropological literature as
the Waika, Shamatari, Barafiri, Shirishana, and Guaharibo, inhabit the most
isolated portion of the border between southern
The Yanomama live in hamlets of palm-thatched dwellings called shabonos,
which are scattered throughout the forest. The number of individuals residing
in each of these widely dispersed hamlets varies between sixty and a hundred
people. Some of the shabonos are located close to Catholic or Protestant
missions or in other areas accessible to the white man: Others have withdrawn
deeper into the jungle. Hamlets still exist in remote parts of the forest that
have not been contacted by outsiders.
My experience with the Iticoteri, the inhabitants of one of these
unknown shabonos, is what this book is about. It is a subjective account
of the surplus data, so to speak, of anthropological field research I conducted
on curing practices in
The most important part of my training as an anthropologist emphasized
the fact that objectivity is what gives validity to anthropological work. It
happened that throughout my stay with this Yanomama group I did not keep
the distance and detachment required of objective research. Special links of
gratitude and friendship with them made it impossible for me to interpret facts
or draw conclusions from what I witnessed and learned. Because I am a woman;
and because of my physical appearance, and a certain bent of character, I posed
no threat to the Indians. They accepted me as an amenable oddity, and I was
able to fit, if only for a moment in time, into the peculiar rhythm of their
lives.
In my account I have made two alterations of my original notes. The
first has to do with names: The name Iticoteri, as well as the names of the
persons portrayed are imaginary.
The second has to do with style: For dramatic effect I have altered the
sequence of events, and for narrative purposes I have rendered conversations in
the proper English syntax and grammatic structure. Had I literally translated
their language, I could not have done justice to its complexity, flexibility,
and its highly poetic and metaphoric expressions. The versatility of suffixes
and prefixes gives the Yanomama language delicate shades of meaning that
have no real equivalent in English.
Even though I was patiently drilled until I could differentiate and
reproduce most of their words, I never became a fluent speaker. However, my
inability to command their language was no obstacle in communicating with them.
I learned to "talk" with them long before I had an adequate
vocabulary. Talking was more of a bodily sensation than an actual interchange
of words. How accurate our interchange was is another matter. For them and for
me it was effective. They made allowances when I could not explain myself, or
when I could not understand the information they were conveying about their
world: After all, they did not expect me to cope with the subtleties and
intricacies of their language. The Yanomama, just like ourselves, have
their own biases: They believe whites are infantile and thus less intelligent.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Principal Iticoteri
(EETEE CO TEH REE)
Characters
ANGELICA (An geh lee ca)
An old Indian woman at the Catholic mission who sets up the journey to the
Iticoteri country
ARASUWE (Arah suh weh)
Milagros's brother-in-law, headman of the Iticoteri
ETEWA (Eh teh wuh)
Arasuwe's son-in-law
HAYAMA (Hah yah muh)
Angelica's oldest living sister, mother-in-law of Arasuwe, grand-mother of
Ritimi
HOAXIWE (How bashee weh)
Tutemi's and Etewa's newborn son
IMAWAAMI ()
The legendary woman shapori.
IRAMAMOWE (Eerah mah moh weh)
Arasuwe's brother, a shaman at the Iticoteri settlement
KAMOSIWE (Kah moh see weh)
Angelica's father
MATUWE (Mah tuh weh)
Hayama's youngest son
MILAGROS (Mee la gros)
Angelica's son, a man who belongs to both worlds, the Indian's and the white
man's
MOCOTOTERI (Moh coh toh teh ree)
The inhabitants of a nearby shabono
PURIWARIWE (Puh ree wahree weh)
Angelica's brother, an old shaman at the Iticoteri settlement
RITIMI (Ree tee mee)
Arasuwe's daughter, first wife of Etewa
SISIWE (See see weh)
Ritimi's and Etewa's six-year-old son
TEXOMA (Teh shomuh)
Ritimi's and Etewa's four-year-old daughter
TUTEMI (Tuh teh mee)
Etewa's young second wife
XOTOMI (Shoh toh mee)
Arasuwe's daughter, Ritimi's half-sister
XOROWE (Shoh roh weh)
Iramamowe's son
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 1
I was half asleep. Yet I could sense people moving around me. As if from
a great distance, I heard the soft rustle of bare feet over the packed dirt of
the hut; the coughing and clearing of throats, and the faint voices of women.
Leisurely I opened my eyes. It was not quite dawn. In the semidarkness I could
see Ritimi and Tutemi, their naked bodies bent over the hearths where the
embers of the night's fires still glowed. Tobacco leaves, water-filled gourds,
quivers with poisoned arrowheads, animal skulls, and bundles of green plantains
hung from the palm-frond ceiling, appearing to be suspended in the air below
the rising smoke.
Yawning, Tutemi stood up. She stretched, then bent over the hammock to
lift Hoaxiwe into her arms. Giggling softly, she nuzzled her face against the
baby's stomach. She mumbled something unintelligible as she pushed her nipple
into the boy's mouth. Sighing, she eased herself back into her hammock.
Ritimi pulled down some dried tobacco leaves. She soaked them in a
calabash bowl filled with water, then took one wet leaf and, before rolling it
into a wad, sprinkled it with ashes. Placing the quid between her gum and lower
lip, she sucked at it noisily while preparing two more. She gave one to Tutemi,
then approached me. I closed my eyes, hoping to give the impression that I was
asleep. Squatting at the head of my hammock, Ritimi ran her tobacco-soaked
finger, wet with her saliva, between my gum and lower lip, but did not leave a
quid in my mouth. Chuckling, she edged toward Etewa, who had been watching from
his hammock. She spat her wad into her palm and handed it to him. A soft moan
escaped her lips as she placed the third quid in her mouth and lowered herself
on top of him.
The fire filled the hut with smoke, gradually warming the chilly damp
air. Burning day and night, the hearth fires were the center of each dwelling.
The smoke stains they left on the thatch ceiling set one household apart from
the next, for there were no dividing walls between the huts. They stood so
close together that adjacent rooves overlapped each other, giving the
impression of one enormous circular dwelling. There was a large main entrance
to the entire compound with a few narrow openings between some huts. Each hut
was supported by two long and two shorter poles. The higher side of the hut was
open and faced a clearing in the middle of the circular structure, while the
lower, exterior side of the hut was closed with a wall of short poles wedged
against the roof.
Photo Credits:
First Photo - From web-page http://www.rainforests.net/antoniomari.htm
Second Photo - From web-page http://www.valdosta.edu/~ksstewar/world.html
A heavy mist shrouded the surrounding trees. The palm fronds, hanging
over the interior edge of the hut, were silhouetted against the grayness of the
sky. Etewa's hunting dog lifted its head from under its curled-up body, and
without quite waking, opened its mouth in a wide yawn. I closed my eyes, dozing
off to the smell of green plantains roasting in the fires. My back was stiff,
and my legs ached from having squatted for hours the day before, digging weeds
in the nearby gardens.
I opened my eyes abruptly as my hammock was vigorously rocked back and
forth, and I gasped as a small knee pressed into my stomach. Instinctively I
pulled the hammock's sides over me to protect myself from the cockroaches and
spiders that invariably fell from the thick palm-thatched roof whenever the
poles holding up the huts were shaken.
Giggling, the children crawled on top and around me. Their brown naked
bodies were soft and warm against my skin. As they had done almost every
morning since I had first arrived, the children ran their chubby hands over my
face, breasts, stomach, and legs, coaxing me to identify each part of my
anatomy. I pretended to sleep, snoring loudly. Two little boys snuggled against
my sides, and the little girl on top of me pressed her dark head under my chin.
They smelled of smoke and dirt.
I had not known a word of their language when I first arrived at their
settlement deep in the jungle between
The pressure of a tiny hand against my cheek stopped my reveries.
Texoma, Ritimi's and Etewa's four-year-old daughter, lying on top of me, opened
her eyes and, moving her face closer, began to flutter her stubby eyelashes
against mine. "Don't you want to get up?" the little girl asked,
running her fingers through my hair. "The plantains are ready."
I had no desire to abandon my warm hammock. "I wonder- how many
months have I been here?" I asked.
"Many," three voices answered in unison.
I could not help smiling. Anything beyond three was expressed as many,
or more than three. "Yes, many months," I said softly.
"Tutemi's baby was still sleeping inside her belly when you first
arrived," Texoma murmured, snuggling against me.
It was not that I had ceased being aware of time, but the days, weeks,
and months had lost their precise boundaries. Here only the present mattered.
For these people only what happened each day amidst the immense green shadows
of the forest counted. Yesterday and tomorrow, they said, were as undetermined
as a vague dream; as fragile as a spider's web, which was visible only when a
streak of sunlight sears through the leaves.
Measuring time had been my obsession during the first few weeks. I wore
my self-winding watch day and night and recorded each sunrise in a diary as if
my very existence depended on it. I cannot pinpoint when I realized that a
fundamental change had taken place within me. I believe it all started in a
small town in eastern
After transcribing, translating, and analyzing the numerous tapes and
hundreds of pages of notes gathered during months of field work among three
curers in the Barlovento area, I had seriously begun doubting the validity and
purpose of my research. My endeavor to organize the data into a meaningful
theoretical framework proved to be futile, in that the material was ridden with
inconsistencies and contradictions.
The emphasis of my work had been directed toward discovering the meaning
that curing practices have for the healers and for their patients in the
context of their everyday life activities. My concern had been in discerning
how social reality, in terms of health and illness, was created out of their
interlocked activity. I reasoned that I needed to master the manner in which
practitioners regard each other and their knowledge, for only then would I be
able to operate in their social setting and within their own system of
interpretation. And thus the analysis of my data would come from the system in
which I had been operating and would not be superimposed from my own cultural
milieu.
While in the field I lived in the home of dona Mercedes, one of the
three curers I was working with. Not only did I record, observe, and interview
the curers and their numerous patients, but I also participated in the curing
sessions, immersing myself totally in the new situation.
Yet I was faced day to day with blatant inconsistencies in their curing
practices and their explanations of them. Dona Mercedes laughed at my
bewilderment and what she considered my lack of fluidity in accepting changes
and innovations.
"Are you sure I said that?" she asked upon listening to one of
the tapes I insisted on playing for her.
"It's not me speaking," I said tartly, and began reading from
my typed notes, hoping she would become aware of the contradictory information
she had given me.
"That sounds wonderful," dona Mercedes said, interrupting my
reading. "Is that really me you are talking about? You have converted me
into a real genius. Read me your notes on your sessions with Rafael and
Serafino."
These were the other two curers I was working with.
I did as she asked, then turned on the tape recorder once more, hoping
she would help me with the conflicting information. However, dona Mercedes was
not interested at all in what she had said months earlier. To her that was
something in the past and thus had no validity. Boldly she gave me to
understand that the tape recorder was at fault for having recorded something
she had no memory of having said. "If I really said these things, it's
your doing. Every time you ask me about curing I start talking without really
knowing what I am saying. You always put words into my mouth. If you knew how
to cure, you wouldn't bother writing or talking about it. You would just do
it."
I was not willing to believe that my work was useless. I went to see the
other two curers. To my great chagrin they were not much help either. They
acknowledged the inconsistencies and explained them much as dona Mercedes had.
In retrospect my despair over this failure seems comical. In a fit of
rage, I dared dona Mercedes to burn my notes. She willingly complied, burning
sheet after sheet over the flame of one of the candles illuminating the statue
of the Virgin Mary on the altar in her curing room. "I really can't
understand why you get so upset about what your machine says and what I
say," dona Mercedes observed, lighting another candle on the altar.
"What difference does it make about what I do now and what I did a few
months ago? All that matters is that the patients get well. Years ago, a
psychologist and a sociologist came here and recorded everything I said on a
machine like yours. I believe it was a better machine: It was much larger. They
were only here for a week. With the information they got, they wrote a book
about curing."
"I know the book," I snapped. "I don't think it's an
accurate study. It's simplistic, superficial, and lacks a true
understanding."
Dona Mercedes peered at me quizzically, her glance half pitying, half
deprecatory. In silence I watched the last page turn to ashes. I was not
bothered by what she had done; I still had the English translation of the tapes
and notes. She got up from her chair and sat next to me on the wooden bench.
"Very soon you'll feel that a heavy load has been lifted off your
back," she consoled me.
I was compelled to go into a lengthy explanation concerning the
importance of studying non-Western healing practices. Dona Mercedes listened
attentively, a mocking smile on her face.
"If I were you," she suggested, "I would accept your
friend's offer to go hunting up the
Although I had intended to return to
"I think I should do that," I said to dona Mercedes.
"Maybe I'll meet a great Indian curer who will tell me things about
healing that not even you know."
"I'm sure you'll hear all kinds of interesting things," dona
Mercedes laughed. "But don't bother to write them down- you won't do any
kind of research."
"Oh, really. And how do you know that?"
"Remember I'm a bruja," she said, patting my cheek.
There was an expression of ineffable gentleness in her dark eyes. "And
don't worry about your English notes safely tucked away in your desk. By the
time you return, you won't have any use for your notes."
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 2
A week later I was on my way in a small plane to one of the Catholic
missions on the upper
My friend was eager to show me the wonders of the muddy, turbulent
I was shaking with dizziness and nausea when we finally landed on the
small clearing near the cultivated fields of the mission. We were welcomed by
Father Coriolano, the priest in charge of the mission, the rest of our party
who had arrived the day before, and a group of Indians who cried excitedly as
they scrambled into the small plane.
Father Coriolano led us through the plots of maize, manioc, plantains,
and sugar cane. He was a thin man with long arms and short legs. Heavy eyebrows
almost hid his deep-set eyes and a mass of unruly beard covered the rest of his
face. At odds with his black cassock was his torn straw hat, which he kept
pushing back so that the breeze could dry his sweat-covered forehead.
My clothes clung damply to my body as we walked past a makeshift pier of
piles driven into the mud at the bank of the river where the boat was tied. We
stopped and Father Coriolano began discussing our departure the next day. I was
encircled by a group of Indian women who did not say a word, but only smiled
shyly at me. Their ill-fitting dresses came up in front and dipped in back,
giving the impression that they were all pregnant.
Among them was an old woman so small and wrinkled she reminded me of an
ancient child. She did not smile like the others. There was a silent plea in
the old woman's eyes as she held her hand out to me. My feelings were strange
as I watched her eyes fill with tears: I did not want to see them roll down her
clay-colored cheeks. I placed my hand in hers. Smiling contentedly, she led me
toward the fruit trees surrounding the long, one-story mission.
In the shade, underneath the wide overhang of the building's asbestos
roof, squatted a group of old men holding enameled tin cups in their trembling
hands. They were dressed in khaki clothes, their faces partly covered by
sweat-stained straw hats. They laughed and talked in high-pitched voices,
smacking their lips over their rum-laced coffee. A noisy pair of macaws, their
brightly colored wings clipped, perched on one of the men's shoulders.
I could not see the men's features, nor the color of their skin. They
seemed to be Speaking in Spanish, yet their words sounded unintelligible to me.
"Are those men Indians?" I asked the old woman as she led me into a
small room at the back of one of the houses fringing the mission.
The old woman laughed. Her eyes, scarcely visible between the slits of
her lids, came to rest on my face. "They are racionales. Those who
are not Indians are called racionales," she repeated. "Those
old men have been here for too long. They came to look for gold and
diamonds."
"Did they find any?"
"Many of them did."
"Why are they still here?"
"They are the ones who cannot return to where they came from,"
she said, resting her bony hands on my shoulders. I was not surprised by her
gesture. There was something cordial and affectionate in her touch. I just
thought she was a bit crazy. "They have lost their souls in the
forest." The old woman's eyes had grown wide; they were the color of dried
tobacco leaves.
Not knowing what to say, I averted my eyes from her penetrating gaze,
and looked around the room. The blue-painted walls were faded from the sun and
peeling from the dampness. Next to a narrow window stood a crudely constructed
wooden bed. It looked like an oversized crib on which mosquito wire had been
nailed all around. The more I looked at it, the more it reminded me of a cage
that could be entered only by lifting the heavy mosquito-screened top.
"I am Angelica," the old woman said, peering at me. "Is
this all you have brought with you?" she asked, removing the orange
knapsack from my back.
Speechless and with a look of complete astonishment, I watched her take
out my underwear, a pair of jeans, and a long T-shirt. "That's all I need
for two weeks," I said, pointing to my camera and the toilet kit at the
bottom of the knapsack.
Carefully, she removed the camera and unzipped the plastic toilet kit
and promptly emptied its contents on the floor. It contained a comb, nail
clipper, toothpaste and brush, a bottle of shampoo, and a bar of soap. Shaking
her head in disbelief, she turned the knapsack inside out. Absentmindedly, she
brushed away the dark hair sticking to her forehead. There was a vague air of
dreamy recollection in her eyes as her face wrinkled into a smile. She put
everything back into the knapsack and without a word led me back to my friends.
Long after the mission was dark and silent I was still awake, listening
to the unfamiliar sounds of the night coming through the opened window. I don't
know whether it was because of my fatigue or the relaxed atmosphere at the
mission, but before retiring that evening I had decided not to accompany my
friends on their hunting expedition. Instead I was going to stay the two weeks
in the mission. Happily, no one minded. In fact, everybody seemed relieved.
Although they had not voiced it, some of my friends believed that a person who
did not know how to use a gun had no business going on a hunt.
Spellbound, I watched the blue transparency of the air dissolve the
shadows of the night. A softness spread over the sky, revealing the contours of
the branches and leaves waving with the breeze outside my window. The solitary
cry of a howler monkey was the last thing I heard before falling into a deep
sleep.
"So you are an anthropologist," Father Coriolano said at lunch
the next day. "The anthropologists I have met were all loaded with
recording and filming equipment, and who knows what other gadgets." He
offered me another serving of baked fish and corn on the cob. "Are you
interested in the Indians?"
I explained to him what I had been doing in Barlovento, touching upon
the difficulties I had encountered with the data. "I would like to see
some curing sessions while I'm here."
"I'm afraid you won't see much of that around here,"
Father Coriolano said, picking out crumbs of cassava bread lodged in his
beard. "We have a well-equipped dispensary. Indians come from far away to
bring their sick. But perhaps I can arrange for you to visit one of the nearby
settlements, where you could meet a shaman."
"I would be very grateful if that were possible," I said.
"Not that I came to do field work, but it would be interesting to see a
shaman."
"You don't look like an anthropologist." Father Coriolano's
heavy eyebrows arched and met. "Of course most of the ones I have met were
men; but there've been a few women." He scratched his head. "Somehow
you don't match my description of a woman anthropologist."
"You can't expect us to all look alike," I said lightly,
wondering whom he had met.
"I suppose not," he said sheepishly. "What I mean is that
you don't look fully grown. This morning, after your friends left, I was asked
by various people why the child was left with me."
His eyes were lively as he joked about how the Indians expected a fully
grown white adult to tower over them. "Especially if they are blond and
blue eyed," he said. "Those are supposed to be veritable
giants."
That night I had the most terrifying nightmare in my mosquito-netted
crib. I dreamt that the top had been nailed shut. All my efforts to extricate
myself proved futile against the pressure of the lid. Panic overtook me. I
screamed and shook the frame until the whole contraption tumbled over. I was
still half asleep as I lay on the floor, my head resting against the small
bulge of the old woman's hanging breasts. For a moment I could not remember
where I was. A childish fear made me press closer to the old Indian, knowing
that I was safe.
The old woman rubbed the top of my head and whispered incomprehensible
words into my ear until I was fully awake. I felt reassured by her touch and
the alien, nasal sound of her voice. I was not able to rationalize this
feeling, but there was something that made me cling to her. She led me to her
room, back of the kitchen. I lay next to her in a heavy hammock fastened to two
poles. Protected by the presence of the strange old woman, I closed my eyes
without fear. The faint beat of her heart and the drip of water filtering
through an earthen water jar put me to sleep.
"It will be much better if you sleep here," the old woman said
the following morning as she hung a cotton hammock next to hers.
From that day on Angelica hardly ever left my side. Most of the time we
stayed by the river, talking and bathing by its bank, where the gray-red sand
was the color of ashes mixed with blood. Completely at peace, I would sit for
hours watching the Indian women wash their garments, and listen to Angelica's
tales of her past. Like clouds wandering about the sky, her words intermingled
with the images of women rinsing their clothes in the water and spreading them
out on the stones to dry.
Angelica was not a Maquiritare like most of the Indians at the mission.
She had been given to a Maquiritare man when she was very young. He had treated
her well, she was fond of saying. Quickly she had learned their way of life,
which had not been so different from the ways of her own people. She had also
been to the city. She never told me which city. Neither did she tell me her
Indian name, which according to the customs of her tribe was not to be said
aloud.
Whenever she talked about her past, her voice sounded foreign to my
ears. It became very nasal and often she would switch from Spanish into her own
language, mixing up time and place. Frequently she stopped in the middle of a
sentence: Hours later, or even the following day, she would resume the
conversation at the exact spot where she had left off, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world to converse in that fashion.
"I will take you to my people," Angelica said one afternoon.
She looked at me, a flickering smile on her lips. I had the feeling she had
been about to say something else, and I wondered if she knew about Father
Coriolano's arrangement with Mr. Barth to take me to the nearby Maquiritare
settlement.
Mr. Barth was an American miner who had been in the Venezuelan jungle
for over twenty years. He lived down-river with an Indian woman, and many an
evening he invited himself to the mission for dinner. Although he had no desire
to return to the States, he greatly enjoyed hearing about them.
"I will take you to my people," Angelica said again. "It
will take many days to get there. Milagros will guide us through the
jungle."
"Who is Milagros?"
"He's an Indian like me. He speaks Spanish well." Angelica
rubbed her hands with glee. "He was supposed to accompany your friends,
but he decided to stay behind. Now I know why."
Angelica spoke with an odd intensity; her eyes sparkled and I had the
same feeling I had had when I first arrived, that she was a bit crazy. "He
knew all along that I would need him to accompany us," the old woman said.
Her lids closed as if she no longer had the strength to lift them. Abruptly, as
if fearing to fall asleep, she opened her eyes wide. "It doesn't matter
what you say to me now. I know that you will come with me."
That night I lay awake in my hammock. By the sound of Angelica's
breathing I knew that she was asleep. I prayed that she would not forget her
offer to take me into the jungle. Dona Mercedes's words ran through my head.
"By the time you return you won't have any use for your notes." Perhaps
I would do some field work among the Indians. The thought amused me. I had not
brought a tape recorder; neither did I have paper and pencils- only a small
diary and a ball-point pen. I had brought my camera but only three rolls of
film.
Restlessly I turned in my hammock. No, I had no intention of going into
the jungle with an old woman, whom I believed to be a bit mad, and an Indian
whom I had never seen. Yet there was something so tempting about a trip through
the jungle. I could easily take some time off. I had no deadlines to meet;
there was no one waiting for me. I could leave a letter for my friends
explaining my sudden decision. They would not think much of it. The more I
thought about it, the more intrigued I became. Father Coriolano, no doubt,
would be able to supply me with enough paper and pencils. And yes, perhaps dona
Mercedes had been right. I would have no use for my old notes on curing when-
and if, the thought intruded ominously- I returned from such a journey.
I got out of my hammock and looked at the frail old woman while she
slept. As if she were sensing my presence, her lids fluttered, her lips began
to move. "I will not die here but among my own people. My body will be
burned and my ashes will remain with them." Her eyes slowly opened; they
were dull, befogged by sleep, and they expressed nothing, but I sensed a deep
sadness in her voice. I touched her hollowed cheeks. She smiled at me, but her
mind was clearly elsewhere.
I awoke with the feeling I was being watched. Angelica told me that she
had been waiting for me to wake up. She motioned me to look at a box, the size
of a vanity case, made out of tree bark, standing next to her. She opened the
tightly fitting lid and with great relish proceeded to show me each item,
breaking into loud exclamations of joy and surprise; as if it were the first
time she had seen each article. There was a mirror, a comb, a necklace made out
of plastic pearls, a few empty Pond's cold cream jars, a lipstick, a pair of
rusted scissors, a faded blouse and skirt.
"And what do you think this is?" she asked, holding something
behind her back.
I confessed my ignorance and she laughed. "This is my writing
book." She opened her notebook, its pages yellow with age. On each page
were rows of crooked letters. "Watch me." Taking out a chewed-up
pencil from the box, she began to print her name. "I learned to do this at
another mission. A much larger one than this one. It also had a school. That
was many years ago, but I haven't forgotten what I learned." Again and
again she printed her name on the faded pages. "Do you like it?"
"Very much." I was bewildered by the sight of the old woman
squatting on the floor with her body bent forward, her head almost touching the
notebook on the ground. Yet she was perfectly balanced as she painstakingly
traced the letters of her name.
Suddenly she straightened up, closing her notebook. "I have been to
the city," she said, her eyes fixed on a spot beyond the window. "A
city full of people that looked all the same. At first I liked it, but I grew
tired of it very fast. There was too much for me to watch. And it was so noisy.
Not only people talked, but things talked as well." She paused, scowling
in a tremendous effort to concentrate, all the lines in her face deepened.
Finally she said, "I didn't like the city at all."
I asked her which city she had been to, and at which mission she had
learned to write her name. She looked at me as if she had not heard what I
asked, then continued with her tale. As she had done before, she began to mix
up time and place, relapsing into her own language. At times she laughed,
repeating over and over, "I will not go to Father Coriolano's
heaven."
"Are you really serious about going to see your people?" I
asked. "Don't you think it's dangerous for two women to go into the
forest? Do you actually know the way?"
"Of course I know the way," she said, snapping out of her
almost trancelike state. "An old woman is always safe."
"I'm not old."
She stroked my hair. "You aren't old, but your hair is the color of
palm fibers and your eyes the color of the sky. You'll be safe too."
"I'm sure we'll get lost," I said softly. "You can't even
remember how long ago it was you last saw your people. You told me they always
move farther into the forest."
"Milagros is going with us," Angelica said convincingly.
"He knows the forest well. He knows about all the people living in the
jungle." Angelica began putting her belongings into the bark box. "I
better find him so we can leave as soon as possible. You'll have to give him
something."
"I haven't got anything he'd want," I said. "Maybe I can
arrange for my friends to leave the machetes they brought with them at the
mission tor Milagros."
"Give him your camera," Angelica suggested. "I know he
wants a camera as much as he wants another machete."
"Does he know how to use a camera?"
"I don't know." She giggled, holding her hand over her mouth.
"He told me once that he wants to take pictures of the white people who
come to the mission to look at the Indians."
I was not keen on parting with my camera. It was a good one and very
expensive. I wished I had brought a cheaper one with me. "I'll give him my
camera," I said, hoping that once I explained to Milagros how complicated
it was to operate, he would prefer a machete.
"The less you have to carry, the better," Angelica said,
closing the lid on her box with a bang. "I'm going to give all this to one
of the women here. I won't need it anymore. If you go empty-handed, no one will
expect a thing from you."
"I'd like to take the hammock you gave me," I said in jest.
"That might be a good idea." Angelica looked at me, nodding
her head. "You're a fussy sleeper and probably won't be able to rest in
the fiber hammocks my people use." She picked up her box and walked out of
the room. "I'll be back when I find Milagros"
As Father Coriolano drank his coffee, he looked at me as though I were a
stranger. With great effort he got up, steadying himself against a chair.
Seemingly disoriented, he gazed at me without saying a word. It was the silence
of an old man. As he ran his stiff, gnarled fingers across his face, I realized
for the first time how frail he was.
"You're crazy to go into the jungle with Angelica," he finally
said. "She is very old; she won't get very far. Walking through the forest
is no excursion."
"Milagros will accompany us."
Father Coriolano turned toward the window, deep in thought. He kept
pushing his beard back and forth with his hand. "Milagros refused to go
with your friends. I'm sure he will not accompany Angelica into the
jungle."
"He will." My certainty was incomprehensible. It was a feeling
completely foreign to my everyday reason.
"Although he is a trustworthy man, he is strange," Father
Coriolano said thoughtfully. "He has acted as a guide to various expeditions.
Yet..." Father Coriolano returned to his chair and, leaning toward me,
continued. "You aren't prepared to go into the jungle. You cannot begin to
imagine the hardships and dangers entailed in such an adventure. You haven't
even got the proper shoes."
"I have been told by various people who have been in the jungle
that tennis shoes are the best thing to wear. They dry fast on your feet
without getting tight and they don't cause blisters."
Father Coriolano ignored my comment. "Why do you want to go?"
he asked in an exasperated tone. "Mr. Barth will take you to meet a
Maquiritare shaman: You will get to see a curing ceremony without having to go
very far."
"I don't really know why I want to go." I looked at him
helplessly. "Maybe I want to see more than a curing ceremony. In fact, I
wanted to ask you to let me have some writing paper and pencils."
"What about your friends? What am I supposed to tell them? That you
just disappeared with a senile old woman?" he asked as he poured himself
another cup of coffee. "I've been here for over thirty years, and never
have I heard of such a preposterous plan."
It was past siesta time, yet the mission was still quiet as I stretched
in my hammock hanging under the shade of the twisted branches and jagged leaves
of two poma-rosa trees. In the distance I saw the tall figure of Mr. Barth
approaching the mission clearing. Strange, I thought, for he usually came in
the evening. Then I guessed why he was here.
Stopping by the steps leading up to the veranda, close to where I lay,
he squatted on the ground, and lit one of the cigarettes my friends had brought
him.
Mr. Barth seemed uneasy. He stood up, and walked back and forth as if he
were a sentry guarding the building. I was about to call out to him when he
began talking to himself, his words pouring out with the smoke. He rubbed the
white stubble on his chin, and scraped one boot against the other in an effort
to get rid of the mud. Squatting once more, he began to shake his head as if in
that way he could rid himself of what was going through his mind.
"You have come to tell me about the diamonds you have found in the
Gran Sabana," I said as a way of greeting, hoping to dispel the melancholy
expression in his gentle brown eyes.
He drew on the cigarette, and blew the smoke out through his nose in
short bursts. After spitting out a few ¦ particles of tobacco that had stuck to
the tip of his tongue, he asked, "Why do you want to go with Angelica into
the forest?"
"I already told Father Coriolano, I don't really know."
Mr. Barth softly repeated my words, making a question out of them.
Lighting another cigarette, he exhaled slowly, gazing at the spiral of tobacco
smoke melting into the transparent air. "Let's go for a walk," he
suggested.
We strolled along the river's bank where vast, interwoven roots emerged
from the earth like sculptures of wood and mud. Quickly the warm, sticky
dampness permeated my skin. From under a layer of branches and leaves, Mr.
Barth pulled out a canoe, pushed it into the water, then motioned me to climb in.
He steered the craft right across the river, making for the shelter of the
left-hand bank, which offered some protection from the full strength of the
current. With precise, strong movements, he guided the canoe upstream until we
reached a narrow tributary. The bamboo thicket yielded to a dark heavy growth,
an endless wall of trees standing trunk to trunk at the very edge of the river.
Roots and branches overhung the water; vines climbed down the trees, winding
themselves around their trunks like snakes crushing them in a tight embrace.
"Oh, there it is," Mr. Barth said, pointing to an opening in
that seemingly impenetrable wall.
We pulled the boat across the marshy bank and tied it securely around a
tree trunk. The sun hardly penetrated through the dense foliage; the light
faded to a tenuous green as I followed Mr. Barth through the thicket. Vines and
branches brushed against me like things alive. The heat was not so intense
anymore, but the sticky dampness made my clothes cling to me like slime. Soon my
face was covered with grimy vegetable dust and spiderwebs that smelled of
decay.
"Is this a path?" I asked incredulously, almost stumbling into
a greenish puddle of water. Its surface quivered with hundreds of insects that
were hardly more than pulsating dots in the turbid liquid. Birds flew away and
amidst the greenness I could not discern their color or size but only heard
their furious screeches, protesting our intrusion. I understood Mr. Barth was
trying to frighten me. The thought that he might be taking me to another
Catholic mission also crossed my mind. "Is this a path?" I asked
again.
Abruptly Mr. Barth stopped in front of a tree, so tall its upper
branches seemed to reach into the sky. Climbing plants twisted and turned
upward around the trunk and branches. "I intended to give you a lecture
and scare the devil out of you," Mr. Barth said with a sulky expression.
"But whatever I rehearsed to say seems foolish now. Let's rest for a
moment and then we'll go back."
Mr. Barth let the boat drift with the current, paddling only whenever we
got too close to the bank. "The jungle is a world you cannot possibly
imagine," he said. "I can't describe it to you even though I have
experienced it so often. It's a personal affair- each person's experience is
different and unique."
Instead of returning to the mission, Mr. Barth invited me to his house.
It was a large round hut with a conical roof of palm leaves. It was quite dark
inside, the only light coming from a small entrance and the rectangular window
in the palm-thatched roof, operated by means of a rawhide pulley. Two hammocks
hung in the middle of the hut. Baskets filled with books and magazines stood
against the whitewashed walls: Above them hung calabashes, ladles, machetes,
and a gun.
A naked young woman got up from one of the hammocks. She was tall, with
large breasts and broad hips, but her face was that of a child, round and
smooth, with slanted dark eyes. Smiling, she reached for her dress, hanging
next to a woven fire fan. "Coffee?" she asked in Spanish as she sat
on the ground in front of the hearth next to the aluminum pots and pans.
"Do you know Milagros well?" I asked Mr. Barth after he had
introduced me to his wife, and we were all seated in the hammocks, the young
woman and I sharing one.
"That's hard to say," he said, reaching for his coffee mug on
the ground. "He comes and goes: He's like the river. He never stops, never
seems to rest. How far Milagros goes, how long he stays anywhere, no one knows.
All I've heard is that when he was young he was taken from his people by white
men. He is never consistent with his story. At one time he says they were
rubber collectors, at another time they were missionaries, the next time he
says they were miners, scientists. Regardless of who they were, he traveled
with them for many years."
"To which tribe does he belong? Where does he live?"
"He is a Maquiritare," Mr. Barth said. "But no one knows
where he lives. Periodically he returns to his people. To which settlement he
belongs, I don't know."
"Angelica went to look for him. I wonder if she knows where to find
him."
"I'm sure she does," Mr. Barth said. "They are very
close. I wonder if they are related." He deposited the mug on the ground,
and got up from his hammock, momentarily disappearing in the thick bush outside
the hut. Mr. Barth reappeared seconds later with a small metal box. "Open
it," he said, handing me the box.
Inside was a brown leather pouch. "Diamonds?" I asked, feeling
its contents.
Smiling, Mr. Barth nodded, then motioned me to sit down beside him on
the dirt floor. He took off his shirt, spread it on the ground, then asked me
to empty the pouch on the cloth surface. I could barely hide my disappointment.
The stones did not sparkle; they rather looked like opaque quartz.
"Are you sure these are diamonds?" I asked.
"Absolutely sure," Mr. Barth said, placing a stone the size of
a cherry tomato in my palm. "If it's cut properly, it'll make a most
handsome ring."
"Did you find these diamonds here?"
"No," Mr. Barth laughed. "Near the Sierra Parima, years
ago." Half closing his eyes, he rocked back and forth. His cheeks were
ruddy with little veins, and the stubble on his chin was damp. "A long
time ago my only interest in life was to find diamonds in order to return home
a wealthy man." Mr. Barth sighed heavily, his gaze lost on some place
beyond the hut. "Then one day I realized that my dream to become rich had
dried out, so to speak: It no longer obsessed me, and neither did I want to
return to the world I had once known. I remained here." Mr. Barth's eyes
shone with unshed tears as he gestured to the diamonds. "With them."
He blinked repeatedly, then looked at me and smiled. "I like them as I
like this land."
I wanted to ask him so many questions, but was afraid to distress him. We
remained silent, listening to the steady, deep murmur of the river.
Mr. Barth spoke again. "You know, anthropologists and missionaries
have a lot in common. Both are bad for this land. Anthropologists are more
hypocritical; they cheat and lie in order to get the information they want. I
suppose they believe that in the name of science all is fair. No, no, don't
interrupt me," Mr; Barth admonished, shaking his hand in front of my face.
"Anthropologists," he continued in the same harsh tone,
"have complained to me about the arrogance of the missionaries, about
their high-handedness and paternalistic attitude toward the Indians. And look
at them, the most arrogant of them all, prying into other people's lives as if
they had every right to do so." Mr. Barth sighed loudly as if exhausted by
his outburst.
I decided not to defend anthropologists, for I feared another outburst,
so I contented myself with examining the diamond in my hand. "It's very
beautiful," I said, handing him the stone.
"Keep it," he said, then picked up the remaining stones. One
by one he dropped them into the leather pouch.
"I'm afraid I can't keep such a valuable gift." I began to
giggle and added as an excuse, "I never wear jewelry."
"Don't think of it as a valuable gift. Regard it as a talisman. [* talisman- a trinket or piece of jewellery thought to be a
protection against evil] Only people in the cities regard it as a
jewel," he said casually, closing my fingers over the stone. "It will
bring you luck." He got up, brushing the dampness off the seat of his
pants with his hands, then stretched in his hammock.
The young woman refilled our mugs. Sipping the heavily sweetened black
coffee, we watched the whitewashed walls turn purple with twilight. Shadows had
no time to grow, for in an instant it was dark.
I was awakened by Angelica whispering into my ear. "We're going in
the morning."
"What?" I jumped out of my hammock fully awake. "I
thought it would take you a couple of days to find Milagros. I better get
packed."
Angelica laughed. "Packed? You haven't got anything to pack. I gave
your extra pair of pants and a top to an Indian boy. You won't need two pairs.
You better go back to sleep. It will be a long day tomorrow. Milagros is a fast
walker."
"I can't sleep," I said excitedly. "It'll be dawn soon.
I'll write a note to my friends. I hope the hammock and the thin blanket will
fit in my knapsack. What about food?"
"Father Coriolano put sardines and cassava bread aside for us to
pack in the morning. I will carry it in a basket."
"Did you talk to him tonight? What did he say?"
"He said it's in the hands of God."
I was all packed when the chapel bell began to chime. For the first time
since I had arrived at the mission, I went to mass. Indians and racionales
filled the wooden benches. They laughed and talked as if they were at a social
gathering. It took Father Coriolano a long time to silence them before he could
say mass.
The woman sitting next to me complained that Father Coriolano always
managed to wake her baby with his loud voice. The infant indeed began to cry,
but before his first great shriek was heard, the woman uncovered her breast and
pressed it against the baby's mouth.
Kneeling down, I raised my eyes to the Virgin above the altar. She wore
a blue cloak embroidered in gold. Her face was tilted heavenward, her eyes were
blue, her cheeks pale, and her mouth a deep red. In one arm she held the infant
Jesus: The other arm was extended, its hand white and delicate, reaching out to
the strange heathens at her feet.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 3
Machete in hand, Milagros led the way on the narrow path bordering the
river. His muscular back showed through his torn red shirt. The khaki pants,
rolled halfway up his calves and fastened above his waist with a cotton string,
made him look shorter than his medium height. He walked at a fast pace,
supporting his weight on the outer edge of his feet, which were narrow at the
heel and spread like an open fan at the toes. His short-trimmed hair and the
wide tonsure [* tonsure- the shaved crown of a monk's or
priest's head] on the crown of his head reminded me of a monk.
I stopped and turned around before following on the trail leading into
the forest. Across the river, almost hidden around a bend, lay the mission.
Shrouded in the early morning sunlight, it seemed like something already out of
touch. I felt oddly removed, not only from the place and the people I had been
with for the past week, but from all familiar things. I sensed some change
within me, as if crossing the river marked the end of a phase, a turning point.
Something of this must have shown in my face for when I looked to my side and
caught Angelica's gaze there was understanding in it.
"Already far away," Milagros said, stopping next to us.
Folding his arms across his chest, he let his gaze wander along the river. The
morning light dazzling over the water reflected in his face, tinting it with a
golden sheen. It was an angular, bony face in which the small nose and full
lower lip added an unexpected vulnerability that contrasted sharply with the
deep circles and wrinkles around his slanted brown eyes. They were uncannily
similar to Angelica's eyes, with that same timeless expression in them.
In absolute silence we walked beneath the towering trees, along trails
hidden by massive bushes entangled with vines, branches and leaves, creepers
and roots. Spiderwebs clung to my face like an invisible veil. Greenness was
all I could see, and dampness all I could smell. We went over and around logs,
across streams and swamps shaded by immense bamboo growths. Sometimes Milagros
was in front of me; at other times Angelica was, with her U-shaped basket on
her back, held in place by a tumpline of bark that went around her head. The
basket was filled with gourds, cassava bread, and cans of sardines.
I had no sense of which direction we were going. I could not see the
sun- only its light, filtering through the dense foliage. Soon my neck was
stiff from looking up at the incredible height of the motionless trees. Only
the straight palms, undefeated in their vertical thrust toward the light,
seemed to sweep the few visible patches of sky with their silver-shaded fronds.
"I've got to rest," I said, sitting down heavily on a fallen
tree trunk. By my watch it was already after three in the afternoon. We had
walked nonstop for over six hours. "I'm famished."
Handing me a calabash from her basket, Angelica sat next to me.
"Fill it," she said, motioning with her chin to the nearby shallow
stream.
Squatting in the river, with his legs apart, palms resting on his
thighs, Milagros bent forward until his lips touched the water. He drank
without getting his nose wet. "Drink," he said, straightening up. He
must be nearly fifty, I thought. Yet the unexpected grace of his flowing
movements made him seem much younger. He smiled briefly, then waded downstream.
"Watch out or you'll be taking a bath!" Angelica exclaimed,
smiling mockingly.
Startled by her voice, I lost my balance and toppled over headfirst into
the water; "I'm no good at drinking water the way Milagros does," I
said casually, handing her the filled gourd. "I think I'll just stick to
the calabash." Sitting next to her, I took off my soaked tennis shoes.
"Whoever said that sneakers were the best thing for the jungle never
walked for six hours in them." My feet were red and blistered, my ankles
scratched and bleeding.
"It's not too bad," Angelica said, examining my feet. She ran
her fingers gently over my soles and the blistered toes. "You have pretty
good calluses. Why don't you walk barefoot? Wet shoes will only soften your
feet more."
I looked at the bottoms of my feet; they were covered by thick calloused
skin that I had acquired from practicing karate tor years. "What if I step
on a snake?" I asked. "Or on a thorn?" Although I had not yet
seen a single reptile, I had watched Milagros and Angelica stop at various
times to pull thorns out of their feet.
"One has to be pretty stupid to step on a snake," she said,
pushing my feet off her lap. "Compared to mosquitoes, thorns are not too
bad. You are lucky the little devils don't bite you the way they do the racionales."
She rubbed my arms and hands as if expecting to find a clue there. "I
wonder why?"
Angelica had already marveled at the mission that I slept like the
Indians, without mosquito netting. "I've got evil blood," I said,
grinning. Seeing her puzzled look, I explained that as a child I had often gone
with my father to the jungle to look for orchids. Invariably, he would be stung
by mosquitoes, flies, and whatever biting insects were around. Somehow they
never bothered me. Once my father had even been bitten by a snake.
"Did he die?" Angelica asked.
"No. It was a most curious incident. The same snake bit me too. I
cried out right after my father did. He thought I was making fun of him until I
showed him the tiny red spots on my foot. Only it didn't swell and turn purple
the way his did. We were driven by friends to the closest town, where my father
was given antivenin serum. He was ill for days."
"And you?"
"Nothing happened to me," I said, and told her it was his
friends who said half jokingly that I had evil blood. They did not believe, as the
doctor did, that the snake had exhausted its supply of poison on the first bite
and whatever it had left had been insufficient to have any effect on me. I told
Angelica that on one occasion I was bitten by seven wasps, the ones they call mata
caballo- horse killer. The doctor thought I was going to die. I only
developed a fever and in a few days I was fine.
I had never seen Angelica so attentive, listening with her head slightly
bent as if afraid to miss a single word. "I was also bitten by a snake
once," she said. "People believed I was going to die." She was
quiet for a moment, deep in thought, then a timid smile creased her face.
"Do you think it spent its poison on someone else first?"
"I'm sure it did," I said, touching her withered hands.
"Maybe I have evil blood too," she said, smiling. She looked
so frail and old. For an instant I had the feeling she might disappear amidst
the shadows.
"I'm ancient," Angelica said, looking at me as though I had
expressed my thoughts out loud. "I should have died a long time ago. I've
kept death waiting." She turned to watch a row of ants demolish a bush as
they cut away squares of leaves and carried them off in their mouths. "I
knew it was you who would take me to my people- I knew it the moment I saw
you." There was a long pause. She either did not want to say anything else
or was trying to find the appropriate words. She was watching me, a vague smile
on her lips. "You also knew it- otherwise you wouldn't be here," she
finally said with utter conviction.
I giggled nervously; she always succeeded in making me uneasy with that
intense glint in her eyes. "I'm not sure what I'm doing here," I
said. "I don't know why I'm going with you."
"You knew you were meant to come here," Angelica insisted.
There was something about Angelica's sureness that made me feel
argumentative. It would have been so easy to agree with her, especially since I
did not know myself why I was in the jungle on my way to God knows where.
"To tell you the truth, I had no intention of going anyplace," I
said. "Remember, I didn't even accompany my friends up-river to hunt
alligators as I had planned."
"But that's exactly what I'm saying," she assured me as if she
were speaking to a stupid child. "You found an excuse to cancel your trip
so you could come with me." She laid her bony hands on my head.
"Believe me, I didn't have to think much about it. Neither did you. The
decision was made the moment I laid eyes on you."
I buried my head in the old woman's lap to hide my laughter. There was
no way to argue with her. Besides, she might be right, I thought. I had no
explanation myself.
"I waited a long time," Angelica went on. "I had almost
forgotten that you were supposed to come to me. But when I saw you I knew that
the man had been right. Not that I ever doubted him, but he had told me so long
ago that I believed I had missed my chance."
"What man?" I asked, lifting my head from her lap. "Who
told you I was coming?"
"I'll tell you another time." Angelica pulled the basket closer
and picked out a large piece of cassava bread. "We better eat," she
added, and opened a can of sardines.
There was no point in insisting. Once Angelica had decided not to talk,
there was no way to make her change her mind. My curiosity unsatisfied, I contented
myself in examining the neat row of fat sardines lying in the thick tomato
sauce. I had seen that kind in the supermarket in
"I wonder where Milagros is," I said, biting into the sardine
sandwich. It tasted quite good.
Angelica did not answer; neither did she eat. From time to time she
sipped water from the gourd. A faint smile lingered at the corners of her mouth
and I wondered what it was that the old woman was thinking about that created
such a look of longing in her eyes. All of a sudden she stared at me as if
awakening from a dream. "Look," she said, nudging my arm.
In front of us stood a man, naked except for the red cotton strands
around his upper arms and a string around his waist that circled his foreskin,
tying his penis against his abdomen. His whole body was covered with
brownish-red designs. In one hand he held a long bow and arrows, in the other a
machete.
"Milagros?" I finally managed to mumble, recovering from my
initial shock. Still, I barely recognized him. It was not only that he was
naked; he seemed taller, more muscular. The red zigzag lines running from his
forehead down to his cheeks, across his nose, and around his mouth sharpened
the contours of his face, erasing its vulnerability. There was something else
besides the physical change, something I could not pinpoint. It was as though
by discarding the clothes of a racional, he had shed some invisible
weight.
Milagros began to laugh in a loud, uproarious manner. A laughter that
sprang from deep inside him, it shook his whole body. Echoing and booming
through the forest, it mingled with the startled cries of a flock of parrots
that had taken flight. Squatting before me, he stopped abruptly and said,
"You almost didn't recognize me." He thrust his face so close to mine
that our noses touched, then asked, "Do you want me to paint your
face?"
"Yes," I said, taking the camera from my knapsack. "But
can I take a picture of you first?"
"That's my camera," he said emphatically, reaching for it.
"I thought you had left it at the mission for me."
"I would like to use it while we're at the Indian settlement."
I began demonstrating to him how the camera worked by first putting in a roll
of film. He was very attentive to my explanation, nodding his head every time I
asked if he understood. I hoped to confuse him by pointing out all the
intricacies of the gadget. "Now let me take a picture of you, so you can
see how the camera should be held."
"No, no." He was quick to stop me, taking the camera from my
hands. Without any difficulty he opened the back cover and lifted out the film,
exposing it to the light. "It's mine, you promised. Only I can take
pictures with it."
Speechless, I watched him, hang the camera over his chest. It looked so
incongruous against his nakedness I was unable to repress my laughter. With
exaggerated gestures he began to focus, adjust, and point the camera all around
him, talking to imaginary subjects, telling them to smile, to stand closer or
to move farther apart. I had the strong urge to pull at the cotton string
around his neck that held the arrow-point quiver and the fire drill swinging
from his back.
"You won't get any pictures without film," I said, handing him
the third and last roll.
"I never said I wanted to take pictures." Gleefully he exposed
the film to the light, then very deliberately put the camera in its leather
case. "Indians don't like to be photographed," he said seriously, then
turned toward Angelica's basket on the ground and searched through its contents
until he found a small gourd sealed with a piece of animal skin. "This is onoto,"
he said, showing me a red paste. It was greasy and had a faint aromatic odor I
was unable to define. "This is the color of life and joy," he said.
"Where did you leave your clothes?" I asked him as he cut a
piece of vine, the length of a pencil, with his teeth. "Do you live
nearby?"
Busying himself with chewing one end of the vine until it resembled a
makeshift brush, Milagros did not bother to answer. He spat on the onoto,
then stirred the red paste with the brush until it was soft. With a precise,
even hand he drew wavy lines across my forehead, down my cheeks, chin, and
neck, circled my eyes, and decorated my arms with round spots.
"Is there an Indian settlement around here?"
"No."
"Do you live by yourself?"
"Why do you ask so many questions?" The expression of
annoyance, heightened by the sharp lines of his painted face, matched the
irritated tone of his voice.
I opened my mouth, uttered a sound, then hesitated to say that it was
important for me to know about him and Angelica- that the more I knew, the
better I would feel. "I was trained to be curious," I said after a
while, sensing he would not understand the fleeting anxiety that I tried to
alleviate by asking questions. Knowing about them, I thought, would give me
some sense of control.
Smiling, totally oblivious to what I had said, Milagros looked at me
askance, examined my painted face, then burst into loud guffaws. It was a
cheerful, hilarious laugh, like that of a child. "A blond Indian," he
said, wiping tears from his eyes.
I laughed with him, all my momentary apprehension dispelled. Stopping
abruptly, Milagros leaned toward me, and whispered an incomprehensible word
into my ear. "That's your new name," he said seriously, putting his
hand over my lips to prevent me from repeating it out loud. Turning toward
Angelica, he whispered the name into her ear.
As soon as Milagros had eaten, he motioned us to follow him.
Disregarding my blisters I quickly put on my shoes. I could discern nothing but
green as we climbed up hills and down plains- an unending green of vines,
branches, leaves, and prickly thorns; where all the hours were hours of
twilight. I no longer lifted my head to catch glimpses of the sky through
patches of leaves but was content to see its reflection in puddles and streams.
Mr. Barth had been right when he told me that the jungle was a world
impossible to imagine. I could not believe it was I walking through this
unending greenness on my way to an unknown destination. My mind ran wild with
anthropologists' descriptions of fierce and belligerent Indians belonging to
unacculturated tribes.
My parents had been acquainted with some German explorers and scientists
who had been in the Amazon jungle. As a child I had been bewildered by their
tales of head-hunters and cannibals: A all of them told of incidents where they
had escaped a sure death by saving the life of a sick Indian, usually a tribal
chief or one of his relatives. A German couple and their small daughter, who
had returned from a two-year journey through the South American jungle, made
the deepest impression on me. I was seven when I saw the cultural artifacts and
life-size photographs they had collected during their travels.
Totally captivated by their eight-year-old daughter, I followed her
through the palm-decorated room in the foyer of the Sears building in
I was awed as she told me that she had not been frightened to be in the
jungle, and that it had not been at all the way her parents described it.
"The Indians weren't horrifying or fierce," she had said very
earnestly. Not for an instant did I doubt her words as she looked at me with her
large serious eyes. "They were gentle and full of laughter- they were my
friends."
I could not remember the girl's name, who having lived through the same
events as her parents had not experienced them with the same prejudices and
fears. I chuckled to myself, almost falling over a gnarled root covered by
slippery moss.
"Are you talking to yourself?" Angelica's voice cut into my
reveries. "Or to the spirits of the forest?"
"Are there any?"
"Yes. Spirits dwell in the midst of all this," she said
softly, gesturing around her. "In the thick of the creeping lianas, in
company with the monkeys, snakes, spiders, and jaguars."
"No rain tonight," Milagros asserted, sniffing the air as we
stopped by some boulders bordering a shallow river. Its calm, clear waters were
strewn with pink flowers from the trees standing like sentries on the opposite
bank. I took off my shoes, letting my sore feet dangle in the soothing
coolness, and watched the sky, a golden crimson, turn gradually to orange, to
vermilion, and finally into a deep purple. The dampness of the evening filled
my nose with the scent of the forest, a smell of earth, of life, of decay.
Before the shadows closed in around us completely, Milagros had made two
hammocks from strips of bark, knotted on either end to a suspension rope of
vines. I could not disguise my delight when he hung my cotton hammock between
the two uncomfortable-looking bark cradles.
Full of anticipation, I followed Milagros's movements as he loosened the
quiver and fire drill from his back. My disappointment was immense when, upon
removing the piece of monkey fur sealing the quiver, he took out a box of
matches and lit the wood Angelica had gathered.
"Cat food," I said peevishly as Milagros handed me an open can
of sardines. I had envisioned my first dinner in the jungle consisting of
freshly hunted tapir or armadillo meat roasted to perfection over a crackling
fire. All the smoldering twigs did was to send a thin line of smoke into the
air, its low flames barely illuminating our surroundings.
The scant light of the fire dramatized Angelica's and Milagros's
features, filling hollows with shadows; adding a shine to their temples, above
their protruding eyebrows, along their short noses and their high cheekbones. I
wondered why the fire made them look so much alike.
"Are you related?" I finally asked, puzzled by the
resemblance.
"Yes," Milagros said. "I'm her son."
"Her son!" I repeated in disbelief. I had expected him to be a
younger brother or a cousin; he looked as it he was in his fifties. "Then
you are only half Maquiritare?"
They both began to giggle, as if enjoying a secret joke. "No, he
isn't half Maquiritare," Angelica said in between fits of laughter.
"He was born when I was still with my people." She did not say
another word, but moved her face close to mine with an expression at once
challenging and bemused.
I shifted nervously under her piercing gaze, wondering if my question
had offended her. Curiosity must be a learned trait, I decided. I was anxious
to know everything about them, yet they never asked me anything about myself.
All that seemed to matter to them was that we were together in the forest. At
the mission Angelica had shown no interest in my background. Neither was she
willing to let me know about hers, except for the few stories regarding her
life at the mission.
Our hunger satisfied, we stretched in our hammocks.
Angelica's and mine hung close to the fire. She was soon asleep, her
legs tucked under her dress. The air felt chilly and I offered the thin blanket
I had brought with me to Milagros, which he gladly accepted.
Glowworms, like dots of fire, lit up the dense darkness. The night
pulsated with the cries of crickets and the croaking of frogs. I could not
sleep: E-xhaustion and nervousness prevented me from relaxing. I watched the
hours move by on my illuminated wristwatch and listened to the sounds in the
jungle that I could no longer identify. There were creatures that growled,
whistled, creaked, and howled. Shadows slithered beneath my hammock, moving
soundlessly as time itself.
In an effort to see through the darkness I sat up, blinking, not sure if
I was asleep or awake. Monkeys with phosphorescent eyes darted from behind
ferns. Beasts with snarling mouths gaped at me from the branches overhead, and
giant spiders crawling on legs as fine as hair spun silver webs over my eyes.
The more I watched, the more frightened I became. A cold sweat trickled
from my neck to the base of my spine as I beheld a naked figure with bow drawn,
aiming at the black sky. When I clearly heard the hissing sound of the arrow I
put my hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.
"Don't be afraid of the night," Milagros said, laying his hand
on my face. It was a fleshy, calloused hand; it smelled of earth and roots. He
fastened his hammock above mine, so close I could feel the warmth of his body
through the strips of bark. Softly he began to talk in his own language, a
procession of rhythmical, monotonous words that shut off all the other sounds
of the forest. A feeling of peace crept into me, and my eyes began to close.
Milagros's hammock no longer hung above mine when I awoke. The sounds of
night, now very faint, still lingered between the misty palms, the bamboo, the
nameless vines, and parasitic growths. There was no color in the sky yet- only
a vague clarity, forecasting a rainless day.
Crouching over the fire, Angelica stoked and blew on the embers,
bringing them to life again. Smiling, she motioned me to join her. "I
heard you in my sleep," she said. "Were you afraid?"
"The forest is so different at night," I said, a little
embarrassed. "I must have been overly tired."
Nodding her head, she said, "Watch the light- see how it reflects
from leaf to leaf until it descends to the ground, to the sleeping shadows.
That's the way dawn puts to sleep the spirits of the night." Angelica
began to caress the leaves on the ground. "During the day the shadows
sleep. At night they dance in the darkness."
I smiled sheepishly, not quite knowing what to say. "Where did
Milagros go?" I asked after a while.
Angelica did not answer: She rose, looking around her. "Don't be
afraid of the jungle," she said. Lifting her arms above her head, she
began to dance with little jerky steps and to chant in a low monotonous tone
that abruptly changed to a very high pitch. "Dance with the night shadows
and go to sleep lighthearted. If you let the shadows frighten you, they will
destroy you." Her voice faded to a murmur. She turned her back to me and
slowly walked toward the river.
The water was cold as I squatted naked in the middle of the stream: Its
placid pools held the first morning light. I watched Angelica collect wood,
placing each branch in the crook of her arm as if she were holding a child. She
must be stronger then she looks, I thought, rinsing the shampoo out of my hair.
But then she might not be as old as she appeared either. Father Coriolano had
told me that by the time an Indian woman is thirty she is often a grandmother.
If they reach forty they have attained old age.
I washed the clothes I had worn, impaled them on a stick close to the
fire, then put on a long T-shirt that reached almost to my knees. It was much
more comfortable than my tight jeans.
"You smell good," Angelica said, running her fingers through
my wet hair. "Does it come from the bottle?"
I nodded. "Do you want me to wash your hair?"
She hesitated for a moment, then rapidly took off her dress. She was so
wrinkled that not an inch of smooth skin was left on her. She reminded me of
one of the frail trees bordering the path, with their thin gray trunks, almost
withered, yet supporting branches with green leaves. I had never seen Angelica
naked before, for she wore her cotton dress day and night. I was certain then
that she was more than forty years old- ancient, in fact, as she had told me.
Sitting in the water, Angelica shrieked and laughed with delight as she
splashed around, spreading the suds from her head all over her body. With a
broken gourd I rinsed off the soap, and after drying her with the thin blanket,
I combed her dark short hair, shaping the bangs at an angle. "Too bad we
don't have a mirror," I said. "Do I still have the red paint
on?"
"Just a little bit," Angelica said, moving close to the fire.
"Milagros will have to paint your face again."
"In a moment we'll be smelling like smoke," I said, turning
toward Angelica's bark hammock. Easing myself inside, I wondered how she could
have slept there without falling out. It was barely long enough for me and so
narrow that I could not turn to the side. Yet, in spite of the itchy bark
against my back and head, I found myself dozing off as I watched the old woman
break the gathered wood into even-sized twigs.
An odd heaviness kept me between that crack of consciousness that is
neither wakefulness nor sleep. I could feel the red of the sun through my
closed lids. I was aware of Angelica to my left, mumbling to herself as she fed
the fire, and of the forest around me, pulling me deeper and deeper into its
green caverns. I called the old woman's name, but no sound escaped my lips. I called
again and again, but only soundless forms glided out of me, rising and falling
Tyith the breeze like dead butterflies. The words began to speak without lips,
mocking my desire to know, asking a thousand questions. They exploded in my
ears, their echoes reverberating around me like a flock of parrots crossing the
sky.
I opened my eyes, aware of the smell of singed hair. On a crudely built
roasting platform, about a foot above the fire, lay a monkey, complete with
tail, hands, and feet. Wistfully, I eyed Angelica's basket, still replete with
cans of sardines and cassava bread.
Milagros lay in my hammock asleep, his bow leaning against a tree trunk,
his quiver and machete on the ground, within reach.
"Is this all he killed?" I asked Angelica, getting out of the
hammock. Hoping it would never be ready, I added, "How long will it take
until it's done?"
Angelica looked at me with a rapt smile of unmistakable glee. "A
bit longer," she said. "You'll like it better than sardines."
Milagros dismembered the monkey by hand, serving me the choicest part,
the head, considered a delicacy. Unable to bring myself to suck out the brain
from the cracked skull, I opted for a piece of the well-done thigh. It was
stringy and tough and tasted like an old gamy bird, slightly bitter. Finishing
the monkey's brain with rather exaggerated relish, Milagros and Angelica
proceeded to eat the inner organs, which had been cooking in the embers, each
individually wrapped in strong, fan-shaped leaves. They dipped each morsel in
the ashes before they put them in their mouths. I did likewise with the pieces
of thigh and was surprised to notice the added saltiness of the meat. What we
did not finish was wrapped in leaves, tied securely with vines, and placed in
Angelica's basket for our next meal.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 4
The next four days and nights seemed to melt into each other as we
walked, bathed, and slept. They had a dream-like quality, in which oddly shaped
trees and vines repeated themselves like images endlessly reflected in
invisible mirrors- images that vanished upon emerging into a clearing of the
forest or by a river beach where the sun shone fully on us.
By the fifth day my feet were no longer blistered. Milagros had cut up
my sneakers, attaching softened pieces of vegetable fiber to the soles. Each
morning he tied the makeshift sandals anew, and my feet, as if obeying an
impulse of their own, would follow Milagros and the old woman.
We walked always in silence, along trails bordered by leaves and ferns
the size of a man. We crawled beneath the underbrush or cut our way through the
walls of creepers and branches that left our faces dirty and scratched. There
were times when I lost sight of my companions, but easily followed the twigs
Milagros was in the habit of breaking as he walked. We crossed rivers and
streams spanned by suspension bridges made out of vines fastened to trees on
either bank. They were so fragile-looking that each time we crossed one I
feared it would not support our weight.
Milagros laughed, assuring me that his people, although weak navigators,
knew the art of building bridges.
On some trails we discovered footprints in the mud, which according to
Milagros indicated we were in the vicinity of an Indian settlement. We never
got close to one for he wanted us to reach our destination without delay.
"If I were on my own I would have arrived long ago," Milagros said
every time I inquired as to when we would reach Angelica's village. Then,
looking at us, he would shake his head, and add in a resigned tone, "Women
slow you down."
But Milagros did not mind our relaxed pace. Often he made camp in the
early afternoon at some wide river beach where we bathed in the sun-warmed
pools, and dried ourselves on enormous smooth rocks jutting out of the water.
Drowsily we watched the motionless clouds so slow to change their formations
that it would be dusk before they disintegrated into different configurations.
It was during these lazy afternoons that I pondered over my motives in
joining this bewildering venture. Was it to fulfill a fantasy of mine? Was I
running away from some responsibility I could no longer handle? I even
considered the possibility that Angelica might have cast a spell on me.
As the days passed my eyes became accustomed to the ever present
greenness. Soon I began to distinguish red and blue macaws, rare toucans with
black and yellow beaks. Once I even saw a tapir crashing through the
undergrowth in search of water. It ended up as our next meal.
Monkeys with reddish fur followed us from above only to disappear as we
continued through stretches of river between cascades, and by quiet channels
reflecting the sky. Buried deep in the underbrush, on moss-covered logs, red
and yellow mushrooms grew, so delicate that upon my touch they disintegrated as
if made of colored dust.
I tried to orient myself by the large rivers we encountered, thinking
they would correspond to those I remembered in geography books. But each time I
asked for their names, they never coincided with mine, for Milagros only
referred to them by their Indian designations.
At night under the light of the faint fire, when a white fog seemed to
emanate from the ground and I felt the dampness of the night dew on my face,
Milagros would begin talking in his low nasal voice about the myths of his
people.
Angelica, with her eyes wide open, as if she were trying to keep awake
rather than to pay attention, would sit up straight for about ten minutes
before she was fast asleep. Milagros talked long into the night, bringing alive
the time when beings who were part spirit, part animal, part human, inhabited
the forest- creatures who caused floods and disease, replenished the forest
with game and fruits, and taught mankind about hunting and planting.
Milagros's favorite myth was about Iwrame, an alligator, who before
becoming an animal of the river walked and talked like a man. Iwrame was the
keeper of fire, which he hid in his mouth, refusing to share it with others.
The creatures of the forest decided to entertain the alligator with a sumptuous
feast, for they knew that only by making Iwrame laugh could they steal the
fire. Joke upon joke was told until finally, unable to contain himself any
longer, Iwrame burst into laughter. A small bird flew into the opened jaw,
snatched the fire, and flew high into a sacred tree.
Without changing the basic structure of the various myths he chose to
tell, Milagros modified and embellished them according to his mood. He added
details that he had not thought of before, interjecting personal views that
seemed to come at the spur of the moment.
"Dream, dream," Milagros said each night upon finishing his
tales. "A person who dreams lives long."
Was it real, was it a dream? Was I awake or asleep when I heard Angelica
stirring? She mumbled something unintelligible and sat up. Still befuddled, she
pulled away the hair sticking to her face, looked around, then approached my
hammock. She gazed at me with a strange intensity: Her eyes were enormous in
her thin, wrinkled face.
She opened her mouth: Strange sounds came from her throat and her whole
body began to shake. I reached out my hand, but there was nothing- only a vague
shadow receding into the bushes. "Old woman, where are you going?" I
heard myself ask. There was no reply- only the sound of dripping mist from the
leaves. For an instant I saw her once more, the way I had seen her that same
afternoon bathing in the river: Then she vanished in the thick night fog.
Without being able to stop her, I saw how she disappeared into an
invisible crevice of the earth. No matter how much I searched I could not even
find her dress. It's only a dream, I repeated to myself, yet I continued looking
for her among the shadows, amidst the leaves shrouded in mist. But there was no
vestige [* vestige- an indication that something has
been present] of her.
I awoke with a profound anxiety. I noticed the heavy palpitations of my
heart. The sun was already high above the treetops. I had never slept so late
since starting our journey- not because I had not wanted to, but because
Milagros insisted we rise at dawn. Angelica was not there; neither were her
hammock or basket. Leaning against a tree trunk were Milagros's bow and arrows.
Strange, I thought. He had never left without them before. He must have gone
with the old woman to gather the fruits or nuts he discovered yesterday
afternoon, I kept repeating to myself, trying to appease my mounting distress.
I walked to the water's edge, not knowing what to do. They had never
gone together before, leaving me behind.
A tree, infinitely lonely, stood at the other bank of the river, its
branches bowed over the water, their weight supporting a network oŁ creepers on
which delicate red flowers bloomed. They clung like trapped butterflies in a
gigantic spider's web.
A flock of parrots noisily settled on some vines that appeared to be
growing out of the water without any visible support, for I could not
distinguish the trees to which they belonged. I began to imitate the parrot's
shrieks, but they remained completely unaware of my existence. Only when I
walked into the water did they take flight, spanning a green arch across the
sky.
I waited until the sun disappeared beyond the trees, and the blood red
sky tainted the river with its fire. Listlessly I walked back to my hammock,
poked the fire, and tried to revive the ashes. I became numb with terror as a
green snake with amber-colored eyes stared into my face. With its head poised
in midair, it seemed as startled as I. Afraid to breathe, I listened to the
rustling of leaves as it slowly disappeared among the gnarled roots.
With absolute certainty I knew that never again would I see Angelica. I
did not want to weep, but could not control my tears as I buried my face in the
dead leaves on the ground. "Old woman, where have you gone?" I
whispered, as I had done in my dream. I called her name across the immense
green sea of growth. There was no answer from the ancient trees. Mutely, they
witnessed my sorrow.
I barely made out Milagros's figure in the thickening shadows. Rigid, he
stood before me, his face and body blackened by ashes. For an instant he held
my gaze, then his eyes closed, his legs bent beneath him, and, exhausted, he
sank to the earth.
"Did you bury her?" I asked, draping his arm over my shoulders
in order to drag him toward my hammock. With great difficulty I lifted him
inside- first his torso, then his legs.
He opened his eyes, stretching his hand toward the sky as if the distant
clouds were within his reach. "Her soul ascended to heaven, to the house
of thunder," he said with great effort. "The fire released her soul
from her bones," he added, then fell into a deep sleep.
As I watched over his restless dreams, I saw the shadowy bulk of phantom
trees grow before my tired eyes. In the darkness of the night, these chimerical
trees seemed more real and taller than the palms. I was no longer sad. Angelica
had disappeared in my dream; she was part of the real and the fictitious trees.
Forever she would roam among the spirits of vanished animals and mythical
beings.
It was almost dawn when Milagros reached for his machete and his bow and
arrows lying on the ground. Absentmindedly he hung his quiver on his back and
without saying a word he walked into the thicket. I followed, afraid to lose
him among the shadows.
In silence we walked for about two hours, then Milagros abruptly stopped
by the edge of a cleared area in the forest. "The smoke of the dead is
harmful to women and children," he said, pointing to a log pyre. [* pyre- wood heaped for burning a dead body as a funeral
rite] It had partly collapsed, and in the midst of the ashes I could see
darkened bones.
I sat on the ground and watched Milagros dry over a small fire a log
mortar that he had made from a tree trunk. Something between horror and
fascination kept my eyes glued on Milagros as he began sifting through the
ashes for Angelica's bones. He crushed them with a slender pole until they were
reduced to a gray-black powder.
"Through the smoke of the fire, her soul reached the house of
thunder," Milagros said. It was already night when he filled our gourds
with the powdered bones. He sealed them with a sticky resin.
"If she could only have kept death waiting a little longer," I
said wistfully.
"It makes no difference," Milagros said, looking up from the
mortar. His face was without expression yet his black eyes were bright with
unshed tears. His lower lip trembled, then set in a half smile. "All she
wanted was for her life essence to be once again part of her people."
"It's not the same," I said, without really understanding what
Milagros was saying.
"Her life essence is in her bones," he said, as if excusing my
ignorance. "Her ashes will be among her people in the forest."
"She isn't alive," I insisted. "What good are her ashes
when she had wanted to see her people?" An uncontrollable sadness overcame
me at the thought that never again would I see the old woman's smile or hear
her voice and laughter. "She never got to tell me why she was so certain I
would come with her."
Milagros began to cry, and picking up pieces of coal from the pyre, he
rubbed them against his tear-stained face. "One of our shamans told
Angelica that although she would leave her settlement, she would die among her
own people, and her soul would remain a part of her tribe." Milagros
looked at me sharply as I was about to interrupt him. "The shaman assured
her that a girl with the color of your hair and eyes would make sure that she
did."
"But I thought her people had no contact with whites," I said.
Tears still flowed from Milagros's eyes as he explained that there had
been a time when his people had lived closer to the big river. "Nowadays
there are only some old people left who still remember those days," he
said softly. "For a long time we have been moving farther and farther into
the forest."
I saw no reason to continue the journey, I thought despondently. What
would I do without the old woman among her people. She had been my reason for
being here. "What shall I do now? Are you going to take me back to the
mission?" I asked, then seeing Milagros's puzzled expression, added,
"It's not the same to take her ashes."
"It is the same," he murmured. "For her it was the most
important part," he added, tying one of the ash-filled gourds around my
waist.
My body stiffened for an instant, then relaxed as I looked into
Milagros's eyes. His blackened face was awesome and sad at the same time. He
pressed his tear-stained cheeks against mine, then blackened them with coals.
Timidly I touched the gourd around my waist: It was light, like the old woman's
laughter.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 5
For two days, at an ever accelerating pace, we walked up and down hills
without rest. Apprehensively, I watched Milagros's silent figure slip in and
out of the shadows. The urgency of his movements only intensified my feelings
of uncertainty: There were moments when I felt like screaming at him to take me
back to the mission.
The afternoon closed over the forest as the clouds turned from white to
gray to black. Heavy and oppressive, they hovered over the treetops. A
deafening roar of thunder broke the stillness: Water came down in sheets,
tearing at branches and leaves with relentless fury.
Motioning me to take cover under the gigantic leaves he had cut,
Milagros squatted on the ground. Instead of joining him, I took off my
knapsack, untied the gourd filled with Angelica's powdered bones from around my
waist, and pulled off my T-shirt. Warm and soothing, the water beat against my
aching body. Lathering first my head, then my body with shampoo, I washed away
the ashes, the smell of death from my skin. I turned to look at Milagros; his
blackened face was drawn with fatigue, his eyes held such sadness that I
regretted having cleaned myself in such haste. Nervously I began to wash my
T-shirt and without looking at him asked, "Are we almost to the
settlement?" I was certain we had walked well over a hundred miles since
leaving the mission.
"We will be there tomorrow," Milagros said, unwrapping a small
bundle of roasted meat held together with lianas and leaves. A peculiar smile
lifted the corners of his mouth, and deepened the wrinkles around his slanted
eyes. "That is, if we walk at my pace."
The rain thinned. The clouds dispersed. I breathed deeply, filling my
lungs with the clear, fresh air. Drops continued to trickle from the leaves
long after the rain abated. As they caught the reflection of the sun they
glittered with the dazzling intensity of bits of broken glass.
"I hear someone coming," Milagros whispered. "Stay
still."
I heard nothing- not even the call of a bird or the rustling of leaves.
I was about to say so when a branch cracked and a naked man appeared on the
path in front of us. He was not much taller than myself- perhaps five feet
four. I wondered it it was his muscular chest or his nakedness that made him
seem so much bigger than me. He carried a long bow and several arrows. His face
and body were covered with red serpentine lines that extended all the way down
the sides of his legs, ending in dots around his ankles.
A short distance behind him, two naked young women stared at me. A
frozen expression of surprise held their dark eyes wide open. Tufts of fibers
seemed to grow from their ears. Matchlike sticks stuck out from the corners of
their mouths and lower lips. Fastened about their waists, upper arms, wrists,
and below their knees were bands of red cotton string. Their dark hair was cut
short, and like the man, they had a clean, wide-shaven tonsure on the crown.
No one said a word and out of sheer nervousness I shouted, "Shori
noje, shori noje!" Angelica had advised me that if I ever happened to
meet Indians in the forest, I should greet them by shouting: Good friend, good
friend!
"A ia, aia, shori," the man answered, moving
closer. Red feathers adorned his ears: They were sticking out of two pieces of
short cane, the size of my little finger, which were inserted through each lobe.
He began to speak to Milagros, gesticulating a great deal, motioning with his
hand or a nod of his head toward the path leading into the thicket. Repeatedly
he raised one of his arms straight above his head, his fingers extended as if
reaching for a ray of sunlight.
I beckoned the women to come closer. Giggling, they hid behind bushes.
When I saw the bananas in the baskets fastened to their backs I opened my mouth
wide and gestured with my hands that I wanted to eat one of them. Cautiously
the older of the two women approached, and without looking at me she unfastened
her basket, then broke the softest, yellowest banana from the bunch. In one
swift motion she removed the slender sticks from around her mouth, sank her
teeth in the peel, bit along it, broke it open, then held the naked fruit in
front of my face. It had an oddly triangular shape and was certainly the
thickest banana I had ever seen.
"Delicious," I said in Spanish, rubbing my stomach. It tasted
very much like an ordinary banana but left a heavy coating in my mouth.
She gave me two more. As she was peeling the fourth I tried to make her
understand that I could not eat another. Grinning, she dropped the remaining
fruit on the ground, then placed her hands on my stomach. They were calloused
hands, yet the delicate, slender fingers were gentle as she hesitantly touched
my breasts, shoulders, and face, as if she wanted to verify that I was real.
She began to talk in a high-pitched nasal tone that reminded me of Angelica's
voice. She pulled the elastic on my panties and called her companion to take a
look. It was only then that I felt embarrassed: I tried to pull away. Laughing
and squealing with delight, they embraced me, stroking the back and front of my
body. Then they took my hand and guided it over their own faces and bodies.
They were slightly shorter than I, yet they were massive: With their full
breasts, protruding stomachs, and wide hips, they seemed to dwarf me.
"They are from the Iticoteri village," Milagros said in
Spanish, turning toward me. "Etewa and his two wives, Ritimi and Tutemi,
as well as other people from the settlement, have made camp for a few days at
an old abandoned garden nearby." He reached for his bow and arrows, which
he had left leaning against a tree trunk, and added, "We will travel with
them."
Meanwhile the women had discovered my wet T-shirt. Enthralled, they
rubbed it against their painted faces and bodies before I had a chance to slip
it over my head. Stretched and streaked with red onoto paste, it hung on
me like a dirty oversized rice sack.
I put the ash-filled gourd in my knapsack, and as I lifted it on my back
the women began to giggle uncontrollably. Etewa came to stand next to me: He
stared at me with his brown eyes, then a wide grin lit his face as he ran his fingers
through my hair. His finely chiseled nose and the gentle curve of his lips gave
his round face an almost girlish appearance.
"I will go with Etewa to track down a tapir he spotted a while
ago," Milagros said. "You walk with the women."
For an instant I could only stare at him in disbelief.
"But..." I finally managed to utter, not knowing what else to say. I
must have looked comical for Milagros began to laugh: His slanted eyes all but
disappeared between his forehead and his high cheekbones. He put one hand on my
shoulder. He tried to look serious but a flickering smile remained on his lips.
"These are Angelica's and my people," he said, turning toward
Etewa and his two wives. "Ritimi is her grand-niece. Angelica never saw
her."
I smiled at the two women: They nodded their heads as if they had
understood Milagros's words.
Milagros's and Etewa's laughter echoed through the lianas, then died
away as they reached the bamboo thicket bordering the path along the river.
Ritimi took my hand and led me into the thicket.
I walked between Ritimi and Tutemi. We moved silently in single file
toward the abandoned gardens of the Iticoteri. I wondered whether it was
because of the heavy load on their backs or whether it gave their feet a better
grip on the ground that they walked with their knees and toes pointing inward.
Our shadows grew and diminished with the faint rays of sunlight filtering
through the treetops. My ankles were weak from exhaustion. I moved clumsily,
stumbling over branches and roots. Ritimi put her arm around my waist, but it
made walking on the narrow path even more awkward. She pulled the knapsack from
my back, and stuffed it in Tutemi's basket.
I was seized by an odd apprehension. I wanted to retrieve my knapsack,
pull out the ash-filled gourd, and tie it around my waist. I had the vague
notion of having severed some kind of a bond. Had I been asked to put my
feelings into words I would not have been able to do so. Yet I sensed that from
that moment on some of the magic and enchantment Angelica had transfused into
me had vanished.
The sun was already below the horizon of trees as we reached a clearing
in the forest. Amidst all the other shades of green I clearly distinguished the
lighter, almost translucent green of the plantain fronds. Strung out on the
edge of what once must have been a large garden were low triangular-shaped huts
arranged in a semicircle with their backs to the forest. The dwellings were
open on all sides except for the roofs, which were covered with several layers
of broad banana leaves.
As if someone had given a signal, we were instantly surrounded by
open-mouthed, wide-eyed women and men. I held on to Ritimi's arm: Her having
walked with me through the forest made her different from these gaping figures.
Encircling me by the waist, she drew me close to her. The rapid, excited tone
of her voice kept the crowd at bay for a moment longer. Suddenly their faces
were only inches away from mine. Saliva dribbled down their chins, and their
features were disfigured by the tobacco wads stuck between their gums and lower
lips. I forgot all about the objectivity with which an anthropologist is to
regard another culture. At the moment these Indians were nothing more than a
group of ugly, dirty people. I closed my eyes only to open them the next
instant as an unsteady bony hand touched my cheeks. It was an old man.
Grinning, he began to shout: "Aia, aia, aiiiashori!"
Echoing his shouts, everyone at once tried to embrace me, almost
crushing me with joy. They managed to pull my T-shirt over my head. I felt
their hands, lips, and tongues on my face and body. They smelled of smoke and
earth: Their saliva, which clung to my skin, smelled of rotten tobacco leaves.
Appalled, I burst into tears.
With apprehensive expressions on their faces, they pulled away. Although
I could not understand their words, their tone clearly revealed their
bewilderment.
Later that night I learned from Milagros that Ritimi had explained to
the group that she had found me in the forest. At first she had believed I was
a spirit, and she had been afraid to come near me. Only after she had seen me
devour the bananas was she convinced I was human, for only humans eat that
greedily.
Between my hammock and Milagros's burned a fire: Smoking and sputtering,
it threw a faint light over the open hut, leaving the trees outside in one
solid mass of darkness. It was a reddish light that, combined with the smoke,
made my eyes water. People sat around the fire so close to each other their
shoulders touched. Their shadowed faces looked all the same to me: The red and
black designs on their bodies seemed to have a life of their own as they moved
and twisted with each gesture.
Ritimi sat on the ground, her legs fully extended, her left arm resting
against my hammock. Her skin was a soft deep yellow in the wavering light: The
painted lines on her face ran toward her temples, accentuating her Asiatic
features. Clearly I could see the small holes, free of the sticks, at the
corners of her mouth, lower lip, and the septum of her wide nostrils. Aware of
my stare, she looked at me directly, her round face creasing into a smile. She
had square short teeth: They were strong and very white.
I began to doze off to the gentle murmur of their voices, yet slept
fitfully, wondering what Milagros was telling them as I kept waking to the sound
of laughter.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 6
"When do you think you'll be back?" I asked Milagros six months
later, handing him the letter I had written to Father Coriolano at the mission.
In it I briefly notified him that I intended to stay for at least two more
months with the Iticoteri. I asked him to inform my friends in
"In two weeks or so," Milagros said casually, fitting the
letter into his bamboo quiver. He must have detected the anxiousness in my face
for he added, "There is no way to tell, but I'll be back."
I watched as he started down the path leading to the river. He adjusted
the quiver on his back, then turned to me briefly, his movements momentarily
arrested as though there were something he wished to say. Instead he lifted his
hand to wave good-bye.
Slowly I headed back to the shabono, passing several men felling
trees next to the gardens. Carefully I stepped around the logs cluttered all
over the cleared patch, making sure not to cut my feet on the pieces of bark,
chips, and slivers of wood buried amidst the dead leaves on the ground.
"He'll be back as soon as the plantains are ripe," Etewa
shouted, waving his hand the way Milagros had just done. "He won't miss
the feast."
Smiling, I waved back, wanting to ask when the feast would take place. I
did not need to: He had already given me the answer: When the plantains were
ripe.
The brush and logs that were scattered each night in front of the main
entrance of the shabono to keep out intruders had already been moved
aside. It was still early, yet the huts facing the round, open clearing were
mostly empty. Women and men were working in the nearby gardens, or had gone
into the forest to gather wild fruits, honey, and firewood.
Armed with miniature bows and arrows, a group of little boys gathered
around me. "See the lizard I killed," Sisiwe said, holding the dead
animal by the tail.
"That's all he can do shoot lizards," a boy in the group said
mockingly, scratching his ankle with the toes of his other foot. "And most
of the time he misses."
"I don't," Sisiwe shouted, his face turning red with rage.
I caressed the stubbles on the crown of his head. In the sunlight his
hair was not black but a reddish brown. Searching for the right words from my limited
vocabulary, I hoped to assure him that one day he would be the best hunter in
the settlement.
Sisiwe, Ritimi's and Etewa's son, was six, or at the most seven, years
old for he did not yet wear a pubic waist string. Ritimi, believing that the
sooner a boy tied his penis against his abdomen the faster he would grow, had
repeatedly forced the child to do so. But Sisiwe had refused, arguing that it
hurt. Etewa had not insisted. His son was growing healthy and strong. Soon, the
father had argued, Sisiwe would realize that it was improper for a man to be
seen without a waist string. Like most children, Sisiwe wore a piece of
fragrant root tied around his neck, a charm against disease, and as soon as the
designs on his body faded, he was painted anew with onoto.
Smiling, his anger forgotten, Sisiwe held on to my hand, and in one
swift motion climbed up on me as if I were a tree. He wrapped his legs around
my waist. He swung backward and, stretching his arms toward the sky, shouted,
"Look how blue it is- the color of your eyes."
From the middle of the clearing the sky seemed immense. There were no
trees, lianas, or leaves to mar its splendor. The dense vegetation loomed
outside the shabono, beyond the palisades [*
palisades- fortifications consisting of a strong fence made of stakes driven
into the ground] of logs protecting the settlement. The trees appeared
to bide their time, as if they knew they were only provisionally held in check.
Tugging at my arm, the children pulled me together with Sisiwe to the
ground. At first I had not been able to associate them with any particular
parent for they wandered in and out of the huts, eating and sleeping wherever
it was convenient. I only knew where the babies belonged, for they were
perennially hanging around their mother's bodies. Whether it was day or night,
the infants never seemed disturbed, regardless of what activity their mothers
were engaged in.
I wondered how I would do without Milagros. Each day he had spent
several hours teaching me the language, customs, and beliefs of his people,
which I eagerly recorded in my notepads.
Learning who was who among the Iticoteri proved to be most confusing.
They never called each other by name, except when someone was to be insulted.
Ritimi and Etewa were known as Mother and Father of Sisiwe and Texoma. (It was
permissible to use children's names, but as soon as they reached puberty
everyone refrained from it.) Matters were further complicated in that males and
females from a given lineage called each other brother and sister; males and
females from another lineage were referred to as brother-in-law and
sister-in-law. A male who married a woman from an eligible lineage called all
the women of that lineage wives, but did not have sexual contact with them.
Milagros often pointed out that it was not only I who had to adapt. The
Iticoteri were just as baffled by my odd behavior: To them I was neither woman,
man, or child, and as such they did not quite know what to think of me or where
they could fit me in.
Old Hayama emerged from her hut. In a high-pitched voice she told the
children to leave me alone. "Her stomach is still empty," she said.
Putting her arm around my waist, she led me to the hearth in her hut.
Making sure not to step on or collide with any of the aluminum and
enamel cooking pots (acquired through trade with other settlements), the
tortoise shells, gourds, and baskets scattered on the ground, I sat across from
Hayama. I extended my legs fully, in the way of the Iticoteri women, and
scratching the head of her pet parrot, I waited for the food.
"Eat," she said, handing me a baked plantain on a broken
calabash. Attentively the old woman watched as I chewed with my mouth open,
smacking my lips repeatedly. She smiled, content that I was fully appreciating
the soft sweet plantain.
Hayama had been introduced to me by Milagros as Angelica's sister. Every
time I looked at her I tried to find some resemblance to the frail old woman I
had lost in the forest. About five feet four, Hayama was tall for an Iticoteri
woman. Not only was she physically different from Angelica, but she did not
have her sister's lightness of spirit. There was a harshness to Hayama's voice
and manner that often made me feel uncomfortable. And her heavy, drooping
eyelids gave her face a peculiarly sinister expression.
"You stay here with me until Milagros returns," the old woman
said, serving me another baked plantain.
I stuffed the hot fruit in my mouth so I would not have to answer.
Milagros had introduced me to his brother-in-law Arasuwe who was the headman of
the Iticoteri, as well as to the other members of the settlement. However, it
was Ritimi who, by hanging my hammock in the hut she shared with Etewa and
their two children, had made it known that I belonged to her. "The white
girl sleeps here," she had said to Milagros, explaining that little Texoma
and Sisiwe would have their hammocks hung around Tutemi's hearth in the
adjoining hut.
No one had interfered with Ritimi's scheme. Silently, a smile of gentle
mockery on his face, Etewa had watched as Ritimi rushed between their hut and
Tutemi's, rearranging the hammocks in the customary triangle around the fire.
On a small loft built between the back poles supporting the dwelling, she
placed my knapsack, amidst bark boxes, an assortment of baskets, an ax, and
gourds with onoto, seeds, and roots.
Ritimi's self-assuredness stemmed not only from the fact that she was
the headman Arasuwe's oldest daughter- by his first wife, a daughter of old
Hayama, now dead- and that she was Etewa's first and favorite wife; but also
because Ritimi knew that in spite of her quick temper everyone in the shabono
respected and liked her.
"No more," I pleaded with Hayama as she took another plantain
from the fire. "My belly is full." Pulling up my T-shirt, I pushed
out my stomach so she could see how filled it looked.
"You need to grow fat around your bones," the old woman said,
mashing up the banana with her fingers. "Your breasts are as small as a
child's." Giggling, she pulled my T-shirt up further. "No man will
ever want you- he'll be afraid to hurt himself on the bones."
Opening my eyes wide in mock horror, I pretended to gobble down the
mush. "I'll surely get fat and beautiful eating your food," I said
with my mouth full.
Still wet from her river bath, Ritimi came into the hut combing her hair
with a densely thistled pod. Sitting next to me, she put her arms around my
neck, and planted resounding kisses on my face. I had to restrain myself from
laughing. The Iticoteri's kisses tickled me. They kissed differently: Each time
they put their mouth against my cheek and neck, they vibrated their lips while
sonorously ejecting air.
"You are not moving the white girl's hammock in here," Ritimi
said, looking at her grandmother. The certainty of her tone was not matched by
the inquiring softness of her dark eyes.
Not wanting to be the cause of an argument, I made it clear that it did
not make much difference where my hammock hung. Since there were no walls
between the huts, we practically lived together. Hayama's hut stood on Tutemi's
left, and on our right was Arasuwe the headman's, which he shared with his
oldest wife and three of his smallest children. His other two wives and their
respective offspring occupied adjacent huts.
Ritimi fixed her gaze on me, a pleading expression in her eyes.
"Milagros asked me to take care of you," she said, running the
thistled pod through my hair, softly, so as not to scratch my scalp.
After what seemed an interminable silence, Hayama finally said,
"You can leave your hammock where it is, but you will eat here with
me."
It was a good arrangement, I thought. Etewa already had four mouths to
feed. Hayama, on the other hand, was taken good care of by her youngest son.
Judging by the amount of animal skulls and plantains hanging from the thatched
palm roof, her son was a good hunter and cultivator. Other than the baked
plantains eaten in the morning, there was only one meal, in the late afternoon,
when families gathered together to eat. People snacked throughout the day on
whatever was available- fruit, nuts, or such delicacies as roasted ants and
grubs.
Ritimi also seemed pleased with the eating arrangement. Smiling, she
walked over to our hut and pulled down the basket she had given me which was
hanging above my hammock, then took out my notepad and pencil. "Now let us
work," she said in a commanding tone.
In the days that followed Ritimi taught me about her people as Milagros
had done for the past six months. He had set up a few hours each day for what I
referred to as formal instruction.
At first I had great difficulty in learning the language. Not only did I
find it to be heavily nasal, but it was extremely difficult to understand
people when they talked with wads of tobacco in their mouths. I tried to devise
some sort of a comparative grammar, but gave it up when I realized that not
only did I not have the proper linguistic training, but the more I tried to be
rational about learning their language, the less I could speak.
My best teachers were the children. Although they pointed things out to
me, and greatly enjoyed giving me words to repeat, they made no conscious
effort to explain anything. With them I was able to rattle on, totally
uninhibited about making mistakes. After Milagros's departure, there was still
much I did not comprehend, yet I was astonished by how well I managed to
communicate with others, reading correctly the inflection of their voices, the
expression on their faces, and the eloquent movements of their hands and
bodies.
During those hours of formal instruction, Ritimi took me to visit the
women in the different huts, and I was allowed to ask questions to my heart's
content. Baffled by my curiosity, the women talked freely, as if they were
playing a game. They patiently explained again and again whatever I did not
understand.
I was grateful Milagros had set that precedent. Not only was curiosity
regarded as bad manners, but it went against their will to be questioned. Yet
Milagros had lavishly indulged me in what he called my eccentric whim, stating
that the more I knew about the language and customs of the Iticoteri, the
quicker I would feel at home with them.
It soon became apparent that I did not need to ask too many direct
questions. Often the most casual remark on my part was reciprocated by a flow
of information I would not have dreamed of eliciting.
Each day just before nightfall, aided by Ritimi and Tutemi, I would go
over the data gathered during the day, and try to order it under some kind of
classificatory scheme such as social structure, cultural values, subsistence
techniques, and other universal categories of human social behavior.
However, to my great disappointment, there was one subject Milagros had
not touched upon: shamanism. I had observed from my hammock two curing
sessions, of which I had written detailed accounts.
"Arasuwe is a great shapori," Milagros had said to me
as I watched my first curing ritual.
"Does he invoke the help of the spirits when he chants?" I
asked as I watched Milagros's brother-in-law massage, suck, and rub the
prostrate body of a child.
Milagros had given me an outraged look. "There are things one
doesn't talk about." He had gotten up abruptly, and before walking out of
the hut had added, "Don't ask about these things. If you do, you will run
into serious trouble."
I had not been surprised by his response, but I had been unprepared for
his outright anger. I wondered if his refusal to talk about the subject was
because I was a woman, or because shamanism was a taboo topic. I did not dare
to find out at the time. Being a woman, white, and alone was precarious enough.
I was aware that in most societies knowledge regarding shamanistic and
curing practices are never revealed except to the initiates. During Milagros's
absence I did not mention the word shamanism once but spent hours deliberating
over what would be the best way to learn about it without arousing any anger
and suspicion.
From my notes on the two sessions it became evident that the Iticoteri
believed the shapori's body underwent a change when under the influence
of the hallucinogenic snuff epena. That is, the shaman acted under the
assumption that his human body transformed itself into a super-natural body.
Thus he made contact with the spirits in the forest. My obvious approach would
be to arrive at an understanding of shamanism via the body- not as an object
determined by psychochemical laws, holistic forces in nature, the environment,
or the psyche itself; but through an understanding of the body as lived
experience, the body as an expressive unity known through performance.
Most studies on shamanism, including mine, have focused on the
psychotherapeutic and social aspects of healing. I thought that my approach
would not only provide a novel explanation but would furnish me with a way of
learning about curing without becoming suspect. Questions concerning the body
need not necessarily be associated with shamanism. I had no doubt that little
by little I would retrieve the necessary data without the Iticoteri ever being
aware of what I was really after.
Any pangs of conscience I felt regarding the dishonesty of my task were
quickly stilled by repeating to myself that my work was important for the
understanding of non-Western healing practices. The strange, often bizarre
customs of shamanism would become understandable in the light of a different interpretational
context, thus furthering anthropological knowledge in general.
"You haven't worked for two days," Ritimi<said to me one
afternoon. "You haven't asked about last night's songs and dances. Don't
you know they are important? If we don't sing and dance the hunters will return
without meat for the feast." Scowling, she threw the notepad into my lap.
"You haven't even painted in your book."
"I'm resting for a few days," I said, clutching the notepad
against my breast as if it were the dearest thing I possessed. I had no
intention of letting her know that every precious page was to be filled
exclusively with data on shamanism.
Ritimi took my hands in hers, examined them intently, then, assuming a
very serious expression, commented, "They look very tired- they need
rest."
We burst out laughing. Ritimi had always been baffled that I considered
decorating my book to be work. To her work meant digging weeds in the garden,
collecting firewood, and repairing the roof of the shabono.
"I liked the dances and songs very much," I said. "I
recognized your voice- it was beautiful."
Ritimi beamed at me. "I sing very well." There was a charming
candor and assurance in her statement; she was not boasting but only stating a
fact. "I'm sure the hunters will return with plenty of game to feed the
guests at the feast."
Nodding in agreement, I looked for a twig, then began to sketch a human
figure on the soft dirt. "This is the body of a white person," I said
as I sketched the main organs and bones. "I wonder how the body of an
Iticoteri looks?"
"You must be very tired to ask such a stupid question," Ritimi
said, staring at me as if I were dim-witted. She stood up and began to dance,
chanting in a loud melodious voice: "This is my head, this is my arm, this
is my breast, this is my stomach, this is my..."
In no time at all, attracted by Ritimi's antics, a group of women and
men gathered around us. Squealing and laughing, they made obscene remarks about
each other's bodies. Some of the adolescent boys were laughing so hard, they
rolled on the ground, holding their penises.
"Can anyone draw a body the way I drew mine?" I asked.
Several responded to this challenge. Grabbing a piece of wood, a twig,
or a broken bow, they began to draw on the dirt. Their drawings differed
markedly from each other's, not only because of the obvious sexual differences,
which they made sure to emphasize, but because all the men's bodies were
depicted with tiny figures inside the chest.
I could hardly hide my delight. I thought these must be the spirits I
had heard Arasuwe summon with his chant before he began the curing session.
"What are these?" I asked casually.
"The hekuras of the forest who live in a man's chest,"
one of the men said.
"Are all men shapori?"
"All men have hekuras in their chests," the man said.
"But only a real shapori can make use of them. Only a great shapori
can command his hekuras to aid the sick and counteract the spells of
enemy shapori." Studying my sketch, he asked, "Why does your
picture have hekuras, even in the legs? Women don't have hekuras."
I explained that these were not spirits, but organs and bones, and they
promptly added them to their own drawings. Content with what I had learned, I
willingly accompanied Ritimi to gather firewood in the forest- the women's most
arduous and unwelcome task. They could never get enough wood, for the fires
were never allowed to die.
That evening, as she had done every night since I arrived at the
settlement, Ritimi examined my feet for thorns and splinters. Satisfied that
there were none, she rubbed them clean with her hands.
"I wonder if the bodies of the shapori go through some kind
of transformation when they are under the influence of epena," I
said. It was important to have it confirmed in their own words since the
original premise of my theoretical scheme was that the shaman operated under
certain assumptions concerning the body. I needed to know if these assumptions
were shared by the group, and if they were of a conscious or unconscious
nature.
"Did you see Iramamowe yesterday?" Ritimi asked. "Did you
see him walk? His feet didn't touch the ground. He is a powerful shapori.
He became the great jaguar."
"He didn't cure anyone," I said glumly. It disappointed me
that Arasuwe's brother was considered a great shaman. I had seen him beat his
wife on two occasions.
No longer interested in pursuing the conversation, Ritimi turned away
from me, and began to get ready for our evening ritual. Lifting the basket that
held my belongings from the small loft at the back of the hut, she placed it on
the ground. One by one she took out each item and held it above her head,
waiting for me to identify it. As soon as I did she repeated the name in
Spanish, then in English, starting a nocturnal chorus as the headman's wives,
and several other women who each night gathered in our hut, echoed the foreign
words.
I relaxed in my hammock as Tutemi's fingers parted my hair searching for
imaginary lice: I was certain I did not have any- not yet. Tutemi appeared to
be five or six years younger than Ritimi, whom I believed to be twenty. She was
taller and heavier, her stomach round with her first pregnancy. She was shy and
retiring. Often I had discovered a sad, faraway look in her dark eyes, and at
times she talked to herself as if she were thinking aloud.
"Lice! Lice!" Tutemi shouted, interrupting the women's
Spanish-English chant.
"Let me see," I said, convinced that she was joking. "Are
lice white?" I asked, examining the tiny white bugs on her finger. I had
always believed they were dark.
"White girl, white lice," Tutemi said mischievously. With
gleeful delight she crunched them one by one between her teeth and swallowed
them. "All lice are white."
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 7
It was the day of the feast. Since noon I had been under the
ministrations of Ritimi and Tutemi, who took great trouble to beautify me. With
a sharpened piece of bamboo, Tutemi cut my hair in the customary style, and
with a knife-sharp grass blade she shaved the crown of my head. The hair on my
legs she removed with an abrasive paste made from ashes, vegetable resin, and
dirt.
Ritimi painted wavy lines across my face, and intricate geometric
patterns over my entire body with a piece of chewed-up twig. My legs, red and
swollen from the depilation, were left unpainted. On my looped earrings, which
I claimed could not be removed, she tied a pink flower together with tufts of
white feathers. Around my upper arms, wrists, and ankles she fastened red
cotton strands.
"Oh no. You're not going to do that," I said, jumping out of
Ritimi's reach.
"It won't hurt," she assured me, then asked in an exasperated
manner, "Do you want to look like an old woman? It won't hurt,"
Ritimi insisted, coming after me.
"Leave her alone," Etewa said, reaching for a bark box on the
loft. He looked at me, then burst into laughter. His big white teeth and his
squinting eyes seemed to mock my embarrassment. "She doesn't have much
pubic hair."
Gratefully I tied the red cotton belt Ritimi had given me around my hips
and laughed with him. Making sure I fastened the wide flat belt in such a
manner that the fringed ends covered the offending hair, I said to Ritimi,
"Now you can't see a thing."
Ritimi was not impressed, but gave an indifferent shrug, and continued
examining her pubis for any hair.
Dark circles and arabesques [* arabesques-
ornaments that interlaces simulated foliage in an intricate design]
decorated Etewa's brown face and body. Over his waistband he tied a thick round
belt made of red cotton yarn: Around his upper arms he fastened narrow bands of
monkey fur to which Ritimi attached the black and white feathers Etewa had
selected from the bark box.
Dipping her fingers in the sticky resin paste one of Arasuwe's wives had
prepared in the morning, Ritimi wiped them over Etewa's hair. Immediately
Tutemi took a handful of white down feathers from another box and plastered
them on his head until he looked as if he were wearing a white fur cap.
"When will the feast start?" I asked, watching a group of men
haul away enormous piles of plantain skins from the already cleaned, weed-free
clearing.
"When the plantain soup and all the meat is ready," Etewa
said, strutting about, making sure we could see him from every angle. His lips
were twisted in a smile, and his humorous eyes still squinted. He looked at me,
then removed the wad of tobacco from his mouth. Placing it on a piece of broken
calabash on the ground, he spat over his hammock in a sharp, strong arc. With
the assurance of someone who feels pleased and delighted with his own looks, he
turned toward us once more, then walked out of the hut.
Little Texoma picked up the slimy quid. Stuffing it into her mouth she
began to suck on it with the same gratification I would have felt biting into a
piece of chocolate. Her small face, disfigured with half of the wad protruding
from her mouth, looked grotesque. Grinning, she climbed into my hammock, and
promptly fell asleep.
In the next hut I could see the headman Arasuwe lying in his hammock.
From there he supervised the cooking of plantains and the roasting of the meat
brought by the hunters who had left a few days before. Like workers on an
assembly line, several men had in record time disposed of the numerous bundles
of plantains. One sank his sharp teeth into the peel, cutting it open: Another
pried the hard skin away, then threw the fruit into the bark trough Etewa had
built early that morning: A third watched over the three small fires he had lit
underneath the trough.
"How come only men are cooking?" I asked Tutemi. I knew women
never cooked large game, but I was baffled that none of them had even gotten
close to the plantains.
"Women are too careless," Arasuwe answered for Tutemi as he
stepped into the hut. His eyes seemed to challenge me to contradict his
statement. Smiling, he added, "They get distracted too easily, and let the
fire burn through the bark."
Before I had a chance to say anything, he was back in his hammock.
"Did he only come in to say that?" I asked.
"No," Ritimi said. "He came to look you over."
I was reluctant to ask if I had passed Arasuwe's inspection lest I
remind her of my unplucked pubic hair. "Look," I said, "visitors
are arriving."
"That's Puriwariwe, Angelica's oldest brother," Ritimi said,
pointing to an old man among the group of men. "He is a feared shapori.
He was killed once but didn't die."
"Killed once but didn't die." I repeated this slowly,
wondering if I was supposed to take it literally, or if it was a figure of
speech.
"Killed in a raid," Etewa said, walking into the hut.
"Dead, dead, dead, but didn't die." He spoke distinctly, moving his
lips in an exaggerated manner as if he could thus make me understand the true
meaning of his words.
"Are there still raids taking place?"
No one answered my question. Etewa reached for a long hollow cane and a
small gourd hidden behind one of the rafters, then left us to greet the
visitors who stood in the middle of the clearing facing Arasuwe's hut.
More men walked into the compound and I wondered aloud if any women had
been invited to the feast.
"They are outside," Ritimi said. "With the rest of the
guests, decorating themselves while the men take epena."
The headman Arasuwe, his brother Iramamowe, Etewa, and six other
Iticoteri men- all decorated with feathers, fur, and red onoto paste-
squatted face to face with the visitors who were already on their haunches.
They talked for a while, avoiding one another's eyes.
Arasuwe unfastened the small gourd hanging around his neck, poured some
of the brownish-green powder into one end of his hollow cane, then faced
Angelica's brother. Placing the end of the cane against the shaman's nose,
Arasuwe blew the hallucinogenic powder with great force into one of the old
man's nostrils. The shaman did not flinch, groan, or stagger off, as I had seen
other men do. But his eyes did become bleary and soon green slime dripped from
his nose and mouth, which he flicked away with a twig. Slowly he began to
chant. I did not catch his words; they were spoken too softly, and the groans
of the others drowned them out.
Glassy-eyed, with mucus and saliva dripping down his chin and chest,
Arasuwe jumped into the air. The red macaw feathers hanging from his ears and
arms fluttered around him. He jumped repeatedly, touching the ground with a
lightness that seemed incredible in someone so stockily built. His face seemed
to be carved in stone. Straight bangs hung over a jutting brow. His wide, flaring
nose and his snarling mouth reminded me of one of the four guardian kings I had
once seen in a temple in
A few of the men had staggered away from the rest of the group, holding
their heads as they vomited. The old man's chant became louder; one by one the
men gathered once more around him. Quietly they squatted, their folded arms
over their knees, their eyes lost on some invisible spot only they could see,
until the shapori finished his song.
Each of the Iticoteri men returned to his hut accompanied by a guest.
Arasuwe had invited Puriwariwe. Etewa walked into his hut with one of the young
men who had vomited. Without glancing at us, the guest stretched in Etewa's
hammock as if it were his own: He did not look older than sixteen.
"Why didn't all the Iticoteri men take epena or decorate
themselves?" I whispered to Ritimi, who was busy cleaning and repainting
Etewa's face with onoto.
"Tomorrow they will all be decorated. More guests will come in the
next few days," she said. "Today is for Angelica's relatives."
"But Milagros isn't here."
"He came this morning."
"This morning!" I repeated in disbelief. The young man lying
in Etewa's hammock opened his eyes wide, looked at me, then shut them again.
Texoma awoke and began to wail. I tried to calm her by pushing the tobacco
quid, which had fallen to the ground, back into her mouth. Refusing it, she
began to cry even louder. I handed her to Tutemi, who rocked the child back and
forth until she was still.
Why had Milagros not let me know he was back? I wondered, feeling angry
and hurt. Tears of self-pity welled up in my eyes.
"Look. He's coming," Tutemi said, pointing toward the shabono's
entrance.
Followed by a group of men, women, and children, Milagros walked
directly toward Arasuwe's hut. Red and black lines circled his eyes and mouth.
Spellbound, I gaped at the black monkey tail wrapped around his head, from
which multicolored macaw feathers dangled, matching the ones that hung from his
fur armbands. Instead of the festive cotton belt, he wore a bright red
loincloth.
An inexplicable uneasiness overtook me as he approached my hammock. I
felt my heart pound with fear as I gazed up into his tense, strained face.
"Bring your gourd," he said in Spanish, then turned around,
and walked toward the trough filled with plantain soup.
Without paying the slightest attention to me, everyone followed Milagros
into the clearing. Speechless, I reached for my basket, set it on the ground
before me, and took out all my possessions. At the bottom, wrapped in my
knapsack, was the smooth, ochre-colored calabash with Angelica's ashes. I had
often wondered what I was supposed to do with it. Ritimi had never touched the
knapsack when she went through my belongings.
The gourd felt heavy in my stiff, cold hands. It had been so light when
I had carried it tied around my waist in the forest.
"Empty it into the trough," Milagros said. Again he spoke in
Spanish.
"It's filled with soup," I said stupidly. I felt my voice
quiver, and my hands were so unsteady I thought I would not be able to pull the
resin plug from the calabash.
"Empty it," Milagros repeated, tilting my arm gently. I
squatted awkwardly, and slowly poured the burnt, finely powdered bones into the
soup. I stared hypnotically at the dark heap they formed on the thick yellow surface.
The smell made me nauseous. The ashes did not submerge. Milagros poured the
contents of his own gourd on top of them. The women began to wail and cry. Was
I supposed to join them? I wondered. I felt certain no matter how hard I tried
not a single tear would come to my eyes.
Startled by sharp cracking sounds, I straightened up. With the handle of
his machete, Milagros had split the two gourds into perfect halves. Next he
mixed the powder into the soup, blending it so well that the yellow pap turned into
a dirty gray.
I watched him bring the soup-filled gourd to his mouth, then empty it in
one long gulp. Wiping his chin with the back of his hand, he filled it once
more, and handed the ladle to me.
Horrified, I looked at the faces around me: Intently they watched every
movement and gesture I made, with eyes that no longer seemed human. The women
had stopped wailing. I could hear the accelerated beats of my heart. Swallowing
repeatedly in an effort to overcome the dryness in my mouth, I held out a shaking
hand. Then I shut my eyes tightly, and gulped down the heavy liquid. To my
surprise the sweet, slightly salty soup glided smoothly down my throat. A faint
smile relaxed Milagros's tense face as he took the empty gourd from me. I
turned around, and slowly walked away as ripples of nausea tightened my
stomach.
High-pitched chatter and squeals of laughter issued from the hut.
Sisiwe, surrounded by his friends, sat on the ground, showing them each one of
my personal belongings, which I had left scattered around. My nausea dissolved
into rage as I saw my notepads smoldering on the hearth.
Startled, the children laughed at me as I burned my fingers trying to
retrieve what was left of the pads. Slowly the bemused expressions on their
faces changed to amazement when they realized I was crying.
I ran out of the shabono down the path toward the river,
clutching the burnt pages to my breast. "I'll ask Milagros to take me back
to the mission," I mumbled, wiping the tears from my face. The idea struck
me as so absurd that I burst out laughing. How could I face Father Coriolano
with a shaven tonsure.
Squatting at the edge of the water, I stuck my finger in my throat and
tried to vomit. It was no use. Exhausted, I lay face up on a flat boulder
jutting over the water and examined what was left of my notes. A cool breeze
blew my hair. I turned on my stomach. The warmth of the stone filled me with a
soft laziness that melted all my anger and weariness away.
I looked for my face in the clear water, but the wind ruffled away all
reflection from the surface. The river gave back nothing. Trapped in the dark
pools along the bank, the brilliant green of the vegetation was a cloudy mass.
"Let your notes drift with the river," Milagros said, sitting
beside me on the rock. His sudden presence did not startle me. I had been
expecting him.
With a slight movement of my head I silently assented, and let my hand
dangle over the rock. My fingers unclasped. I heard a faint splash as the
scorched pad fell into the water. I felt as if a burden had been lifted off my
back as I watched my notes drift downriver. "You didn't go to the
mission," I said. "Why didn't you tell me you had to bring Angelica's
relatives?"
Milagros did not answer but stared out across the river.
"Did you tell the children to burn my notes?" I asked.
He turned his face toward me but remained silent. The contraction of his
mouth revealed a vague disillusionment I failed to comprehend. When he spoke at
last it was in a soft tone that seemed forced from him against his will.
"The Iticoteri as well as other settlements have moved over the years
deeper and deeper into the forest, away from the mission and the big rivers
where the white man passes by." He turned to look at a lizard crawling
uneasily over the stone. For an instant it stared at us with lidless eyes, then
slithered off. "Other settlements have chosen to do the opposite,"
Milagros continued. "They seek the goods the racionales offer. They
have failed to understand that only the forest can give them security. Too
late, they will discover that to the white man the Indian is no better than a
dog."
He knew, he said, having lived all his life between the two worlds, that
the Indians did not have a chance in the world of the white man, no matter what
a few individuals of either race did or believed to the contrary.
I talked about anthropologists and their work, the importance of
recording customs and beliefs, which as he had mentioned on a previous occasion
were doomed to be forgotten.
The hint of a mocking smile twisted his lips. "I know about
anthropologists; I once worked for one of them as an informant," he said,
and began to laugh: It was a high-pitched laughter, but there was no emotion in
his face. His eyes were not laughing but shone with animosity.
I was taken aback because his anger seemed directed at me. "You
knew I was an anthropologist," I said hesitantly. "You yourself
helped me fill part of my notebook with information about the Iticoteri. It was
you who took me from hut to hut, who encouraged others to talk to me, to teach
me your language and your customs."
Impassively Milagros sat there, his painted face an expressionless mask.
I felt like shaking him. It was as if he had not heard my words. Milagros
stared at the trees, already black against the fading sky: I looked up into his
face. His head was silhouetted against the sky. I saw the flaming macaw
feathers and purple manes of monkey fur as if the sky were streaked with them.
Milagros shook his head sadly. "You know you didn't come here to do
your work. You could've done that much better at one of the settlements close
to the mission." Tears formed at the edge of his eyelids: They clung to
his stubby lashes, shining, trembling. "Knowledge of our ways and beliefs
was given to you so you would move with the rhythm of our lives; so you would
feel secure and protected. It was a gift, not to be used or to be given to
others."
I could not shift my gaze away from his bright moist eyes: There was no
resentment in them. I saw my face mirrored in his black pupils. Angelica's and
Milagros's gift. I finally understood. I had been guided through the forest,
not to see their people with the eyes of an anthropologist- sifting, judging,
analyzing all I saw and heard- but to see them as Angelica would have seen
them, for one last time. She too had known that her time and the time of her
people was coming to an end.
I shifted my gaze to the water. I had not felt my watch falling in the
river, but there it was lying amidst the pebbles, an unstable vision of tiny
illuminated spots coming together and moving apart in the water. One of the
metal links on the watchband must have broken, I thought, but made no effort to
retrieve the watch, my last link with the world beyond the forest.
Milagros's voice broke into my reveries. "A long time ago at a
settlement close to the big river, I worked for an anthropologist. He didn't
live with us in the shabono, but built himself a hut outside the log
palisade. It had walls and a door that locked from the inside and the outside."
Milagros paused for a moment, wiping the tears that had dried around his
wrinkled eyes, then asked me, "Do you want to know what I did to
him?"
"Yes," I said hesitantly.
"I gave him epena." Milagros paused for a moment, and
smiled as if he were enjoying my apprehension. "This anthropologist acted
like everyone else who inhaled the sacred powder. He said he had the same
visions as the shaman."
"There is nothing strange about that," I said, a little piqued
by Milagros's smug tone.
"Yes, there is," he said, and laughed. "Because all I
blew up his nostrils were ashes. All ashes do is make your nose bleed."
"Is that what you are going to give me?" I asked, and flushed
at the obvious self-pity that permeated my voice.
"I gave you part of Angelica's soul," he said softly, helping
me to my feet.
The shabono's boundaries seemed to dissolve against the darkness.
I could see well in the faint light. The people gathered around the trough
reminded me of forest creatures, their shining eyes smeared with the light from
the fires.
I sat next to Hayama, and accepted the piece of meat she offered me.
Ritimi rubbed her head against my arm. Little Texoma sat in my lap. I felt
content, protected by the familiar odors and sounds. Intently I watched the
faces around me, wondering how many of them were related to Angelica. There was
not a single face resembling hers. Even Milagros's features, which had once
seemed so much like Angelica's, looked different. Perhaps I had already
forgotten what she looked like, I thought sadly. Then on a beam of light
extending from the fire I saw her smiling face. I shook my head, trying to
erase the vision, and found myself staring at the old shaman Puriwariwe,
squatting a bit apart from the group.
He was a small, thin, dried-up man with a brownish-yellow skin; the
muscles of his arms and legs were already shrunken. But his hair was still
dark, curling slightly around his head. He was not adorned: All he wore was a
bowstring around his waist. Sparse hairs hung from his chin, and the vestiges
of a mustache shadowed the edges of his upper lip. Under heavy wrinkled lids,
his eyes were like tiny lights, reflecting the gleam of the fire.
Yawning, he opened a cavernous mouth where yellowed teeth hung like
stalagmites. Laughter and conversation ceased as he began to chant in a voice
that gave the impression of belonging to another time and place. He possessed
two voices: The one coming from his throat was high-pitched and wrathful; and
the other, coming from his belly, was deep and soothing.
Long after everyone had retired to their hammocks, and the fires had
burned down, Puriwariwe remained crouched in front of a small fire in the
middle of the clearing. He sang in a low-keyed voice.
I got up from my hammock, and squatted next to him, trying to bring my
buttocks to touch the earth. According to the Iticoteri it was the only way one
could squat for hours, and be totally relaxed. Puriwariwe looked at me,
acknowledging my gaze, then stared into space as though I had disturbed his
train of thought. He did not move and I had the odd sensation he had fallen
asleep. Then he shifted his buttocks on the ground without relaxing his legs,
and gradually began to chant once more in a voice that was but a faint murmur.
I was not able to understand a single word.
It began to rain and I returned to my hammock. The drops pattered softly
onto the thatched palm roof, creating a strange, trancelike rhythm. When I
looked again toward the center of the clearing, the old man had disappeared;
and as dawn lit up the forest, I felt myself slip into a timeless sleep.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 8
The red sunset tinted the air with a fiery glow. The sky was aflame for
a few minutes before it dissolved rapidly into darkness. It was the third day
of the feast. From my hammock, together with Etewa's and Arasuwe's children, I
watched the sixty or so men, Iticoteri as well as their guests, who without
food or rest had been dancing since noon in the middle of the clearing. To the
rhythm of their own shrill shouts, to the clacking of their bows and arrows,
they turned one way, then another, stepping backward and forward, a throbbing,
never-ending beat of sound and motion, an undulating array of feathers and
bodies, a blur of crimson and black designs.
A full moon rose above the treetops, casting a radiant light over the
clearing. For a moment there was a lull in the unceasing noise and movement.
Then the dancers broke out in savage, strangled cries that filled the air with
an ear-piercing sound as they flung aside their bows and arrows.
Running inside the huts, the dancers grabbed burning logs from the
hearths, and with a frenzied violence banged them against the poles holding up
the shabono. All sorts of crawling insects scurried for safety in the
palm-thatch roof before they fell like a cascade to the ground.
Terrified that the huts might come crashing down, or that the flying
embers might set the roofs on fire, I ran outside with the children. The earth
trembled under the men's stomping feet as they trampled out all the hearths in
the huts. Brandishing the lighted logs high above their heads, they ran out
into the center of the clearing, and resumed their dance with mounting frenzy.
They circled the plaza, their heads wagging back and forth like marionettes
whose strings had broken. The soft white feathers in their hair fluttered onto
their sweat-glistening shoulders.
The moon moved behind a black cloud: Only the sparks of the fiery logs
illuminated the clearing. The men's shrill cries rose to a higher pitch.
Wielding their clubs overhead, they invited the women to join in the dance.
Shouting and laughing, the women darted back and forth, expertly dodging
the swinging logs. The frenzy of the dancers mounted to a compelling intensity,
converging toward a final climax as young girls, holding clusters of yellow
palm fruit in their upraised arms, joined the crowd, their bodies swaying with
sensual abandon.
I was not sure if it was Ritimi who grabbed my hand and pulled me into
the dance, for in the next instant I stood alone among the ecstatic faces
whirling around me. Caught between shadows and bodies, I tried to reach old
Hayama standing in the safety of a hut, but I did not know in which direction
to move. I did not recognize the man who, brandishing a log above his head,
pushed me back amidst the dancers.
I cried out. Terror-stricken, I realized it was as if my cries were
mute, exhausted in countless echoes reverberating inside me. I felt a sharp
pain on the side of my head, right behind my ear, as I fell face down on the
ground. I opened my eyes, trying to see through the shadows thickening about
me, and wondered if those frenzied feet whirling and leaping in the air
realized I had fallen amidst them. Then there was darkness, punctuated by
pinpoints of light darting in and out of my head like glowworms in the night.
I was vaguely aware of someone dragging me away from the trampling
dancers to a hammock. I forced my eyes open, but the figure hovering above me
remained blurred. I felt a pair of gentle, slightly shaky hands touch my face,
and the back of my head. For an instant I thought it was Angelica. But upon
hearing that unmistakable voice coming from the depths of his stomach, I knew
it was the old shaman Puriwariwe, chanting. I tried to focus my eyes, but his
face remained distorted, as if I were seeing it through layers of water. I
wanted to ask him where he had been, for I had not seen him since the first day
of the feast, but the words were nothing but visions in my head.
I don't know whether I had been unconscious or whether I had slept, but
when I awoke Puriwariwe was no longer there. Instead I saw Etewa's face bending
over mine, so close I could have touched the red circles on his cheeks, between
his brows, and at the corners of each eye. I stretched out my arm, but there
was no one there. I shut my eyes; the circles danced inside my head like a red
veil in a dark void. I shut them tighter until the image broke into a thousand
fragments. The fire had been relit: It filled the hut with a cozy warmth that
made me feel as if I were wrapped in an opaque cocoon of smoke. Dancing shadows
silhouetted against the darkness were reflected on the golden patina of gourds
hanging from the rafters.
Laughing happily, old Hayama came into the hut, and sat on the ground
beside me. "I thought you would sleep till morning." Raising both
hands to my head, her fingers probed until she found the swollen lump behind my
ear. "It's big," she said. Her weathered features expressed a distant
sorrow: Her eyes held a soft gentle light.
I sat up in the fiber hammock. Only then did I realize I was not in
Etewa's hut.
"Iramamowe's," Hayama said before I had a chance to ask where
I was. "His hut was the closest for Puriwariwe to bring you in after you
were pushed against one of the men's clubs."
The moon had traveled high in the sky. Its pale shimmer spilled into the
clearing. The dancing had ceased, yet an inaudible vibration still hung in the
air.
Shouting, clacking their bows and arrows, a group of men positioned
themselves in a semicircle in front of the hut. Iramamowe and one of the
visitors stepped into the center of the gesticulating men. I could not tell
which settlement the guest was from: I had been unable to distinguish the
various groups who had come and gone since the beginning of the feast.
Iramamowe spread his legs in a firm stance, and raised his left arm over
his head, exposing his chest fully. "Ha, ha, ahaha, aita, aita," he
shouted, tapping his foot on the ground; a fearless cry that was meant to dare
his opponent to strike him.
The young visitor adjusted his distance by measuring his arm length to
Iramamowe's body. He took several dry runs, then with his closed fist delivered
one powerful blow on the left side of Iramamowe's chest.
My body recoiled in shock. I felt nauseous as though the pain had swept
through my own chest. "Why are they fighting?" I asked Hayama.
"They aren't fighting," she said, laughing. "They want to
hear how their hekuras, the life essence that dwells inside their
chests, resound. They want to hear how the hokums vibrate with each
blow."
The crowd cheered enthusiastically. The young visitor stood back, his
chest heaving with excitement, and punched Iramamowe once more. Chin arrogantly
raised, eyes perfectly steady, body stiff in defiance, Iramamowe acknowledged
the cheers of the men. It was only after the third blow that he broke his
stance. For an instant his lips parted in an appreciative grin, then set once
more in a snarl of indifference and contempt. The persistent tapping of his
foot, Hayama assured me, revealed nothing other than annoyance: His adversary
had not yet struck him hard enough.
With a morbid, righteous kind of satisfaction I hoped Iramamowe felt the
pain of each blow. He deserved it, I thought. Ever since I had seen him strike
his wife, I had built up a resentment against him. Yet, as I watched, I could
not help but admire the gallant way he stood in the middle of the crowd. There
was something childishly defiant in the ramrod straightness of his back, the
manner in which his bruised chest was thrust forward. His round, flat face with
its narrow forehead and flared upper lip appeared so vulnerable as he stared at
the young man in front of him. I wondered if the slight flicker of his brown
eyes betrayed that he was shaken.
With a shattering force the fourth blow landed on Iramamowe's chest. It
reverberated like the rocks that tumbled down the river during a storm.
"I believe I heard his hekuras," I said, certain
Iramamowe's rib had been broken.
"He's waiteri," the Iticoteri and their guests shouted
in unison. With rapt expressions on their faces they bounced up and down on
their haunches, clacking their bows and arrows over their heads.
"Yes. He is a brave one," Hayama repeated, her eyes fixed on
Iramamowe, who, satisfied that his hekuras had resounded potently, stood
erect amidst the cheering men, his bruised chest puffed up with pride.
Silencing the onlookers, the headman Arasuwe stepped toward his brother.
"Now you take Iramamowe's blow," he said to the young man who had
delivered the four punches.
The visitor positioned himself in the same defiant stance in front of
Iramamowe. Blood spilled from the young man's mouth as he collapsed to the
ground after receiving Iramamowe's third blow.
Iramamowe jumped in the air, then began to dance around the fallen man.
Sweat glistened on his face, on the strained muscles of his neck and shoulders.
But his voice sounded clear, vibrant with joy, as he shouted, "Ai ai
aiaiaiai, aiai!"
Two of the visiting women carried the injured man into the empty hammock
next to where Hayama and I sat. One of them cried: The other bent over the man
and began to suck blood and saliva from his mouth until his breath came in
slow, measured gasps.
Iramamowe challenged another of the guests to strike him. After
receiving the first punch he knelt on the ground, from where he dared his
opponent to hit him once more. He spat blood after the next blow. The guest got
down on his haunches facing Iramamowe. Wrapping their arms around each other,
they embraced.
"You hit well," Iramamowe said, his voice a barely audible
whisper. "My hekuras are full of life, potent and happy. Our blood
has flown. This is good. Our sons will be strong. Our gardens and the fruits in
the forest will ripen to sweetness."
The guest voiced similar thoughts. Vowing eternal friendship, he
promised Iramamowe a machete he had acquired from a group of Indians who had
settled near the big river.
"I have to watch this one more closely," Hayama said, walking
out of the hut. Her youngest son was one of the men who had stepped into the
circle for the next round of ritual blows.
I did not want to remain with the injured visitor in Iramamowe's hut.
The two women who had brought him in had left to ask the shaman from their own
group to prepare some medicine that would ease the pain in the man's chest.
My head began to spin as I stood up. Slowly I walked through the empty
huts until I reached Etewa's. I stretched in my cotton hammock. An eerie
silence closed in on me as if I were falling into a light faint.
I was awakened by angry shouts. Someone said, "Etewa, you have
slept with my woman without my permission." The voice was so close it was
as if he had spoken into my ear. Startled, I sat up. A group of men and
giggling women had gathered in front of the hut. Etewa, standing perfectly
still in the middle of the crowd, his face an unreadable mask, did not deny the
charge. Suddenly he shouted, "You and your family have eaten like hungry
dogs for the last three days." It was a deplorable accusation; visitors
were given whatever they asked; for during a feast the hosts' gardens and
hunting territory were at their guests' disposal. To be insulted in such a
manner implied that the man had taken advantage of his privileged status.
"Ritimi, get me my nabrushi," Etewa shouted, scowling at the
angry young man in front of him.
Sobbing, Ritimi ran into the hut, picked up the club, and without
looking at her husband handed the four-foot-long stick to him. "I can't
watch," she said, throwing herself into my hammock. I put my arms around
her, trying to comfort her. Had it not been that she was so distressed I would
have laughed. Not in the least concerned with Etewa's infidelity, Ritimi was afraid
the night might end with a serious fight. Watching the two angry men shout at
each other, and the crowd's excited reaction, I could not help but be alarmed
in turn.
"Hit me on the head," the enraged visitor demanded. "Hit
me, if you are a man. Let's see if we can laugh together again. Let's see if my
anger passes."
"We are both angry," Etewa shouted with insolent vigor,
hefting the nabrushi in his hand. "We must appease our wrath."
Then, without further ado, he delivered a solid whack on the man's shaven
tonsure.
Blood gushed from the wound. Slowly it spread over the man's face until
it was covered like some grotesque red mask. His legs shook, almost buckling
under him. But he did not fall.
"Hit me and we'll be friends again," Etewa shouted belligerently,
silencing the aroused crowd. He leaned on his club, lowered his head, and
waited. When the man struck him, Etewa was momentarily dazed; blood flowed down
his brow and lashes, forcing him to close his eyes. The explosive yells of the
men broke the silence, a chorus of approving shouts demanding they hit each
other again.
With a mixture of fascination and disgust I watched the two men facing
each other. Their muscles were drawn tightly, the veins in their necks
distended, their eyes bright, as if rejuvenated by the raging flow of blood.
Their faces, set in contemptuous red masks, betrayed no pain as they stepped
around one another like two injured cocks.
With the back of his hand Etewa wiped the blood obstructing his vision,
then spat. Lifting his club, he let it fall on his opponent's head, who without
uttering a sound collapsed on the ground.
Clicking their tongues, their eyes a bit out of focus, the spectators
emitted fearsome cries. I was certain a fight would break out as the whole shabono
filled with their earpiercing yells. I held on to Ritimi's arm, and was
surprised that her tear-stained face was set in a complacent, almost cheerful
expression. She explained that she could tell by the tone of the men's shouts
that they were no longer concerned with the initial insults. All they were
interested in was to witness the power of each man's hekuras. There were
no winners or losers. If a warrior fell, all it meant was that his hekuras
were not strong enough at the moment.
One of the onlookers emptied a water-filled calabash on the prostrate
guest, pulled his ears, wiped the blood from his face. Then, helping him up, he
handed the half-dazed man his club, and urged him to hit Etewa once more on the
head. The man had barely enough strength to lift the heavy stick; instead of
landing on Etewa's skull, it struck him in the middle of the chest.
Etewa fell to his knees; blood spilled from his mouth, over his lips,
chin, and throat, down his chest and thighs, a red trail seeping into the
earth. "How well you hit," Etewa said in a strangled voice. "Our
blood has flown. We are no longer troubled. We have calmed our wrath."
Ritimi went to Etewa. Sighing loudly, I lay back in my hammock and
closed my eyes. I had seen enough blood for the night. I probed the swollen
area on my head, wondering if I had a slight concussion.
I almost fell from my hammock as someone held on to the liana rope tying
it to one of the poles in the hut. Startled, I looked up into Etewa's bloodied
face. Either he did not see me, or was beyond caring where he rested, for he
just slumped on top of me. The odor of blood, warm and pungent, mingled with
the acrid smell of his skin. Repelled and fascinated, I could not help but
stare at the open gash on his skull, still bleeding, and his swollen purple chest.
I was wondering how I could extricate my legs from under his weight when
Ritimi stepped into the hut carrying a water-filled gourd, which she heated
over the fire.
Expertly she lifted Etewa halfway up, and motioned me to slip behind him
in the hammock so that she could prop him against my raised knees. Gently, she
washed his face and chest clean.
Etewa was perhaps twenty-five, yet with his hair clinging damply to his
forehead, and his lips slightly parted, he looked as helpless as a child in
sleep. It occurred to me that he might die of internal injuries.
"He will be well tomorrow," Ritimi said as if she had guessed
my thoughts. Softly she began to laugh: Her laughter had a ring of childishly
secret delight. "It's good for blood to flow. His hekuras are
strong. He is waiteri."
Etewa opened his eyes, pleased to hear Ritimi's praise. He mumbled
something unintelligible as he gazed into my face.
"Yes. He is waiteri," I agreed with Ritimi.
Tutemi arrived shortly with a dark hot brew.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Medicine," Tutemi said, smiling. She stuck her finger in the
concoction, then put it against my lips. "Puriwariwe made it from roots
and magical plants." A gleam of contentment shone in Tutemi's eyes as she
forced Etewa to drink the bitter-tasting brew. Blood had flown: She was
convinced she would bear a strong, healthy son.
Ritimi examined my legs, which were cut and bruised from being dragged
across the clearing by Puriwariwe, and she washed them with the remaining warm
water. I lay down in Etewa's uncomfortable fiber hammock.
The moon, circled by a yellow haze, had moved until it was almost over
the horizon of trees. A few men were still dancing and singing in the clearing:
Then a cloud hid the moon, obscuring everything in sight. Only the sound of
voices, no longer shrill but a gentle murmur, told that the men were still
there. The moon revealed itself once more, a pale light illuminating the tops
of the trees, and the brown-skinned figures materialized against the darkness,
shadows of long bodies giving substance to the soft clacking of bows and
arrows,
Some of the men sang until a rim of light began to appear over the trees
to the east. Dark purple clouds the color of Etewa's bruised chest covered the
sky. Dew shone on the leaves, on the fringe of the palm fronds hanging around
the huts. The voices began to fade, drifting away on the chilly breeze of dawn.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 9
Planting and sowing was primarily a man's task, yet most women
accompanied their husbands, fathers, and brothers whenever they went to work in
the gardens in the mornings. Besides keeping them company, the women helped
weed, or took the opportunity to collect firewood if new trees had been felled.
For several weeks I had gone with Etewa, Ritimi, and Tutemi to their
plots. The long, arduous hours spent weeding seemed to be wasted, for there
never was any improvement to be seen. The sun and rain favored the growth of
all species impartially, without recognizing human preferences.
Every household had their own area of land separated by the trunks of
felled trees. Etewa's garden was next to Arasuwe's, who cultivated the largest
area among the Iticoteri, for it was from the headman's plot that guests were
fed at a feast.
At first I had recognized nothing but plantains, several kinds of
bananas, and various palm trees scattered throughout the gardens. The palms
were also purposely cultivated for their fruit, each tree belonging to the
individual who planted it. I had been surprised to discover among the tangle of
weeds an assortment of edible roots, such as manioc and sweet potatoes, and a
variety of gourd-bearing vines, cotton, tobacco, and magical plants. Also
growing in the gardens as well as around the shabono were the
pink-flowered and red-podded trees from which the onoto paste was made.
Clusters of the red spiny pods were cut down, shelled, and the bright
crimson seeds, together with the pulpy flesh surrounding them, were placed in a
large water-filled calabash. As it was stirred and crushed, the onoto
was boiled for a whole afternoon. After it had cooled during the night, the
semi-solid mass was wrapped in perforated layers of plantain leaves, then tied
to one of the rafters in the hut to dry. A few days later the red paste was
transferred to small gourds, ready for use.
Ritimi, Tutemi, and Etewa each had their own patches of tobacco and
magical plants in Etewa's garden. Like everyone else's tobacco plots, they were
fenced off with sticks and sharpened bones to discourage intruders. Tobacco was
never taken without permission; quarrels ensued whenever it was. Ritimi had
pointed out several of her magical plants to me. Some were used as aphrodisiacs
and protective agents: Others were employed for malevolent purposes. Etewa
never talked about his magical plants, and Ritimi and Tutemi pretended they did
not know anything about them.
Once I watched Etewa dig up a bulbous root. The following day, before
leaving to hunt, he rubbed his feet and legs with the mashed-up root. For our
evening meal that day we had armadillo meat. "What a powerful plant,"
I had commented. Puzzled, he had regarded me for a long time, then, grinning,
said, "Adoma roots protect one from snake bites."
On another occasion, as I was sitting in the garden with little Sisiwe,
listening to his detailed explanation concerning the variety of edible ants, we
saw his father dig up another of his roots. Etewa crushed the root, mixed its
sap with onoto, then rubbed the substance over his entire body. "A
peccary [* peccary- nocturnal gregarious pig-like wild
animals of North America and
"Even for monkeys?" I asked.
"Monkeys are frightened by terrifying yells," Sisiwe said
knowingly. "Paralyzed, the monkeys can no longer run away and the men can
shoot them."
One morning, almost hidden behind the tangled mass of calabash vines and
weeds, I caught sight of Ritimi. I could only see her head rising behind the
woody stems, pointed leaves, and clusters of white, bell-shaped flowers of the
manioc plants. She seemed to be talking to herself; I could not hear what she
was saying, but her lips moved incessantly, as if she were reciting some
incantation. I wondered if she was charming her tobacco plants to grow taster
or whether she was actually intending to help herself to some from Etewa's
patch, which was next to hers.
Surreptitiously, Ritimi edged her way toward the middle of her own
tobacco plot. Her air of urgency was unmistakable as she snapped branches and
leaves. Looking around, she stuffed them into her basket, then covered them
with banana fronds. Smiling, she rose, hesitated for an instant, then walked
toward me.
I looked up in feigned surprise as I felt her shadow above me.
Ritimi placed her basket on the ground and sat next to me. I was
bursting with curiosity, yet I knew it would be futile to ask what she had been
doing.
"Don't touch the bundle in my basket," she said after a
moment, unable to suppress her laughter. "I know you were watching
me."
I felt myself blushing and smiled. "Did you,snatch some of Etewa's
tobacco?"
"No," she said in mock horror. "He knows his leaves so
well he would notice if one were missing."
"I thought I saw you in his plot," I said casually.
Lifting the banana fronds from the basket Ritimi said, "I was in my
own patch. Look, I took some branches of oko-shiki, a magical
plant," she whispered. "I will make a powerful concoction."
"Are you going to cure someone?"
"Cure! Don't you know that only the shapori cures?"
Tilting her head slightly to one side, she deliberated before she continued.
"I'm going to bewitch that woman who had intercourse with Etewa at the
feast," she said, smiling broadly.
"Maybe you should also prepare a potion for Etewa," I said,
looking into her face. Her change of expression took me by surprise. Her mouth
was set in a straight line; her eyes were narrowly focused on me. "After
all, he was as guilty as the woman," I mumbled apologetically, feeling
uneasy under her hard scrutiny.
"Didn't you see how shamelessly that woman taunted him?"
Ritimi said reproachfully. "Didn't you see how vulgarly all those visiting
women behaved?" Ritimi sighed, almost comically, then added with
unconcealed disappointment, "Sometimes you are quite stupid."
I didn't know what to say. I was convinced that Etewa was as guilty as
the woman. For want of anything better, I smiled. The first time I discovered Etewa
in a compromising situation had been quite accidental. As everyone else did, I
left the hut at dawn every day to relieve myself. I always strayed a bit
farther into the forest, beyond the area set aside for human evacuation. One
morning I was startled by a soft moan. Believing it was a wounded animal, I
crawled, as quietly as I could, toward the noise. Totally surprised, I could
only stare as I saw Etewa on top of Iramamowe's youngest wife. He looked into
my face, smiling sheepishly, but did not stop moving on top oŁ the woman.
Later that day Etewa offered me some of the honey he had found in the
forest. Honey was a rare delicacy and was hardly ever shared with the same
willingness as other foods were. In fact, most of the time honey was consumed
at the spot where it was found. I thanked Etewa for the treat, assuming I was
being bribed.
Sugars were something I constantly craved. I was no longer squeamish
about consuming the honey together with wax combs, bees, maggots, pupae, and
pollen the way the Iticoteri did. Whenever Etewa brought honey to the
settlement, I would sit next to him and stare longingly at the runny paste
studded with bees in varying stages of the metamorphic process until he offered
me some. It never occured to me that he believed I had finally learned that to
eye something one desired, or to ask for it outright, was considered proper
behavior. Once, hoping to remind him that I knew of his philandering, I had
asked him if he was not afraid to get hit on the head again by some enraged husband.
Etewa had looked at me in absolute astonishment. "It's because you
don't know better- otherwise you wouldn't say such things." His tone was
distant, the look in his eyes haughty as he turned toward a group of young boys
engaged in sharpening pieces of bamboo that were to be used as arrowheads.
There were other occasions, not always accidental, when I encountered
Etewa in similar circumstances. It soon became obvious that dawn was not only a
time for attending to the baser bodily functions, but provided the safest
opportunity for extramarital activity. I became greatly interested in who was
cuckolding whom. Cueing themselves the evening before, the involved parties
would disappear at dawn in the thicket. A few hours later, very casually, they
returned by different routes, often carrying nuts, fruits, honey, sometimes
even firewood. Some husbands reacted more violently than others upon finding
out about their women's doings- they beat them, as I had seen Iramamowe do.
Others, besides beating their wives, demanded a club duel with the male
culprit, which sometimes ended in a larger fight that others joined.
Ritimi's words cut into my reveries, "Why are you laughing?"
"Because you are right,"" I said. "Sometimes I'm
quite stupid." It suddenly dawned on me that Ritimi knew of Etewa's
activities- probably everyone in the shabono was aware of what was going
on. No doubt it had been a coincidence when Etewa had offered me the honey that
first time. Only I had examined the event with suspicion, believing all the time
I was his accomplice.
Ritimi put her arms around my neck and planted smacking kisses on my
cheek, assuring me that I was not stupid- only very ignorant. She explained
that as long as she knew with whom Etewa was involved she was not greatly
concerned about his amorous pursuits. She was by no means pleased by it, but
believed she had some kind of control if it was with someone from the shabono.
What distressed her was the possibility Etewa might take a third wife from some
other settlement.
"How are you going to bewitch that woman?" I asked. "Are
you going to make the concoction yourself?"
Standing up, Ritimi smiled with obvious satisfaction. "If I tell
you now, the magic won't work." She paused, a quizzical expression in her
eyes. "I'll tell you about it when I have bewitched the woman. Maybe
someday you too will need to know how to bewitch someone."
"Are you going to kill her?"
"No. I'm not that courageous," she said. "The woman will
have pains in her back until she has a miscarriage."
Ritimi slung the basket over her shoulders, then headed toward one of
the few trees left standing near her tobacco patch. "Come, I need to rest
before bathing in the river."
I stood for a moment to ease my cramped muscles, then followed her.
Ritimi sat on the ground, resting her back against the massive tree trunk. Its
leaves were like open hands between us and the sun, providing a cool shade. The
earth, padded with leaves, was soft. I lay my head on Ritimi's thigh, and
watched the sky- so blue, so pale, it seemed transparent. The breeze rustled
through the cane brush that grew behind us, gently, as if reluctant to impose
itself on the midmorning stillness.
"The bump is gone," Ritimi said, running her fingers through
my hair. "And there are no scars left on your legs," she added
mockingly.
I agreed drowsily. Ritimi had laughed at my fear of getting sick from
what she considered an insignificant injury. Having been pulled to safety by
Puriwariwe was insurance enough that I would be well, she had assured me.
However, I had been afraid that the cuts on my legs would become infected and I
had insisted she wash them with boiled water every day. Old Hayama, as an added
precaution, had rubbed the powder of burnt ants' nest on the wounds, claiming
that it was a natural disinfectant. I had no ill effects from the stinging
powder: The cuts healed quickly.
Through half-closed lids I gazed at the airy spaciousness of the gardens
in front of me. Startled by shouts coming from the far end of the gardens, I
opened my eyes. Iramamowe seemed to have materialized from beneath the banana
fronds on his way toward the sky. Spellbound, I followed his movements as he
worked his way up the spiny trunk of a rasha palm. So as not to hurt
himself with the thorns, he worked with two pairs of crossed poles tied
together, which he placed on the trunk one at a time. Relaxed, one motion
leading to the next without a noticeable break, he alternated between standing
on a pair of crossed poles and lifting the other set to place it higher on the
trunk, until he reached the yellow clusters of rasha, at least sixty
feet above the ground. For a moment he disappeared under the palm fronds that
made a silvery arc against the sky. Iramamowe cut the drupes, tied the heavy
clumps on a long vine, then eased them to the ground. Slowly, he worked his way
down, vanishing in the greenness of banana leaves.
"I like the boiled drupes; they taste like ..." I said, then
realized I did not know the word for potato. I sat up. With her head to the
side, her mouth slightly open, Ritimi was sound asleep. "Let's go
bathe," I said, tickling her nose with a grass blade.
Ritimi stared at me; she had the disoriented look of someone just
awakened from a dream. Leisurely she rose to her feet, yawning and stretching
like a cat. "Yes, let's go," she said, fastening the basket on her
back. "The water will wash my dream away."
"Did you have a bad one?"
She looked at me gravely, then brushed the hair off her forehead.
"You were alone on a mountain," she said vaguely, as if she were
trying to recollect her dream. "You weren't frightened, yet you were
crying." Ritimi gazed at me intently, then added, "Then you woke
me."
As we turned into the path leading to the river, Etewa came running
after us. "Get some pishaansi leaves," he said to Ritimi. He
turned to me. "You come with me."
I followed him through the newly cleared area of forest where fresh
plantain suckers had already been planted between the rubble of felled trees,
the trimmed leaf sheaths exposed above the ground. They were spaced from ten to
twelve feet apart, allowing for the future full-grown plants to overlap leaves,
but not to shade one another. Only a few days ago, Etewa, Iramamowe, and other
close kin of the headman Arasuwe had helped him separate the suckers from the
large basal corm of the plantains. On a contraption made with vines and thick
leaves, fitted with a tumpline, they transported the heavy suckers to the new
site.
"Did you find any honey?" I asked expectantly.
"No honey," Etewa said, "but something just as
delicious." He pointed to where Arasuwe and his two oldest sons stood.
They were taking turns at kicking an old banana tree. Hundreds of whitish, fat
larvae fell out from between the multilayered green trunk.
As soon as Ritimi returned with the pishaansi leaves from the
forest, the boys picked up the wriggling worms and put them on the sturdy wide
leaves. Arasuwe lit a small fire. One of his sons held an elliptically-shaped
piece of wood with his feet firmly planted on the ground while Arasuwe twirled
the drill between his palms with an astounding speed. The ignited wood dust set
fire to the termites' nest over which dry twigs and sticks were added.
Ritimi cooked the larvae for only a moment until the pishaansi
leaves were black and brittle. Opening one of the bundles, Etewa wet his
forefinger with saliva, rolled it in the roasted grub, then offered it to me.
"It tastes good," he insisted as I turned my face away. Shrugging, he
sucked his own finger clean.
Mumbling between mouthfuls, Ritimi urged me to give them a try.
"How can you say you don't like them if you haven't even tasted
them?"
With thumb and forefinger I placed one of the grayish, still soft grubs
into my mouth. They are no different from escargot, I told myself, or cooked
oysters. But when I tried to swallow the grub, it remained stuck to my tongue.
I took it out again, waited till I had enough saliva, then swallowed the worm
as if it were a pill. "In the morning, all I can eat is plantain," I
said as Etewa pushed a bundle in front of me.
"You have worked in the garden," he said. "You have to
eat. When there is no meat it is good to eat these." He reminded me that I
had liked the ants and centipedes he had offered me on various occasions.
Looking into his expectant face, I could not bring myself to say that I
had not liked them one bit, even though the centipedes had tasted like
deep-fried vegetable tidbits. Reluctantly I forced myself to swallow a few more
of the roasted grubs.
Ritimi and I followed behind the men on our way to the river. Children
splashing in the water sang about a fat tapir that had fallen into a deep pool
and drowned. Men and women were rubbing themselves with leaves; their bodies
glistened in the sun, golden and smooth. Sparkling droplets on the tips of their
straight hair reflected the light like diamond beads.
Old Hayama beckoned me to sit next to her on a large boulder at the edge
of the water. I believe I had become Ritimi's grandmother's special charge, and
she had taken it as a personal challenge to fatten me up. Like the children in
the shabono, who were well fed so they would grow healthy and strong,
old Hayama made sure I had plenty to snack on at all hours of the day. She
indulged my insatiable appetite for sugars. Whenever someone found the sweet,
thick, light-colored honey produced by nonstinging bees- the only kind given to
the children- old Hayama made sure I was given at least a taste. If honey of
the stinging black bees was brought to the shabono, Hayama also secured
me some. Only adults partook of this kind, for the Iticoteri believed it caused
nausea and even death to children. The Iticoteri were certain no harm would
result if I ate both kinds, for they were unable to decide whether I was an
adult or a child.
"Eat these," old Hayama said, offering me a few sopaa
fruit. Greenish yellow, they were the size of lemons. I cracked them open with
a stone (I had already broken a tooth trying to open nuts and fruits as the
Iticoteri did) and sucked the sweet white pulp: The small brown seeds I spat
out. The sticky juice gummed up my fingers and mouth.
Little Texoma climbed on my back, perching the small capuchin monkey she
carried with her day and night on my head. The pet wrapped its long tail around
my neck, so tightly I almost choked. One furry hand held on to my hair while
the other swung in front of my face, striving to snatch away my fruit. Afraid
to swallow monkey hair and lice, I tried to shake myself free. But Texoma and
her pet shrieked with delight, believing I was playing a game. Lowering my feet
in the water, I tried to slip my T-shirt over my head. Caught unawares, child
and monkey jumped away.
The children pulled me down to the sand, tumbling beside me. Giggling,
they began to walk, one by one, on my back, and I gave myself up to the
pleasure of their small, cool feet on my aching muscles. In vain I had tried to
convince the women to massage my shoulders, neck, and back after I had weeded
for hours in the gardens. Whenever I had tried to show them how good it felt,
they gave me to understand that although they liked being touched, massaging
was something only the shapori did when a person was ill or bewitched.
Fortunately they had no objections to letting the children walk on my back. To
the Iticoteri it was quite inconceivable that someone could actually derive
pleasure from such a barbaric act.
Tutemi sat next to me in the sand and began to unwrap the pishaansi
bundle Ritimi had given her. Her pregnant belly and swollen breasts seemed to
be held in place by the taut stretched skin. She never complained of aches or
nausea; neither did she have any cravings. In fact, there were so many food
taboos a pregnant woman had to obey that I often wondered how they bore healthy
babies. They were not allowed to eat large game. Their only source of protein were
insects, nuts, larvae, fish, and certain kinds of small birds.
"When will you have the baby?" I asked, caressing the side of
her stomach.
Knitting her brows in concentration, Tutemi deliberated for a while.
"This moon comes and goes; another comes and goes, then one more comes and
before it disappears, I will bear a healthy son."
I wondered if she was right. By her calculations that meant in three
months. To me she looked as though she were about to give birth any day now.
"There are fish upriver- the kind you like," Tutemi said,
smiling at me.
"I will take a quick swim, then I'll go with you to catch
them."
"Take me swimming with you," little Texoma pleaded.
"You have to leave your monkey behind," Tutemi said.
Texoma perched the capuchin on Tutemi's head and came running after me.
Shrieking with pleasure, she lay on my back in the water, her hands holding on
to my shoulders. I stretched my legs and arms slowly and fully with each stroke
until we reached a pool at the opposite bank.
"Do you want to dive to the bottom?" I asked her.
"I do, I do," she cried, nuzzling her small wet nose against
my cheek. "I'll keep my eyes open, I'll not breathe, I'll hold on tight
without choking you."
The water was not very deep. The blurred grayish, vermilion, and white pebbles
resting in the amber sand shimmered brightly in spite of the trees shading the
pool. I felt Texoma's hands tugging at my neck; quickly I swam to the surface.
"Come out," Tutemi shouted as soon as she saw our heads.
"We're waiting for you." She pointed to the women next to her.
"I'll go back to the shabono now," Ritimi said.
"If you see Kamosiwe give this to him." She handed me the last of the
larvae bundles.
I followed the women and several men on the well-trodden trail. Shortly
we encountered Kamosiwe, standing in the middle of the path. Reclining against
his bow, he appeared to be fast asleep. I placed the bundle at his feet. The
old man opened his one good eye; the bright sun made him squint, grotesquely disfiguring
his scarred face. He picked up the larvae: Slowly he began to eat, shifting
from one foot to the other.
Following Kamosiwe as we climbed a small hill thick with growth, I
marveled at the uncanny agility with which he moved. He never looked where he
walked, yet always avoided the roots and thorns on the trail.
Slight, shrunken with age, he was the oldest-looking man I had ever
seen. His hair was neither black, gray, or white, but an indistinctly colored
woolly mop that apparently had not been combed for years. Yet it was short, as
if cut periodically. It probably had stopped growing, I decided, like the
stubbles on his chin that were always the same length. The scars on his
wrinkled face were caused by a blow from a club that had taken out one of his
eyes. When he spoke his voice was but a murmur, the meaning of which I had to
guess.
At night he would often stand in the middle of the clearing, speaking
for hours on end. Children crouched at his feet, feeding the fire that had been
lit for him. His spent voice carried a strength, a tenderness that seemed at
odds with his looks. There was always a feeling of urgent necessity in his
words, a sense of warning, of enchantment as they scattered into the night.
"There are words of knowledge, of tradition, preserved in the memory of
this old man," Milagros had explained. It was only after the feast that he
mentioned that Kamosiwe was Angelica's father.
"You mean he is your grandfather?" I had asked in disbelief.
Nodding, Milagros had added, "When I was born, Kamosiwe was the
headman of the Iticoteri."
Kamosiwe lived by himself in one of the huts close to the entrance of
the shabono. He neither hunted nor worked in the gardens any longer; yet
he was never without food or firewood. He accompanied the women to the gardens
or into the forest when they went to collect nuts, berries, and wood. While the
women worked, Kamosiwe stood watch, leaning against his bow, a banana leaf
stuck on the tip of his arrow to shade his face from the sun.
Sometimes he waved his hand in the air- perhaps at a bird, perhaps at a
cloud, which he believed was the soul of an Iticoteri. Sometimes he laughed to
himself. But mostly he stood still, either dreaming or listening to the sound
of the wind rustling through the leaves.
Although he had never acknowledged my presence among his people, I often
caught his one eye on me. Sometimes I had the distinct feeling he purposely
sought my presence, for he always accompanied the group of women I was with.
And at dusk, when I would seek the solitude of the river, he would be there,
squatting not too far from me.
We stopped at a point where the river widened between the banks. The
dark rocks scattered on the yellow sand appeared as if someone had purposely
arranged them in a symmetrical order. The shadowed still water was like a dark
mirror reflecting the aerial roots of the giant matapalos. Coming down
from a height of ninety feet, they choked and constricted the tree. It was on
one of its branches, as a tiny seed dropped by a bird, that the deadly roots
had first germinated. I could not tell what kind of a ' tree it had been-
perhaps a ceiba, for the branches bending in tragic grandeur were full of
thorns.
Equipped with branches from the arapuri tree growing nearby, some
of the women waded into the shallow river. Their piercing, shrill cries
shattered the stillness as they beat the water. The frightened fish took refuge
under the rotten leaves on the opposite bank, where the other women caught them
with their bare hands. Biting off their heads, they flung the still wriggling
fish into the flat baskets on the sand.
"Come with me," one of the headman's wives said. Taking me by
the hand, she led me further upriver. "Let's try our luck with the men's
arrows."
The men and young boys who had accompanied us were circled by a group of
shrieking women demanding they lend them their weapons. Fishing was considered
a woman's activity: Men only went to laugh and jeer. It was the only time they
allowed the women to use their bows and arrows. Some men handed their weapons
to the women, then quickly ran to the safety of the bank, afraid of getting hit
accidentally. They were delighted that none of them made a kill.
"Try," Arasuwe said, handing me his bow.
I had taken archery lessons at school and felt certain of my skill.
However, as soon as I held his bow I knew this was impossible. I could barely
draw the bow; my arm shook uncontrollably as I released the short arrow. I
tried repeatedly, but not once did I hit a fish.
"What a bold way to shoot," old Kamosiwe said, handing me a
smaller bow belonging to one of Iramamowe's sons. The boy did not complain but
glowered at me sullenly. At his age no man would willingly hand his weapon to a
woman.
"Try again," Kamosiwe urged. His one eye shone with a strange
intensity.
Without the slightest hesitation I drew the bow once more, aiming the
arrow at the shimmering silvery body that for an instant seemed motionless
under the surface. I felt the tension of the drawn bow suddenly relax; the
arrow released effortlessly. I distinctly heard the sharp sound of the arrow
hitting the water and then saw a trail of blood. Cheering, the women retrieved
the arrow-pierced fish. It was no bigger than a medium-sized trout. I returned
the weapon to the boy, who stared at me with astonished admiration.
I looked for old Kamosiwe, but he was gone.
"I will make you a small bow," Arasuwe said, "and slender
arrows- the kind used for shooting fish."
The men and women had gathered around me. "Did you really shoot the
fish?" one of the men asked. "Try it again. I didn't see it."
"She did, she did," Arasuwe's wife assured him, showing him
the trophy.
"Ahahahaha," the men exclaimed.
"Where did you learn to shoot with a bow and arrow?" Arasuwe
asked.
As best as I could, I attempted to explain what a school was. Watching
Arasuwe's puzzled eyes, I wished I had said that my father had taught me.
Explaining something that required more than a few sentences at a time could be
a frustrating experience, not only for me, but for my listeners as well. It was
not always a matter of knowing the right words: Rather the difficulty stemmed
from the fact that certain words did not exist in their language. The more I
talked, the more troubled Arasuwe's expression became. Frowning with
disappointment, he insisted I explain why I knew how to use the bow and arrow.
I wished Milagros had not gone to visit another settlement.
"I know of whites who are good marksmen with a gun," Arasuwe
said. "But I have never seen a white use the bow and arrow
skillfully."
I felt a need to belittle the fact that I had actually hit a fish,
alleging that it was sheer luck, which it was. However, Arasuwe kept insisting
that I knew how to use the Indians' weapons. Even Kamosiwe had noticed the way
I held the bow, he said loudly.
I believe that somehow I got the idea of school across, for they
insisted I tell them what else I had been taught. The men laughed outrageously
upon hearing that the way I had decorated my notebook was something I had
learned at school. "You haven't been taught properly," Arasuwe said
with conviction. "Your designs were very poor."
"Do you know how to make machetes?" one of the men asked.
"You need hundreds of people for that," I said. "Machetes
are made in a factory." The harder I tried to make them understand, the
more tongue-tied I became. "Only men make machetes," I finally said,
pleased to have found an explanation that satisfied them.
"What else did you learn?" Arasuwe asked.
I wished I had some gadget with me, such as a tape recorder, a
flashlight, or some such thing, to impress them with. Then I remembered the
gymnastics I had practiced for several years. "I can jump through the
air," I said off-hand. Clearing off a square area of the sandy beach, I
placed four of the fish-filled baskets in each of its corners. "No one can
step into this space." Standing in the middle of my arena, I gazed at the
curious faces around me. They broke into hilarious guffaws as they watched me
do a series of stretch exercises. Although the sand did not have the springiness
of a floor exercise mat, I was at least comforted by the thought that I would
not hurt myself if I missed my footing. I did a couple of handstands,
cartwheels, front and back walkovers, then a forward and backward somersault. I
did not land with the grace of an accomplished gymnast, but I was pleased by
the admiring faces around me.
"What strange things you were taught," Arasuwe said. "Do
it again."
"One can only do it once." I sat on the sand to catch my
breath. Even if I had wanted to I could not repeat my performance.
The men and women came closer, their intent eyes fixed on me. "What
else can you do?" one of them asked.
For an instant I was at a loss; I thought I had done plenty. After a
moment's consideration, I said, "I can sit on my head."
Laughter shook their bodies until tears rolled down their cheeks.
"Sit on the head," they repeated, each time bursting into new peals
of laughter.
I flattened my forearms on the ground, placed my forehead on my
intertwined palms, and slowly lifted my body upward. Sure of my balance, I
crossed my upraised legs. The laughter stopped. Arasuwe lay flat on the ground,
his face close to mine. He smiled, crinkling the corners of his eyes.
"White girl, I don't know what to think of you, but I know if I walk with
you through the forest, the monkeys will stop to see you. Enchanted, they will
sit still to watch you, and I will shoot them." He touched my face with
his large calloused hand. "Sit on your buttocks again. Your face is red,
as if it were painted with onoto. I'm afraid your eyes will fall out of
your head."
Back in the shabono, Tutemi placed one of the bundles of fish,
cooked in pishaansi leaves, in front of me on the ground. Fish was my
favorite food. To everyone's surprise, I preferred it to armadillo, peccary, or
monkey meat. The pishaansi leaves and the salty solution derived from
the ashes of the kurori tree added a spiciness that greatly enhanced its
natural flavor.
"Did your father want you to learn to use the bow and arrow?"
Arasuwe asked, squatting next to me. Before I had a chance to answer, he
continued, "Had he wanted a boy when you were born?"
"I don't think so. He was very pleased when I was born. He already
had two sons."
Arasuwe opened the bundle in front of him. Silently he shifted the fish
toward the middle of the leaves, as if he were pondering a mystery for which he
had no adequate words. He motioned me to take some of his food. With two
fingers and a thumb, I lifted a large portion of fish into my mouth. As was
proper, I licked the juice dribbling down my arm and when I ran into a spine I
spat it on the ground, without spitting out any of the flaky meat.
"Why did you learn to shoot arrows?" Arasuwe asked in a
compelling tone.
Without thinking I answered, "Maybe something in me knew I was to
come here someday."
"You should have known that girls don't use the bow and
arrow." He smiled at me briefly, then began to eat.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and
Magical World in the South American Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 10
The soft patter of rain and the voices of men singing outside the hut
woke me from my afternoon nap. Shadows began to lengthen and the wind played
with the palm fronds hanging over the roofs. Sounds and presences filled the
huts all at once. Fires were stoked. Soon everything smelled of smoke, of
dampness, of food and wet dogs. There were men chanting outside, oblivious to
the drops pecking at their backs and at their masklike faces. Their eyes,
watery from the epena, were fixed on the distant clouds, open wide to
the spirits of the forest.
I walked out into the rain to the river. The heavy drops drumming on the
ceiba leaves awakened the tiny frogs hiding under the tall grass blades that
grew along the bank. I sat down at the edge of the water. Unaware of time
passing, I watched the concentric circles of rain spreading over the river, pink
flowers drifting by like forsaken dreams of another place. The sky darkened;
the outline of the clouds began to blur as they merged into each other. The
trees turned into a single mass. Leaves lost their distinctive shapes, becoming
indistinguishable from the evening sky.
I heard a whimpering sound behind me; I turned around but saw only the
faintest gleam of rain on the leaves. Seized by an inexplicable apprehension, I
ascended the trail leading to the shabono. At night I was never sure of
anything; the river, the forest were like presences I could only feel but never
understand. I slipped on the muddy path, stubbing my toe on a gnarled root.
Once more I heard a soft whimpering sound. It reminded me of the
mournful cries of Iramamowe's hunting dog, which he had shot in a fit of rage
with a poisoned arrow during a hunt when the animal had barked inopportunely.
The injured dog had returned to the settlement and hid outside the wooden
palisade, where it had whined for hours until Arasuwe put an end to its
suffering with another arrow.
I called softly. The cries stopped and then I distinctly heard an
agonized moan. Maybe it's true that there are forest spirits, I thought,
straightening up. The Iticoteri claimed that there were beings who cross a
tenuous boundary that separates animal from man. These creatures call the
Indians at night, luring them to their deaths. I stifled a cry. It seemed as if
a shape loomed from the dark- some concealed figure that moved among the trees
only a pace from where I stood. I sat down again in an effort to conceal
myself. I heard a faint breathing: It was more like a sighing, accompanied by a
rattling, choking sound. Through my head rushed the stories of revenge, of
bloody raids the men were so fond of talking about at night. In particular I
remembered the story about Angelica's brother, the old shaman Puriwariwe, who
supposedly had been killed in a raid, yet had not died.
"He was shot in the stomach, where death hides," Arasuwe had
said one evening. "He didn't lie down in his hammock, but remained
standing in the middle of the clearing, leaning on his bow and arrow. He swayed
but didn't fall.
"The raiders remained rooted on the spot, unable to shoot another
arrow as the old man chanted to the spirits.
With the arrow still stuck in the spot where death lies, he disappeared
into the forest. He was gone for many days and nights. He lived in the darkness
of the forest without food or drink. He chanted to the heknras of
animals and trees, creatures that are harmless in the clear light of the day,
but in the shadows of the night they cause terror to the one who cannot command
them. From his hiding place, the old shapori lured his enemies: He
killed them one by one, with magical arrows."
Again I heard the whimpering sound, then a choking noise. I crawled,
carefully feeling for thorns in the undergrowth. I gasped in terror as I
touched a hand; its fingers were curled around a broken bow. I did not
recognize the sprawled-out body until I touched Kamosiwe's scarred face.
"Old man," I called, afraid that he was dead.
He turned on his side, pulled his legs up with the ease of a child that
seeks warmth and comfort. He tried to focus with his single, deeply set eye as
he looked at me helplessly. It was as though he were returning from a great
distance, from another world. Steadying himself against the broken bow, he
tried to get on his feet. He clutched my arm, then let out an eerie sound as he
sank to the ground. I could not hold him up. I shook him, but he lay still.
I felt for his heartbeat to see if he was dead. Kamosiwe opened his one
eye: His gaze seemed to hold a silent plea. The dilated pupil reflected no
light: Like a deep, dark tunnel, it seemed to draw the strength out of my body.
Afraid I would make a mistake, I talked to him in Spanish, softly, as if he
were a child. I hoped he would close that awesome eye and fall asleep.
Lifting him by the armpits, I dragged him toward the shabono.
Although he was only skin and bones, his body seemed to weigh a ton. After a
few minutes I had to sit and rest, wondering if he was still alive. His lips
trembled: He spat out his tobacco quid. The dark saliva dribbled over my leg.
His eye filled with tears. I put the wad back into his mouth, but he refused it.
I took his hands, rubbed them against my body so as to imbue them with some
warmth. He started to say something, but I heard only an unintelligible mutter.
One of the young boys who slept close to the entrance, next to the old
man's hut, helped me lift Kamosiwe into his hammock. "Put logs on the
fire," I said to one of the gaping boys. "And call Arasuwe, Etewa, or
someone who can help the old man."
Kamosiwe opened his mouth to ease his breathing. The wavering light of
the small fire accentuated his ghostlike paleness. His face twisted into an odd
smile, a grimace that reassured me I had done the right thing.
The hut filled with people. Their eyes shone with tears: Their sorrowful
wails spread throughout the shabono.
"Death is not like the darkness of night," Kamosiwe said in a
barely audible whisper. His words fell into silence as the people, gathered
around his hammock, momentarily stopped their laments.
"Do not leave us alone," the men moaned as they burst into
loud weeping. They began to talk about the old man's courage, about the enemies
he had killed, about his children, about the days he was headman of the
Iticoteri and the prosperity and glory he had brought to the settlement.
"I will not die yet." The old man's words silenced them once
again. "Your weeping makes me too sad." He opened his eye and scanned
the faces around him. "The hekuras are still in my chest. Chant to
them, for they are the ones who keep me alive."
Arasuwe, Iramamowe, and four other men blew epena into each
other's nostrils. With blurred eyes they began to sing to the spirits dwelling
below and above the earth.
"What ails you?" Arasuwe asked after a while, bending over the
old man. His strong hands massaged the weak, withered chest; his lips blew
warmth into the immobile form.
"I'm only sad," Kamosiwe whispered. "The hekuras
will soon abandon my chest. It's my sadness that makes me weak."
I returned with Ritimi to our hut. "He will not die," she
said, wiping the tears from her face. "I don't know why he wants to live
so long. He is so old, he is no longer a man."
"What is he?"
"His face," she said, "has become so small, so
thin..." Ritimi looked at me as if at a loss for words to express her
thoughts. She made a vague gesture with her hand, as if grasping for something
she did not know how to voice. Shrugging, she smiled. "The men will chant
throughout the night, and the hekuras will keep the old man alive."
A monotonous rain, warm and persistent, mingled with the men's songs.
Whenever I sat up in my hammock I could see them across the clearing in
Kamosiwe's hut, crouched in front of the fire. They chanted with a compelling
force, convinced that their invocations could preserve life, as the rest of the
Iticoteri slept.
The voices faded with the rosy melancholy of dawn. I got up and walked
across the clearing. The air was chilly, the ground damp from the rain. The
fire had died down, yet the hut was warm from the misty smoke. The men huddled
together still crouched around Kamosiwe. Their faces were drawn; their eyes
were hollowed by deep circles.
I returned to my hammock as Ritimi was getting up to rekindle the fire.
"Kamosiwe seems well," I said, lying down to sleep.
As I stood up from behind a bush I saw Arasuwe's youngest wife and her
mother slowly pushing their way through the thicket in the direction of the
river. Quietly I followed the two women. They had no baskets with them- only a
piece of sharpened bamboo. The pregnant woman held her hands to her belly as if
supporting its heavy weight. They stopped under an arapuri tree, where
the undergrowth had been cleared and broad platanillo leaves had been
scattered on the ground. The pregnant woman knelt on the leaves, pressing her
abdomen with both hands. A soft moan escaped her lips, and she gave birth.
I held my hand over my mouth to stifle a giggle. I could not conceive
that giving birth could be so effortless, so fast. The two women talked in
whispers, but neither one of them looked at, or picked up, the shiny wet infant
on the leaves.
With the bamboo knife, the old woman cut the umbilical cord, then looked
around until she found a straight branch. I watched her place the stick across
the baby's neck, then step with both feet at either end. There was a faint
snapping sound. I was not sure if it was the baby's neck or if it was the
branch that had cracked.
The afterbirth they wrapped in one bundle of platanillo leaves,
the small lifeless body into another. They tied the bundles with vines, and
placed them under the tree.
I tried to hide behind the bushes as the women got up to leave, but my
legs would not obey me. I felt drained of all emotion, as if the scene in front
of me were some bizarre nightmare. The women looked at me. A faint flicker of
surprise registered on their faces, but I saw no pain or regret in their eyes.
As soon as they were gone I untied the vines. The lifeless body of a
baby girl lay on the leaves as if in sleep. Long black hair, like silk strands,
stuck to her slippery head. The lashless lids were swollen, covering the closed
eyes. The trickle of blood running from nose and mouth had dried, like some
macabre onoto design on the faint purplish skin. I pried open the small
fists. I checked the toes to see if they were complete: I found no visible
deformity.
The late afternoon had spent itself. The dried leaves made no rustling
sound under my bare feet: They were damp with the night. The wind parted the
leafy branches of the ceibas. Thousands of eyes seemed to be staring at me;
indifferent eyes, veiled in green shadows. I walked down the river, and sat on
a fallen log that had not yet died. I touched the clusters of new shoots that
desperately wanted to see the light. The cricket's call seemed to mock my
tears.
I could smell the smoke from the huts and I resented those fires that
burned day and night, swallowing time and events. Black clouds hid the moon,
cloaking the river in a veil of mourning. I listened to the animals- those that
wake from their day's sleep and roam the forest at night. I was not afraid. A
silence, like a soft dust from the stars, fell around me. I wanted to fall
asleep, and wake up knowing it had all been a dream.
Through a patch of clear sky I saw a shooting star. I could not help
smiling. I had always been fast to make a wish, but I could not think of any.
I felt Ritimi's arm around my neck. Like some forest spirit she had sat
down noiselessly beside me. The pale sticks at the corners of her mouth shone
in the dark as if they were made of gold. I was grateful she was near me, that
she did not say a word.
The wind brushed away the clouds that obscured the moon: Its light
covered us in a faint blue. Only then did I notice old Kamosiwe squatting
beside the log, his eye fixed on me. He began to talk, slowly, enunciating each
word. But I was not listening. Leaning heavily on his bow, he motioned us to
follow him to the shabono. He stopped by his hut: Ritimi and I walked on
to ours.
"Only a week ago, women and men cried," I said, sitting in my
hammock. "They cried believing Kamosiwe was going to die. Today I saw
Arasuwe'swife kill her newborn child."
Ritimi handed me some water. "How could the woman feed a new baby
at her breast when she has a child that still suckles?" she said briskly.
"A child who has lived this long."
Intellectually I grasped Ritimi's words. I was aware that infanticide
was a common practice among Amazonian Indians. Children were spaced
approximately two to three years apart. The mother lactated during this time,
and refrained from bearing another child in order to sustain an ample supply of
milk. If a deformed or female child were born during this time, it was killed,
so as to give the nursing child a better chance of survival.
Emotionally, however, I was unable to accept it. Ritimi held my face,
forcing me to look at her. Her eyes shone, her lips trembled with feeling.
"The one who has not yet glimpsed at the sky has to return from where it
came." She stretched her arm toward the immense black shadows that began
at our feet and ended in the sky. "To the house of thunder."
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 11
Instead of the women's soft chattering, I was awakened one morning by
Iramamowe's shouts announcing that he would prepare curare that day.
I sat up in my hammock. Iramamowe stood in the middle of the clearing.
Legs apart, arms folded over his chest, he scrutinized the young men who had
gathered around him. At the top of his voice he warned them that if they
planned to help him prepare the poison, they were not to sleep with a woman
that day. Iramamowe went on ranting as if the men had already misbehaved,
reminding them that he would know if they disobeyed him for he would test the
poison on a monkey. Should the animal survive he would never again ask the men
to assist him. He told them that if they wished to accompany him into the
forest to collect the various vines needed to make the mamucori, they
had to refrain from eating and drinking until the poison had been smeared on
their arrowheads.
Calm returned to the shabono as soon as the men left. Tutemi,
after stoking the fires, rolled the tobacco quids for herself, Ritimi, and
Etewa, then returned to her hammock. I thought there was time to snatch a bit
more sleep before the plantains buried under the embers were done. I turned
over in my hammock: The smoke warmed the chilly air. As they did every morning
after relieving themselves, little Texoma and Sisiwe, as well as Arasuwe's two
youngest children, climbed into my hammock and snuggled up to me.
Ritimi had been oblivious to the morning events. She was still sound
asleep on the ground. Sleep did not interfere with Ritimi's vanity. Her head,
resting on her arm, was propped in such a manner that it allowed her to wear
her full beauty regalia: Slender polished rods were stuck through the septum of
her nose and the corners of her mouth. Her exposed cheek revealed two brown
lines, a sign recognizable by everyone in the shabono that she was
menstruating. For the last two nights Ritimi had not slept in her hammock, had
not eaten meat, had not cooked any of the meals, and had not touched Etewa or
any of his belongings.
Men feared menstruating women. Ritimi had told me that women were known
not to have hekuras in their chest but were linked to the life essence
of the otter, the ancestor of the first woman on earth. During their menses,
women were thought to be imbued with the supernatural powers of the otter. She
did not seem to know what these powers were, but she said that if a man saw an
otter in the river he never killed it for fear that a woman in the settlement
would die that same instant.
The Iticoteri women had at first been puzzled as to why I had not
menstruated since my arrival. My explanation- loss of weight, change of diet,
new surroundings- was not thought to be the reason. Instead they believed that
as a non-Indian, I was not fully human. I had no link to the life essence of
any animal, plant, or spirit.
It was only Ritimi who wanted to believe and prove to the other women
that I was human. "You have to tell me immediately when you are roo,
as if I were your mother," Ritimi would say to me every time she herself
menstruated. "And I will make the proper preparations so you will not be
turned into a stone by the tiny creatures that live underground."
Ritimi's insistence was probably another reason my body did not follow
its normal cycles. Since I have a tendency to suffer from claustrophobia, I had
periodic attacks of anxiety triggered by the possibility of having to endure
the same restrictions that an Iticoteri girl going through her first menses
does.
Only a week before, Xotomi, one of the headman's daughters, had emerged
from a three-week confinement. Her mother, upon learning that Xotomi had begun
her first period, built an enclosure made out of sticks, palm fronds, and vines
in a corner of their hut. A narrow space had been left open. It was barely
large enough for her mother to slip in and out of twice a day to feed the
meager fire inside (which was never allowed to die) and remove the soiled platanillo
leaves covering the ground. The men, afraid of dying young or of becoming ill,
did not so much as glance toward that area in the hut.
For the first three days of her menstrual period Xotomi was only given
water and had to sleep on the ground. Thereafter she was given three small
plantains a day and was permitted to rest in the small bark hammock that was
hung inside. She was not allowed to speak or weep during her confinement. All I
heard from behind the tied palm fronds was the faint sound of Xotomi scratching
herself with a stick, for she was not supposed to touch her body.
By the end of the third week, Xotomi's mother dismantled the enclosure,
tied the palm leaves into a tight bundle, then asked some of her daughter's
playmates to hide them in the forest. Xotomi did not move, as if the palm
fronds were still around her. She remained crouched on the ground with downcast
eyes. Her slightly hunched shoulders seemed so frail that I was sure if someone
grasped them the bones would give way with a hollow crack. More than ever she
looked like a frightened child, thin and dirty.
"Keep your eyes on the ground," her mother said, helping the
twelve-, perhaps thirteen-year-old girl to her feet. With her arms around her
waist, she led Xotomi to the hearth. "Don't rest your eyes on any of the
men in the clearing," she admonished the girl, "lest you want their
legs to tremble when they have to climb trees."
Water had been heated. Lovingly, Ritimi washed her half-sister from head
to foot, then rubbed her body with onoto until it glowed uniformly red.
Fresh banana leaves were placed on the fire as Ritimi guided the girl around
the hearth. Only after Xotomi's skin smelled of nothing but burnt leaves was
she allowed to look at us and speak.
She bit her lower lip as she slowly lifted her head. "Mother, I
don't want to move out of my father's hut," she finally said, then burst
into tears.
"Ohoo, you silly child," the mother exclaimed, taking Xotomi's
face into her hands. Brushing aside the tears, the woman reminded the girl how
lucky she was to become the wife of Hayama's youngest son Matuwe, that she was
fortunate to be so close to her brothers, who would protect her should he
mistreat her. The mother's dark eyes glittered, blurred with tears. "I had
reasons to be heavy-hearted when I first came to this shabono. I had
left my mother and brothers behind. I had no one to protect me."
Tutemi embraced the young girl. "Look at me. I also came from far
away, but now I'm happy. I will soon have a child."
"But I don't want a child," Xotomi sobbed. "I only want
to hold my pet monkey."
In a swift impulse I reached for the monkey perched on a cluster of
bananas and handed it to Xotomi. The women burst into giggles. "If you
treat your husband right, he'll be like your pet monkey," one of them said
in between fits of laughter.
"Don't say such things to the girl," old Hayama said
reprovingly. Smiling, she faced Xotomi. "My son is a good man," she
said soothingly. "You'll have nothing to fear." Hayama went on
praising her son, stressing Matuwe's prowess as a hunter and provider.
The day of the wedding Xotomi sobbed quietly. Hayama came to her side.
"Don't cry anymore. We will adorn you. You'll be so beautiful today,
everyone will gasp in wonder." She took Xotomi's hand, then motioned the
women to follow them through a side exit into the forest.
Sitting on a tree stump, Xotomi wiped her tears with the back of her
hand. A whimsical smile appeared on her lips as she gazed into old Hayama's
face, then she readily submitted to the women's ministrations. Her hair was cut
short, her tonsure shaven. Tufts of soft white feathers were pushed through her
perforated earlobes: They contrasted sharply with her black hair, adding an
ethereal beauty to her thin face. The holes at the corners of her mouth and
lower lip were decorated with red macaw feathers. Through the perforated septum
in her nose Ritimi inserted an almost white, very slender polished stick.
"How lovely you look," we exclaimed as Xotomi stood in front
of us.
"Mother, I'm ready to go," she said solemnly. Her dark slanted
eyes shone, her skin looked flushed with the onoto. She smiled briefly,
revealing strong, even white teeth, then led the way back to the shabono.
Only for an instant- just before entering the clearing- was there a silent plea
in her eyes as she turned to look at her mother.
Her head held high, her gaze focused on no one in particular, Xotomi
slowly circled the clearing, seemingly unperturbed by the admiring words and
glances of the men. She entered her father's hut and sat in front of the trough
filled with plantain pap. First she offered some of the soup to Arasuwe, then
to her uncles, her brothers, and finally to each man in the shabono.
After she had served the women, she walked toward Hayama's hut, sat down in one
of the hammocks, and began to eat the game prepared by her husband, to whom she
had been promised before she had been born.
Tutemi's words cut into my reveries. "Are you going to eat your
plantain here or at Hayama's?"
"I'd better eat there," I said, grinning at Ritimi's
grandmother, who was already waiting for me in the hut next to Tutemi's.
Xotomi smiled at me as I came over. She had changed a great deal. It had
nothing to do with the weight she had gained back since emerging from her
confinement. Rather it was her mature behavior, the way she looked at me, the
way she urged me to eat the plantain. I wondered if it was because girls- as
opposed to boys, who were able to prolong their childhood into their teens-
were encouraged by the time they were six or eight to help their mothers with
the domestic chores- gathering wood, weeding in the gardens, taking care of
their younger siblings. By the time a boy was considered an adult, a girl of
the same age was married and often the mother of a child or two.
After eating, Tutemi, Xotomi, and I worked for several hours in the
gardens, then walked into the shabono, refreshed from our bath in the
river. A group of men, their faces and bodies painted black, sat together in
the clearing. Some were scraping the bark off thick pieces of branches.
"Who are these people?" I asked.
"Don't you recognize them?" Tutemi laughed at me. "It's
Iramamowe and the men who went with him yesterday into the forest."
"Why are they painted black?"
"Iramamowe!" Tutemi shouted. "The white girl wants to
know- why are your faces all black?" she asked, then ran into her hut.
"It's good you are running," Iramamowe said, standing up.
"The baby in your womb might weaken the mamucori by adding
water." Frowning, he turned to Xotomi and me; before he had a chance to
say anything else, Xotomi pulled me by the hand into Etewa's hut.
In between fits of laughter Xotomi explained that anyone who had been in
the water that day was not supposed to come close to the men preparing curare.
Water was believed to weaken the poison. "If the mamucori doesn't
work right, he will blame you."
"I would have liked to watch them prepare the mamucori,"
I said disappointedly.
"Who would want to watch anything like that?" Ritimi said,
sitting up. "I can tell you what they are going to do." She yawned
and stretched, then folded the platanillo leaves she had been sleeping
on and covered the ground with fresh ones. "The men are painted black
because mamucori is not only useful for hunting but also for making
war," Ritimi said, motioning me to sit next to her. She peeled a banana,
then with a full mouth explained how the men were boiling the mamucori
vine until it turned into a dark liquid. Later the dried ashukamaki vine
would be added to thicken the poison. Once the mixture had been boiled down, it
would be ready to be brushed on the men's arrowheads.
Resignedly I helped Tutemi prepare the tobacco leaves for drying.
Following her precise instructions, I split each leaf along the nervation,
pulling upward so they bundled up, then tied them in bunches on the rafters.
From where I sat I was unable to see what was going on outside Iramamowe's hut.
Children surrounded the working men, hoping to be asked to help. No wonder I
had not seen a single child that morning bathing in the river.
"Get some water from the stream," Iramamowe said to little
Sisiwe. "But don't get your feet wet. Step on trunks, roots, or stones. If
you get wet, I'll have to send someone else."
It was late afternoon when Iramamowe was almost finished mixing and
boiling the curare. "Now the mamucori is becoming strong. I can
feel my hands going to sleep." In a slow, monotonous voice he began to
chant to the spirits of the poison as he stirred the curare.
Around midmorning the following day Iramamowe came running into the shabono.
"The mamucori is useless. I shot a monkey but it didn't die. It
walked away with the useless arrow stuck in its leg." Iramamowe ran from
hut to hut, insulting the men who had helped him prepare the curare.
"Didn't I warn you not to sleep with women. Now the mamucori is
worthless. If an enemy should attack us, you won't even be able to defend your
women. You think you are brave warriors. But you are as useless as your arrows.
You should be carrying baskets instead of weapons."
For a moment I thought Iramamowe was going to cry as he sat on the
ground in the middle of the clearing. "I'll make the poison by myself. You
are all incompetent," he muttered over and over until his anger was spent,
until he was thoroughly exhausted.
A few days later at dawn, shortly before the monkey Iramamowe had shot
with his newly poisoned arrow was fully cooked, a stranger walked into the shabono
carrying a large bundle. His hair was still wet from a river bath; his face and
body were extravagantly painted with onoto. Placing his bundle, as well
as his bow and arrows, on the ground, he stood silently in the middle of the
clearing for a few minutes before he approached Arasuwe's hut.
"I've come to invite you to my people's feast," the man said
in a loud singsong voice. "The headman of the Mocototeri has sent me to
tell you that we have many ripe plantains."
Arasuwe, without getting up from his hammock, told the man that he could
not attend the feast. "I cannot leave my gardens now. I've planted new
banana saplings; they need my care." Arasuwe made a sweeping gesture with
his hand. "Look at all the fruit hanging from the rafters; I don't want
them to spoil."
The visitor walked over to our hut and addressed Etewa. "Your
father-in-law doesn't wish to come. I hope you will be able to visit my people
who have sent me to invite you."
Etewa slapped his thighs with pleasure. "Yes. I'll come. I don't
mind leaving my plantains behind. I'll give others permission to eat
them."
The visitor's dark lively eyes shone with delight as he went from hut to
hut inviting the Iticoteri to his settlement. The man was invited to rest in
old Kamosiwe's hut. He was offered plantain soup and monkey meat. Later in the
evening he untied his bundle in the middle of the clearing. "A
hammock," the men who had gathered around him murmured disappointedly.
Even though the Iticoteri acknowledged the comfort and warmth of cotton
hammocks, only a few women owned one. The men preferred the bark or vine ones,
replacing them periodically. The visitor was eager to trade the cotton hammock
for poisoned arrowheads and epena powder made from seeds. Talking and
exchanging news, some Iticoteri men stayed up all night with the visitor.
Arasuwe was adamant that I should not be part of the group going to the
Mocototeri feast. "Milagros has entrusted you to me," the headman
reminded me. "How can I protect you if you are at another place?"
"What do I need to be protected for?" I asked. "Are the
Mocototeri dangerous people?"
"The Mocototeri are not to be trusted," Arasuwe said after a
long silence. "I can feel it in my legs that it is not right for you to
go."
"When I first met Angelica she told me that it was not dangerous
for a woman to walk through the forest."
Arasuwe did not bother to answer or comment on my statement but looked
at me as if I had become invisible. Obviously he considered the matter settled
and did not intend to demean himself by any further bantering with an ignorant
girl.
"Maybe Milagros will be there," I said.
Arasuwe smiled. "Milagros will not be there. If he were I would
have no reason to worry."
"Why are the Mocototeri not to be trusted?" I persisted.
"You ask too many questions," Arasuwe said. "We are not
on friendly terms with them," he added grudgingly.
I looked at him in disbelief. "Why then do they invite you to a
feast?"
"You are ignorant," Arasuwe said, walking out of the hut.
It was not only I who was disillusioned by Arasuwe's decision. Ritimi
was so disappointed she could not show me off to the Mocototeri that she
enlisted Etewa and Iramamowe, as well as old Kamosiwe, to help convince her
father to let me accompany them. Although old people's advice was valued and
respected, it was Iramamowe, known for his bravery, who finally persuaded and
assured his brother that no harm would befall me at the Mocototeri settlement.
"You should take the bow and arrows I made for you," Arasuwe
said to me later that evening. He began to laugh uproariously. "that would
certainly astonish the Mocototeri. It would almost be worth it for me to go and
witness their surprise." Seeing that I was checking my arrows, Arasuwe
added somberly, "You can not take them. It's not proper for a woman to
walk through the forest carrying a man's weapon."
"I will take care of her," Ritimi promised her father.
"I'll make sure she never leaves my side- not even when she has to go into
the bush."
"I'm sure Milagros would have wanted me to go," I said, hoping
to make Arasuwe feel more at ease.
Eyeing me gloomily, he shrugged his shoulders. "I trust you will
return safely."
Anticipation and apprehension kept me awake that night. The familiar
noises of the collapsing logs in the fire filled me with misgivings. Etewa
stirred the embers with a stick before lying down. Through the smoke and mist
the distant crowns of trees looked like ghosts. The spaces between the leaves
were like hollow eyes accusing me of something I did not understand. I was
almost tempted to follow Arasuwe's advice, but the light of day dispelled my
apprension.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 12
The sun had barely taken the chill off the morning air when we set out
with baskets stocked with plantains, calabashes, hammocks, the paraphernalia
for decorating ourselves, and the items for trade: thick bundles of undyed
cotton yarn, newly fashioned arrowheads, bamboo containers filled with epena
and onoto. With their own hammocks slung around their necks, the older
children walked close behind their mothers. The men, closing up the rear of
each family unit, carried nothing but their bows and arrows.
There were twenty-three of us. For four days we walked silently through
the forest at a relaxed pace set by the old people and children. Whenever they
became aware of the slightest movement or sound in the thicket, the women stood
still, pointing with their chins in the direction of the disturbance. Swiftly
the men disappeared in the specified direction. More often than not, they
returned with an agouti- a rabbit-like rodent- or a peccary, or a bird, which
was cooked as soon as we made camp in the afternoon. The children were forever
on the lookout for wild fruit. Their keen eyes would follow the flight of bees
until they reached their hives in a hollow tree trunk. While the insects were
still in flight, they were able to accurately identify whether they belonged to
the stinging or nonstinging variety.
Hayama, Kamosiwe, and several of the old people wrapped strips of the
fibrous bast of a tree around their thorax and abdomen. They claimed it
restored their energy and made walking easier. I tried it too, but the tightly
wrapped bast only gave me a rash.
As we climbed up and down hills, I wondered if it was a different route
from the one I had been on with Milagros. There was not a tree, rock, or
stretch of river I could recall. Neither did I remember having encountered
mosquitoes and other insects hovering above the marshes. Attracted by our
sweaty bodies, they buzzed around us with a maddening persistence. I, who had
never been bothered by them, could not decide which part of my body to scratch
first. My torn T-shirt offered no protection. Even Iramamowe, who initially had
been oblivious to their unrelenting bites, occasionally acknowledged the
inconvenience by slapping his neck, his arm, or by lifting his leg to scratch
his ankle.
Around noon of the fifth day we made camp at the edge of the
Mocototeri's gardens. The cleared-out undergrowth made the giant ceibas appear
even more monumental than in the forest. Shafts of sunlight filtered through
the leaves, illuminating and shadowing the dark ground.
We bathed in the nearby river, where red flowers, suspended from lianas
overhanging the water, swayed with sensuous grace to the rhythm of the breeze.
Iramamowe and three other young men were the first to don their festive attire
and to paint themselves with onoto before heading toward the host's shabono.
Iramamowe returned shortly, carrying a basket filled with roasted meat and
baked plantains.
"Ohooo, the Mocototeri have so much more," he said,
distributing the food among us.
Before the women began to beautify themselves they assisted their men
with the pasting of white down on their hair, and tying feathers and monkey fur
around their arms and heads. I was given the task of decorating the children's
faces and bodies with the prescribed onoto designs.
Our laughter and chatter were interrupted by the shouts of an
approaching Mocototeri.
"He looks like a monkey," Ritimi whispered.
I nodded in agreement, barely able to conceal my giggles. The man's
short bowed legs and long disproportionate arms seemed even more pronounced as
he stood next to Etewa and Iramamowe, who looked imposing with their white
down-covered heads, the long multicolored macaw feathers streaming from their
armbands, and their bright-red waist belts.
"Our headman wants to start the feast. He wants you to come
soon," the Mocototeri said in the same formal high-pitched voice as the
man who had come to the shabono to invite us to the feast. "If you
take too long to prepare yourselves, there will be no time to talk."
With their heads held high, their chins slightly pushed up, Etewa,
Iramamowe, and three young men, also properly painted and decorated, followed
the Mocototeri. Although they pretended indifference, the men were aware of the
admiring glances of the rest of us as they strutted toward the shabono.
Overcome by last-minute nervousness, the women hurried through the last
touches of their toilette, adding a flower or feather here, a dab of onoto
there. How they looked was entirely up to the judgment of the others, for there
were no mirrors.
Ritimi fastened the waist belt around me, making sure the wide fringe
was centered properly. "You're still so thin," she said, touching my
breasts, "even though you eat so much. Don't eat today the way you eat at
our shabono or the Mocototeri will think we don't give you enough."
I promised to eat very sparingly, then burst into laughter as I
remembered that this was the same advice my mother used to give me as a child
whenever I was invited to spend the weekend with friends. She too had been
embarrassed by my voracious appetite, thinking that people might believe I was
not properly fed at home or, worse yet, that they might think I had a tapeworm.
Just before we set out toward the Mocototeri shabono, old Hayama
admonished her great-grandchildren, Texoma and Sisiwe, to behave properly.
Raising her voice so that the other children who had come with us could also
hear her, she stressed how important it was to minimize any chance for the
Mocototeri women to criticize them once they had departed. Old Hayama insisted
the children try to urinate and defecate for one last time behind the bushes,
for once inside the shabono no one would clean up after them or take
them outside if they had to go.
Upon reaching the Mocototeri clearing, the men formed a line, holding
their weapons vertically to their upraised haughty faces. We stood behind them with
the children.
A group of shouting women ran out of the huts as soon as they saw me. I
was neither afraid nor repelled as they touched, kissed, and licked my face and
body. But Ritimi seemed to have forgotten how the Iticoteri had first greeted
me when I arrived at their settlement, for she kept mumbling under her breath
that she would have to retrace the onoto designs on my skin.
Holding my arm in a strong grip, one of the Mocototeri women pushed
Ritimi aside. "Come with me, white girl," she said.
"No," Ritimi shouted, pulling me closer to her. Her smile did
not detract from the sharp angry tone of her voice. "I've brought the
white girl for you to look at. No one must take her away from me. We are like
each other's shadows. I go where she goes. She goes where I go." Trying to
outstare her opponent, Ritimi's eyes held the woman's fixed gaze, daring her to
challenge her words.
The woman opened her tobacco-filled mouth in gaping laughter. "If
you have brought the white girl to visit, you must let her come into my
hut."
Someone from behind the group of women approached us. With arms crossed
over his chest, he pushed his hips forward with a little swagger as he came to
stand beside me. "I'm the headman of the Mocototeri," he said. As he smiled,
his eyes were but two shining slits amidst the red designs of his deeply
wrinkled face. "Is the white girl your sister that you protect her
so?" he asked Ritimi.
"Yes," she said forcefully. "She is my sister." .
Shaking his head in disbelief, the headman studied me. He seemed totally
unimpressed. "I can see that she is white, but she doesn't look like a
real white woman," he finally said. "Her feet are bare like ours: She
does not wear strange clothes on her body except for this." He pulled at
my torn, loose underpants. "Why does she wear this under an Indian waist
belt?"
"Pantiis," Ritimi said importantly: She liked the English word
better than the Spanish, which she had also learned. "That's what white
people call it. She has two more of them. She wears pantiis because she is
afraid that spiders at night and centipedes during the day might crawl inside
her body."
Nodding as if he understood my fear, the headman touched my short hair,
and rubbed his fleshy palm over my shaven tonsure. "It's the color of the
young assai palm fronds." He moved his face close to mine until our
noses touched. "What strange eyes- they are the color of rain." His
scowl disappeared in a smile of delight. "Yes, she must be white; and if
you call her sister, then no one will take her away from you," he said to
Ritimi.
"How can you call her sister?" the woman who still held my arm
asked. There was earnest perplexity written all over her painted face as she
gazed at me.
"I call her sister because she is like us," Ritimi said, putting
her arm around my waist.
"I want her to come and stay in my hut," the woman said.
"I want her to touch my children."
We followed the woman into one of the huts. Bows and arrows were leaning
against the sloping roof. Bananas, gourds, and bundles of meat wrapped in
leaves were strung from the rafters. Machetes, axes, and an assortment of clubs
lay in the corners. The ground was littered with twigs, branches, fruit skins,
and shards of earthenware vessels.
Ritimi sat with me in the same cotton hammock. As soon as I had finished
the juice made from soaked palm fruit the woman had given me, she placed a
small baby in my lap. "Caress him."
Turning and twisting in my arms, the infant almost fell to the ground.
And when he stared into my face he began to bawl.
"You better take him," I said, handing the woman the child.
"Babies are afraid of me. They first have to get to know me before I can
touch them."
"Is that so?" the woman asked, eyeing Ritimi suspiciously as
she rocked the baby in her arms.
"Our babies don't scream." Ritimi cast contemptuous glances at
the infant. "My own and my father's children even sleep with her in the
same hammock."
"I'll call the older children," the woman said, gesturing
toward the little girls and boys peeking from behind the bundles of plantains
stacked against the sloping roof.
"Don't," I said. I knew that they would be frightened too.
"If you force them to come, they too will cry."
"Yes," said one of the women who had followed us into the hut.
"The children will sit with the white girl as soon as they see that their
mothers are not afraid to touch her palm-fiber hair and pale body."
Several women had gathered around us. Tentatively at first, their hands
explored my face, then my neck, arms, breasts, stomach, thighs, knees, calves,
toes: There was not a part of me they left unexamined. Whenever they discovered
a mosquito bite or a scratch, they spat on it, then rubbed the spot with their
thumbs. If the bite was recent, they sucked out the poison.
Although I had become accustomed to Ritimi's, Tutemi's, and the
Iticoteri's children's lavish shows of affection, which never lasted more than
a moment, I felt uncomfortable under the exploring touch of so many hands on my
body. "What are they doing?" I asked, pointing to a group of men
squatting outside the hut next to us.
"They are preparing the assai leaves for the dance,"
said the woman who had placed the baby in my lap. "Do you want to look at
that?"
"Yes," I said emphatically, wanting to shift the attention
away from myself.
"Does Ritimi have to accompany you everywhere you go?" the
woman asked as Ritimi got up from the hammock with me.
"Yes," I said. "Had it not been for her I would not be
visiting your shabono. Ritimi has taken care of me since I arrived in
the forest."
Ritimi beamed at me. I wished I had expressed words to that effect
sooner. Not once during the rest of our stay did any of the Mocototeri women
question Ritimi's proprietary manner toward me.
The men outside the hut were separating the still closed, pale yellow
leaves of the young assai palm with sharp little sticks. One of the men
rose from his squatting position as we approached. Taking the tobacco wad from
his mouth, he wiped the dribbling juice from his chin with the back of his hand
and held the palm frond over my head. Smiling, he pointed to the fine gold
veins in the leaf, barely visible against the light of the setting sun. He
touched my hair, replaced the wad in his mouth, and without saying a word,
continued separating the leaves.
Fires were lit in the middle of the clearing as soon as it was dark. The
Iticoteri men touched off an explosion of wild cheering from their hosts as
they lined up, weapons in hand, around the fires. Two at a time, the Iticoteri
danced around the clearing, slowing down in front of each hut, so all could
admire their attire and their dancing steps.
Etewa and Iramamowe made up the last pair. Shouts reached a higher pitch
as they moved in perfectly matched steps. They did not dance around the huts
but stayed close to the fires, wheeling and spinning at an ever accelerating
speed, their rhythm dictated by the leaping flames. Etewa and Iramamowe stopped
abruptly in their tracks, held their bows and arrows vertically next to their
faces, then aimed them at the Mocototeri men standing in front of their huts.
Laughing uproariously, the two men resumed their dance while the onlookers
broke out in exultant, approving shouts.
The Iticoteri men were invited by their hosts to rest in their hammocks.
While food was served, a group of Mocototeri burst into the clearing. "Hail,
ham, haiiii," they shouted, moving to the clacking of their bows and
arrows, to the swishing sound of the fringed, undulating assai palm
fronds.
I could hardly make out the dancing figures. At times they seemed fused
together, then they leapt apart, fragments of dancing arms, legs, and feet
visible from between the swaying palm fronds- black, birdlike silhouettes with
giant wings as they moved away from the light of the fires, blazing copper
figures, no longer man or bird, as their bodies glistening with sweat glowed in
the flames.
"We want to dance with your women," the Mocototeri demanded.
When there was no response from the Iticoteri, they jeered. "You are
jealous of them. Why don't you let your poor women dance? Don't you remember we
let you dance with our women at your feast?"
"Whoever wants to dance with the Mocototeri, may do so,"
Iramamowe shouted, then admonished the men, "But you will not force any of
our women to dance if they don't wish to do so."
"Haii, haiii, haiiii," the men yelled
euphorically, welcoming the Iticoteri women as well as their own.
"Don't you want to dance?" I asked Ritimi. "I will go
with you."
"No. I don't want to lose you in the crowd," she said. "I
don't want anyone to hit you on the head."
"But that was an accident. Besides, the Mocototeri are not dancing
with fire logs," I said. "What could they possibly do with palm
fronds?"
Ritimi shrugged her shoulders. "My father said the Mocototeri are
not to be trusted."
"I thought one only invites one's friends to a feast."
"Enemies too," Ritimi said, giggling. "Feasts are a good
time to find out what people are planning to do."
"The Mocototeri are very friendly," I said. "They have
fed us very well."
"They feed us well because they don't want anyone to say they are
stingy," Ritimi said. "But as my father has told you, you are still
ignorant. You obviously don't know what's going on if you think they are
friendly." Ritimi patted my head as if I were a child, then continued,
"Didn't you notice that our men didn't take epena this afternoon?
Haven't you realized how watchful they are?"
I had not noticed, and was tempted to add that I thought the Iticoteri's
behavior was not very friendly but remained quiet. After all, as Ritimi had
pointed out, I did not understand what was going on. I observed the six
Iticoteri men dancing around the fires. They were not moving with their usual
abandon and their eyes kept darting back and forth, keenly watching all that
went on around them. The rest of the Iticoteri men were not lounging in their
host's hammocks but were standing outside the huts.
The dance had lost its enchantment for me. Shadows and voices took on a
different mood. The night now seemed packed with an ominous darkness. I began to
eat what had been served to me earlier. "This meat tastes bitter," I
said, wondering if it was poisoned.
"It's bitter because of the mamucori," Ritimi said
casually. "The spot where the poisoned arrow hit the monkey hasn't been
washed properly."
I spat out the meat. Not only was I afraid of being poisoned, but I felt
nauseous as I remembered the sight of the monkey boiling in the tall aluminum
pot, a layer of fat and monkey hairs floating on the surface.
Ritimi put the piece of meat back on my calabash plate. "Eat
it," she urged me. "It's good- even the bitter part. Your body will
get used to the poison. Don't you know that fathers always give their sons the
part where the arrow hit? If they are shot in a raid by a poisoned arrow they
won't die because their bodies will be used to the mamucori."
"I'm afraid that before I get hit by a poisoned arrow, I will die
from eating poisoned meat."
"No. One doesn't die from eating mamucori," Ritimi
assured me. "It has to go through the skin." She took the already chewed
piece from my calabash, bit off a chunk, then pushed the remaining half into my
gaping mouth. Smiling mockingly, she exchanged her dish with mine. "I
don't want you to choke," she said, eating the rest of the cooked monkey
breast with exaggerated gusto. Still chewing, she pointed toward the clearing,
and asked if I could see the woman with the round face dancing by the fire.
I nodded, but I did not recognize which one she meant. There were about
ten women dancing close to the fire. They all had round faces, dark slanted
eyes, voluptuous bodies the color of honey in the light of the flames.
"She is the one who had intercourse with Etewa at our feast,"
Ritimi said. "I've bewitched her already."
"When did you do that?"
"This afternoon," Ritimi said softly, and began to giggle.
"I blew the oko-shiki I had collected from my garden on her
hammock," she added with satisfaction.
"What if someone else sits in her hammock?"
"It makes no difference. The magic is only meant to harm her,"
Ritimi assured me.
I had no chance to find out more about the bewitching for at that moment
the dancing ceased and the tired, smiling dancers returned to the various huts
to rest and eat.
The women who joined us around the hearth were surprised Ritimi and I
had not danced. Dancing was as important as painting the body with onoto-
it kept one young and happy.
Shortly the headman stepped into the clearing and announced in a
thunderous voice, "I want to hear the Iticoteri women sing. Their voices
are pleasing to my ears. I want our women to learn their songs."
Giggling, the women nudged each other. "You go, Ritimi," one
of Iramamowe's wives said. "Your voice is beautiful."
That was all the encouragement Ritimi needed. "Let's all go
together," she said, standing up.
Silence spread over the shabono as we walked out into the
clearing with our arms around each other's waists. Facing the headman's hut,
Ritimi began to sing in a clear, melodious voice. The songs were very short:
The last two lines were repeated as a chorus by the rest of us. The other women
sang too, but it was Ritimi's songs, one in particular, that the Mocototeri
headman insisted she repeat until his women had learned it.
When the wind blows the palm leaves,
I listen to their melancholy sound with the silent frogs.
High in the sky, the stars are all laughing,
But cry tears of sadness as the clouds cover them.
The headman walked toward us and, addressing me, said, "Now you
must sing for us."
"But I don't know any songs," I said, unable to repress my
giggles.
"You must know some," the headman insisted. "I've heard
stories of how much the whites like to sing. They even have boxes that
sing."
In the third grade in Caracas I had been told by the music teacher that
besides having a dreadful voice I was also tone deaf. However, Professor Hans,
as he expected to be addressed, was not insensitive to my desire to sing. He
allowed me to remain in the class provided I stayed in the last row and sang
very softly. Professor Hans did not bother much with the required religious and
folk songs we were supposed to be learning, but taught us Argentinian tangos
from the thirties. I had not forgotten those songs.
Looking at the expectant faces around me, I stepped closer to the fire.
I cleared my throat and began to sing, oblivious to the jarring notes escaping
my throat. For a moment I felt I was faithfully reproducing the passionate
manner in which Professor Hans had sung his tangos. I clutched my hands to my
breast, I closed my eyes as if transported with the sadness and tragedy of each
line.
My audience was spellbound. The Mocototeri and Iticoteri had come out of
their huts to watch my every gesture.
The headman stared at me for a long time, then finally said, "Our
women cannot learn to sing in this strange manner."
The men sang next. Each singer stood alone in the middle of the
clearing, both hands resting high on his upright bow. Sometimes a friend
accompanied the performer: Then the singer rested his arm over his companion's
shoulder. One song in particular, sung by a Mocototeri youth, was the favorite
of the night.
When a monkey jumps from tree to tree
I shoot it with my arrow.
Only green leaves drop down.
Swirling around, they gather at my feet.
The Iticoteri men did not lie down in their hammocks but talked and sang
with their hosts throughout the night. I slept with the women and children in
the empty huts around the main entrance of the shabono.
In the morning I stuffed myself with the papayas and pineapples one of
the Mocototeri girls had brought for me from her father's garden. Ritimi and I
had discovered them earlier on our way into the bush. She had advised me not to
ask for the fruit- not because it was not proper, but because the fruit was
unripe. But I did not mind their sour taste or even the slight stomachache that
followed. I had not eaten familiar fruits for months. Bananas and palm fruit
were like vegetables to me.
"You had a wretched voice when you sang," a young man said,
squatting next to me. "Ohoo, I didn't understand your song, but it sounded
hideous."
Speechless, I glared at him. I did not know whether to laugh or insult
him in turn.
Putting her arms around my neck, Ritimi burst into laughter. She looked
at me askance, then whispered in my ear, "When you sang I thought the
monkey meat had given you a bellyache."
Squatting on the same spot in the clearing where they had started out
last night, a group of Iticoteri and Mocototeri men were still talking in the
formal, ritualized manner proper to the wayamou. Bartering was a slow,
involved affair during which equal importance was given to the items for
trading and the exchange of information and gossip.
Close to noon, some Mocototeri women began criticizing their husbands
for the items they had exchanged, stating that they needed the machetes,
aluminum pots, and cotton hammocks themselves. "Poisoned arrowheads,"
one of the women shouted angrily. "You could make them yourself if you
weren't so lazy." Without paying the slightest attention to the women's
remarks, the men continued their hagglings.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 13
It was past noon when we left the Mocototeri settlement, our baskets
filled with the accustomed plantains, palm fruits, and meat given to departing
guests.
Shortly before nightfall, three Mocototeri men caught up with us. One of
them raised his bow as he spoke. "Our headman wants the white girl to stay
with us." He stared at me down the shaft of his drawn arrow.
"Only a coward points his arrow at a woman," Iramamowe said,
stepping in front of me. "Why don't you shoot, you useless
Mocototeri?"
"We haven't come to fight," the man remarked, returning his
bow and arrow to an upright position. "We could have ambushed you some
time ago. All we want is to frighten the white girl so she'll come with
us."
"She cannot stay with you," Iramamowe said. "Milagros
brought her to our shabono. If he had wanted her to stay with you, he
would have taken her to your settlement."
"We want her to come with us," the man persisted. "We
will bring her back before the rains start."
"If you make me angry, I shall kill you on the spot."
Iramamowe pounded his chest. "Remember, you cowardly Mocototeri, that I'm
a fierce warrior. The hekuras in my chest are always at my command, even
without epena." Iramamowe moved nearer to the three men.
"Don't you know that the white girl belongs to the Iticoteri?"
"Why don't you ask her where she wants to stay?" the man said.
"She liked our people. Maybe she wants to live with us."
Iramamowe began to laugh- a rumbling laughter that did not reveal
whether he was amused or outraged. He stopped abruptly. "The white girl
does not like the way the Mocototeri look. She said you all resemble
monkeys." Iramamowe turned toward me. There was such a pleading expression
in his eyes that it was all I could do not to giggle.
I felt a tinge of remorse as I looked into the bewildered faces of the
three Mocototeri. For an instant I felt tempted to deny Iramainowe's words. But
I could not ignore his anger, nor had I forgotten Arasuwe's apprehension at my
going to the feast. I crossed my arms over my chest, lifted my chin, and
without looking at them directly said, "I don't want to go to your settlement.
I don't want to eat and sleep with monkeys."
The Iticoteri burst into loud guffaws. The three men turned around
abruptly, then disappeared on the path leading into the thicket.
We made camp not too far from the river in a cleared area of the forest,
where the remains of temporary shelters still stood. We did not cover them with
new leaves, for old Kamosiwe assured us that it would not rain that night.
Iramamowe did not eat, but sat, glum and intense, in front of the fire.
There was a tension about him as if he were expecting the three men to reappear
at any moment.
"Is there any danger the Mocototeri might come back?" I asked.
Iramamowe was some time before giving me an answer. "They are
cowards. They know that my arrows will kill them on the spot." He stared
fixedly on the ground: His lips set in a straight line. "I'm considering
what would be the best way to return to our shabono."
"We should divide up our party," old Kamosiwe suggested,
gazing at me with his one eye. "There is no moon tonight; the Mocototeri
will not return. Perhaps tomorrow they will ask again for the white-girl. We
can tell them that they frightened her away, that she asked to be taken back to
the mission."
"Are you sending her back?" Ritimi's voice hung in the
darkness, charged with anxiety.
"No," the old man said cheerfully. The grayish bristles on his
chin, his one eye that never missed anything, his slight wrinkled body gave him
the appearance of a wicked elf. "Etewa should return to the shabono
with Ritimi and the white girl by way of the mountains. It's a longer route but
they won't be slowed down by children and old people. They will reach our
settlement no later than a day or two after we do. It is a good route, not
traveled much." Old Kamosiwe got up and sniffed the air. "It will
rain tomorrow. Build a shelter for the night," he said to Etewa, then
squatted, a smile on his lips, his one sunken eye staring at me. "Are you
afraid to return to the shabono by way of the mountains?"
Smiling, I shook my head. Somehow I could not envision myself to be in
real danger.
"Were you afraid when the Mocototeri aimed his arrow at you?"
old Kamosiwe asked.
"No. I knew the Iticoteri would protect me." I had to refrain
myself from adding that the incident had seemed comical to me rather than
dangerous. I did not fully realize at the time that in spite of the obvious
bluffing, characteristic of any critical circumstance, the Mocototeri and
Iticoteri were perfectly serious in their threats and demands.
Old Kamosiwe was delighted with my reply. I had the feeling his pleasure
derived not so much from the fact that I had not been frightened, but rather by
my trust in his people. He talked to Etewa long into the night. Ritimi fell
asleep holding my hand in hers, a blissful smile on her lips. Watching her dream,
I knew why she looked so happy. For a few days she would have Etewa practically
to herself.
In the shabono men hardly ever showed any outward affection
toward their wives. It was considered a weakness. Only toward the children were
the men openly tender and loving; they indulged, kissed, and caressed them
lavishly. I had seen Etewa and even the fierce Iramamowe carry the heavy loads
of wood for their women only to drop them as soon as they approached the shabono.
When there had been no other man near, I had seen Etewa save a special piece of
meat or fruit for Ritimi or Tutemi. Protected by the darkness, I had seen him
press his ear against Tutemi's womb to listen to the strong kicks of his unborn
child. In the presence of others he never mentioned that he was to be a father.
Ritimi and I were awakened by Etewa hours before dawn. Quietly we left
the camp, following the sandy bank of the river. Except for our hammocks, a few
plantains, and the three pineapples the Mocototeri girl had given me, our
baskets were empty. Old Kamosiwe had assured Etewa that he would find plenty of
game. There was no moon, yet the water shone black, reflecting the faint glow
of the sky. At intervals the sound of a nocturnal bird darted through the
stillness, a faint cry heralding the oncoming dawn. One by one, the stars
faded: The contours of trees became distinct as the rosy light of dawn
descended all the way to the shadows at our feet. I was astonished at the width
of the river, and at the silence of its flowing waters so still they did not
seem to move. Three macaws formed a triangle in the sky, painting the
stationary clouds with their red, blue, and yellow feathers as the orange
glowing sun rose over the treetops.
Etewa opened his mouth in a yawn that seemed to force its way up from
the farthest depths of his lungs. He squinted: The light of the sun was too
bright for eyes that had not slept enough.
We unfastened our baskets. Ritimi and I sat on a log from where we
watched Etewa draw his bow. Slowly, he raised his arms and arched his back,
pointing his arrow high in the air. Motionless, he stood for an interminable
time, a stone figure, each taut muscle carefully etched, his gaze attentive to
the birds crossing the sky. I did not dare ask why he was waiting so long to
let his arrow go.
I did not hear the arrow travel through the air- only a flashing cry
that dissoved into a flapping of wings. For an instant the macaw, a mass of
feathers held together by the red-tinted arrow, was suspended in the sky before
it plunged downward, not too far from where Etewa stood.
Etewa made a fire over which we roasted the plucked bird and some
plantains. He ate only a small portion, insisting that we finish the rest so we
would have enough strength for the arduous climb over the hills.
We did not miss the sunlight on the river path as we turned into the
thicket. The penumbra of vines and trees was soothing to our tired eyes.
Decaying leaves looked like patches of flowers against the background of
greenness. Etewa cut branches from the dark, wild cocoa trees. "With this
wood one makes the best fire drills," he said, stripping the branches of
their bark with his sharp knife, which was made from the lower incisor of an
agouti. Then he cut the green, yellow, and purple pods individually attached to
the stunted cacao trunks by short leafless stems. He split the fruits open and
we sucked the sweet gelatinous flesh surrounding the seeds, which we wrapped in
leaves. "Cooked," Ritimi explained, "the pohoro seeds are
delicious." I wondered if they would taste like chocolate.
"There must be monkeys and weasels nearby," Etewa explained,
showing me the discarded, chewed-up fruit skins on the ground. "They like
the pohoro fruit as much as we do."
A bit further on Etewa stopped in front of a twisted vine, which he
marked with his knife. "Mamucori," he said. "I will
return to this spot when I need to make fresh poison."
"Ashnkamaki?" I exclaimed as we
stopped beneath a tree, its trunk encrusted with glossy, waxlike leaves. But it
was not the liana used to thicken curare. Etewa pointed out that those leaves
were long and jagged. He had stopped because of the various animal bones on the
ground.
"Harpy eagle," he said, gesturing to the nest at the top of
the tree.
"Don't kill the bird," Ritimi pleaded. "Perhaps it's the
spirit of a dead Iticoteri."
Ignoring his wife, Etewa climbed up the tree. Upon reaching the nest he
lifted out a shrieking white fluffy chick. We heard the loud cries of its
mother as Etewa threw the chick on the ground. He propped himself against the
trunk and a branch, then aimed his arrow at the circling bird.
"I'm glad I shot the bird," Etewa said, motioning us to follow
him to the spot where the dead eagle crashed through the trees. "It eats
only meat." He turned toward Ritimi, then added softly, "I listened
to its cry before I aimed my arrow- it wasn't the voice of a spirit." He
plucked the soft white feathers from the bird's breast, the long gray ones from
its wings, then wrapped them in leaves.
The afternoon heat filtering through the leaves made me so drowsy that
all I wanted to do was sleep. Ritimi had dark smudges under her eyes, as if she
had dabbed coal on the tender skin. Etewa's pace slackened. Without saying a
word, he headed toward the river. We stood motionless in the wide, shallow
waters, held in suspension by the heat and the glare. We stared at the
reflected clouds and trees, then lay down on a bank of ochre-colored sand in
the middle of the river. Blues faded into green and red from the tannin of the
submerged roots. Not a leaf stirred, not a cloud moved. Even the dragonflies
hovering over the water seemed motionless in their transparent vibrations.
Turning on my stomach, I let my hands lie flat on the river's surface as if I
could hold the languid harmony reigning between the reflection in the river and
the glow in the sky. I slid on my stomach until my lips touched the water, then
drank the mirrored clouds.
Two herons that had taken flight at our arrival returned. Poised on
their long legs, with necks sunk between their feathers, they watched us
through blinking, half-closed lids. I saw silvery bodies jump up in the air,
seeking the intoxicating heat shimmering over the water. "Fish," I
exclaimed, my lethargy momentarily gone.
Chuckling, Etewa pointed with his arrow to a flock of shrieking parrots
crossing the sky. "Birds," he shouted, then reached for the bamboo
quiver on his back. He took out an arrowhead, tasted it with the tip of his
tongue to see if the poison was still good. Satisfied by its bitter taste, he
fastened the sharp point to one of his arrow shafts. Next he tested his bow by
letting go of the string. "It's not well stretched," he said, untying
it at one end. He twisted the string several times, then threaded it again.
"We will stay here for the night," he said, wading through the water.
He climbed up on the opposite bank, disappearing behind the trees.
Ritimi and I remained on the sandy bank. She unwrapped the feathers and
spread them on a stone for the sun to kill the lice. Excitedly she pointed to a
tree on the bank on which clusters of pale flowers hung like fruit. She cut
whole branches, then offered me the flowers to eat. "They are sweet,"
she pointed out upon noticing my reluctance to eat them.
Trying to explain that the flowers reminded me of strongly perfumed
soap, I fell asleep. I awoke with the sounds of dusk sweeping up the light of
the day, the rustling of the breeze cooling the trees, the calls of birds
settling for the night.
Etewa had returned with two curassows and a bundle of palm fronds. I
helped Ritimi collect firewood along the riverbank. While she plucked the
birds, I assisted Etewa with building the shelter.
"Are you sure it's going to rain?" I asked him, looking at the
clear, cloudless sky.
"If old Kamosiwe said it's going to rain, then it will," Etewa
said. "He can smell rain the way others can smell food."
It was a cozy little hut. The front pole was higher than the two in the
back but not high enough for us to stand up. The poles were connected with long
sticks, giving the shelter a triangular shape. Both the roof and the back were
covered with palm fronds. We covered the ground with platanillo leaves,
for the poles were not strong enough to support three hammocks.
Actually, Etewa did not build the shelter so much for Ritimi's and my
comfort as for his. If he got wet in the rain, he might cause the child in
Tutemi's.womb to be born dead or deformed.
Ritimi cooked the birds, several plantains, and the cacao seeds over the
fire Etewa built inside the hut. I mashed one of our pineapples. The mixture of
flavors, textures, reminded me of a Thanksgiving dinner.
"It must be like momo nuts," Ritimi said after I had
explained about cranberry sauce. "Momo is also red; it needs to be
boiled for a long time until it's soft. It also has to soak in water until all
the poison is leached out."
"I don't think I'd like momo nuts."
"You will," Ritimi assured me. "See how much you like the
pohoro seeds. Momo nuts are even better."
Smiling, I nodded. Although the roasted cacao seeds did not taste like
chocolate, they were as delicious as fresh cashews.
Etewa and Ritimi were asleep the moment they lay back on the platanillo
leaves. I stretched out next to Ritimi. In her sleep she reached over, hugging
me close to her. The warmth of her body filled me with a soothing laziness; her
rhythmic breathing lulled me into a pleasant drowsiness. A succession of
dreamlike images drifted through my mind, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, as if
someone were projecting them in front of me: Mocototeri men brachiating from
tree to tree glided past me, their cries indistinguishable from the howler
monkeys. Crocodiles with luminous eyes, barely above the surface of the water,
blinked sleepily, then suddenly opened their giant jaws ready to swallow me.
Anteaters with threadlike viscous tongues blew bubbles in which I saw myself
captive together with hundreds of ants.
I was awakened by a sudden gust of wind; it brought with it the smell of
rain. I sat up and listened to the heavy drops pattering on the palm fronds.
The familiar sounds of crickets and frogs provided a continuous pulsating
background hum to the plaintive cries of nocturnal monkeys, the flutelike calls
of forest partridges. I was sure I heard steps and then the snapping of twigs.
"There is someone out there," I said, reaching over to Etewa.
He moved to the front pole of the shelter. "It's a jaguar looking
for frogs in the marshes." Etewa turned my head slightly to the left.
"You can smell him."
I sniffed the air repeatedly. "I can't smell a thing."
"It's the jaguar's breath that smells. It's strong because he eats
everything raw." Etewa turned my head once more, this time to the right.
"Listen, he is returning to the forest."
I lay down again. Ritimi awoke, rubbed her eyes, and smiled. "I
dreamt that I walked up in the mountains and saw the waterfalls."
"We will go that way tomorrow," Etewa said, unfastening the epena
pouch from around his neck. He poured some of the powder in his palm, then with
one deep breath drew it into his nostrils.
"Are you going to chant to the hekuras now?" I asked.
"I will beg the spirits of the forest to protect us," Etewa
said, then began to chant in a low voice. His song, carried on the night
breeze, seemed to traverse the darkness. I was certain it reached the spirits
dwelling in the four corners of the earth. The fire died down to a red glimmer.
I no longer heard Etewa's voice, but his lips were still moving as I fell into
a dreamless sleep.
I was awakened shortly by Ritimi's soft moans and touched her shoulder,
thinking she was having a nightmare.
"Do you want to try it?" she murmured.
Surprised, I opened my eyes and looked into Etewa's smiling face; he was
making love to her. I watched them for a while. The motion of their bodies was
so closely adjusted they barely moved.
Etewa, not in the least embarrassed, moved out of Ritimi and knelt in
front of me. Lifting my legs, he stretched them slightly. He pressed his cheeks
against my calves; his touch was like the playful caress of a child. There was
no embrace; there were no words. Yet I was filled with tenderness.
Etewa switched to Ritimi again, resting his head between her shoulder
and mine.
"Now we truly are sisters," Ritimi said softly. "On the
outside we don't look the same, but our insides are the same now."
I snuggled against her. The river breeze brushing through the shelter
was like a caress.
The rosy light of dawn descended gently over the treetops. Ritimi and
Etewa headed toward the river. I stepped outside the shelter and breathed in
the new day. At dawn the darkness of the forest is no longer black but a bluish
green, like an underground cave that is illuminated by a light filtering
through some secret crack. A sprinkling of dew, like soft rain, wet my face as I
pushed leaves and vines out of my way. Little red spiders with hairy legs
hastily respun their silvery webs.
Etewa found a honeycomb inside a hollow trunk. After squeezing the last
drop in our mouths, he soaked the comb in a water-filled calabash and later we
drank the sweet water.
We climbed overgrown paths bordering small cascades and stretches of
river that swept by at dizzying speeds, causing a breeze that blew our hair and
swayed the bamboo on the shore.
"This is the scene of my dream," Ritimi said, extending her
arms as if to embrace the wide expanse of water hurtling down before us into a
deep wide pool.
I edged my way onto the dark basalt rocks protruding around the falls.
For a long time I stood beneath it, my hands raised to break the thunderous force
of the water descending from heights already warmed by the sun.
"Come out, white girl," Etewa shouted. "The spirits of
the rushing water will make you ill."
Later in the afternoon we made camp by a grove of wild banana trees.
Amidst them I discovered an avocado tree. It had only one fruit; it was not
pear shaped, but round, as big as a cantaloupe, and shone as if it were made
out of wax. Etewa lifted me so I could reach the first branch, then slowly I
climbed toward the fruit hanging at the tip of the highest limb. My greed to
reach the green ball was so great I ignored the brittle branches cracking under
my weight. As I pulled the fruit toward me the branch I was standing on gave
way.
Etewa laughed till tears rolled down his cheeks. Ritimi, also laughing,
scraped the mashed avocado from my stomach and thigh.
"I could have hurt myself," I said, piqued by their
indifference and mirth. "Maybe I broke a leg."
"No, you didn't," Etewa assured me. "The ground is soft
with dead leaves." He scooped some mashed fruit in his hand and urged me
to taste it. "I told you not to stay under the falls," he added
seriously. "The spirits of the rushing water made you ignore the danger of
dry branches."
By the time Etewa had built the shelter all trace of day had vanished.
The forest was clouded in a whitish mist. It did not rain, but the dew on the
leaves fell in heavy drops at the slightest touch.
We slept on the platanillo leaves, warmed by each other's bodies
and by the low fire that Etewa kept alive throughout the night by periodically
pushing the burning logs closer to the flame with his foot.
We left our camp before dawn. Thick mist still shrouded the trees and
the cry of frogs reached us as if from a great distance. The higher we climbed,
the scantier the vegetation became until at last there was nothing but grasses
and rocks.
We reached the top of a plateau eroded by winds and rains, a relic from
another age. Below, the forest was still asleep under a blanket of fog. A
mysterious, pathless world whose vastness one could never guess from the
outside. We sat on the ground and silently waited for the sun to rise.
An overwhelming sense of awe brought me to my feet as the sky in the
east glowed red and purple along the horizon. The clouds, obedient to the wind,
opened to let the rising disk through. Pink mist rolled over the treetops,
touching up shadows with deep blue, spreading green and yellow all over the sky
until it changed into a transparent blue.
I turned to look behind me, to the west, where clouds were changing
shape, giving way to the expanding light. To the south, the sky was tinted with
fiery streaks and luminous clouds piled up, pushed by the wind.
"Over there is our shabono," Etewa said, pointing into
the distance. He grasped my arm and turned me around, into a northerly
direction. "And over there is the great river, where the white man passes
by."
The sun had lifted the blanket of tog. The river shone like a golden
snake cutting through the greenness until it lost itself in an immensity of space
that seemed to be part of another world.
I wanted to speak, to cry out loud, but I had no words with which to
express my emotions. Looking at Ritimi and Etewa, I knew they understood how
deeply I felt. I held out my arms as if to embrace this marvelous border of
forest and sky. I felt I was at the edge of time and space. I could hear the
vibrations of the light, the whispering of trees, the cries of distant birds
carried by the wind.
I suddenly knew that it was out of choice and not out of lack of interest
that the Iticoteri had never been curious about my past. For them I had no
personal history. Only thus could they have accepted me as something other than
an oddity. Events and relationships of my past had begun to blur in my memory.
It was not that I had forgotten them; I had simply stopped thinking about them,
for they had no meaning there in the forest. Like the Iticoteri, I had learned
to live in the present. Time was outside of me. It was something to be used
only at the moment. Once used, it sank back into itself and became an
imperceptible part of my inner being.
"You have been so quiet for so long," Ritimi said, sitting on
the ground. Pulling her knees up, she clasped them, then rested her chin on
them and gazed at me.
"I've been thinking of how happy I am to be here," I said.
Smiling, Ritimi rocked herself gently to and fro. "One day I
will collect wood and you will no longer be at my side. But I will not be sad,
because this afternoon, before we reach the shabono, we will paint
ourselves with onoto and we will be happy watching a flow of macaws chase
the setting sun."
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 14
Women, I had been told, were not to concern themselves with any aspect
of the epena ritual. They were not supposed to prepare it, nor were they
allowed to take the hallucinogenic snuff. It was not even proper for a woman to
touch the cane tube through which the powder was blown, unless a man
specifically asked her to fetch it for him.
To my utter astonishment one morning, I saw Ritimi bent over the hearth,
attentively studying the dark reddish epena seeds drying over the
embers. Without acknowledging my presence, she proceeded to rub the dried seeds
between her palms over a large leaf containing a heap of bark ashes. With the
same confidence and expertise I had seen in Etewa, she periodically spat on the
ashes and seeds as she kneaded them into a pliable uniform mass.
As she transferred the doughy mixture onto a hot earthenware shard, Ritimi
looked up at me, her smile clearly revealing how delighted she was by my
bafflement. "Ohooo, the epena will be strong," she said,
shifting her gaze back to the hallucinogenic dough bursting with loud popping
sounds on the piece of terra-cotta. With a smooth stone she ground the
fast-drying mass until it all blended into a very fine powder, which included a
layer of dust from the earthenware shard.
"I didn't know women knew how to prepare epena," I
said.
"Women can do anything," Ritimi said, funneling the brownish
powder into a slender bamboo container.
Waiting in vain for her to satisfy my curiosity, I finally asked,
"Why are you preparing the snuff?"
"Etewa knows I prepare epena well," she said proudly.
"He likes to have some ready whenever he returns from a hunt."
For several days we had eaten nothing but fish. Not being in the mood
for hunting, Etewa, together with a group of men, had dammed a small stream, in
which they placed crushed, cut-up pieces of ayori-toto vine. The water
had turned a whitish color, as if it were milk. All the women had to do was to
fill their baskets with the asphyxiated fish that rose to the surface. But the
Iticoteri were not too fond of fish and soon the women and children began to
complain about the lack of meat. Two days had passed since Etewa and his
friends had set out for the forest.
"How do you know Etewa is returning today?" I asked, and
before Ritimi answered, hastily added, "I know, you can feel it in your
legs."
Smiling, Ritimi picked up the long narrow tube and blew through it
repeatedly. "I'm cleaning it," she said with a mischievous glint in
her eyes.
"Have you ever taken epena?
Ritimi leaned closer to whisper in my ear, "Yes, but I did not like
it. It gave me a headache." She looked around furtively. "Would you
like to try some?"
"I don't want a headache."
"Maybe it's different for you, "she said; Standing up, she
casually put the bamboo container and the three-foot-long cane into her basket.
"Let's go to the river. I want to see if I mixed the epena
well."
We walked along the bank, quite a distance from where the Iticoteri
usually came to bathe or to draw water. I squatted on the ground in front of
Ritimi, who meticulously began introducing a small amount of epena into
one end of the cane. Delicately, she flicked the tube with her forefinger,
scattering the powder along its length. I felt drops of sweat running down my
sides. The only time I had ever been drugged was when I had had three wisdom
teeth removed. At the time I had wondered if it would not have been wiser to
bear the pain instead of the gruesome hallucinations the drug had induced in
me.
"Lift your head slightly," Ritimi said, holding the slender
tube toward me. "See the little rasha nut at the end? Press it
against your nostril."
I nodded. I could see that the palm seed had been tightly attached to
the end of the cane with resin. I made sure the small hole that had been
drilled into the hollowed-out fruit was inside my nose. I ran my hand along the
fragile length of the smooth cane. I heard the sharp sound of compressed air
shooting through the tube. I let go of it as a piercing pain seared into my
brain. "That feels terrible!" I groaned, pounding the top of my head
with my palms.
"Now the other one," laughed Ritimi as she placed the cane
against my left nostril.
I felt as if I were bleeding, but Ritimi assured me it was only mucus
and saliva dribbling uncontrollably from my nose and mouth. I tried to wipe
myself clean but was unable to lift my heavy hand.
"Why don't you enjoy it instead of being so fussy about a little
slime running into your belly button?" Ritimi said, grinning at my clumsy
efforts. "I'll wash you later in the river."
"There is nothing to enjoy," I said, beginning to sweat
profusely from every pore. I felt nauseous and there was an odd heaviness in my
limbs. I saw points of red and yellow light everywhere. I wondered what Ritimi
found so funny. Her laughter reverberated in my ears as if it came from inside
my head. "Let me blow some in your nose," I suggested.
"Oh, no. I have to watch over you," she said. "We cannot
both end up with a headache."
"This epena has to give more than a headache," I said.
"Blow some more into my nose. I want to see a hekura."
"Hekuras don't come to women," Ritimi said between
fits of laughter. She placed the cane against my nose. "But perhaps if you
chant they'll come to you."
I felt each grain travel up my nasal passage, exploding in the top of my
skull. Slowly, a delicious lassitude [* lassitude- a
state of comatose; a feeling of lack of interest or energy] spread
through my body. I turned my gaze to the river, almost expecting a mythical
creature to emerge from its depths. Ripples of water began to grow into waves
splashing back and forth with such force that I scurried backward on my hands
and knees. I was certain the water was trying to trap me. Shifting my eyes to
Ritimi's face, I was bewildered by her alarmed expression.
"What is it?" I asked. My voice trailed off as I followed the
direction of her gaze. Etewa and Iramamowe stood in front of us. With great
difficulty I stood up. I touched them to make sure I was not hallucinating.
Unfastening the large bundles slung over their backs, they handed them
to the other hunters standing behind on the trail. "Take the meat to the shabono,"
Iramamowe said hoarsely.
The thought that Etewa and Iramamowe would eat so little of the meat
filled me with such sadness I began to cry. A hunter gives away most of the
game he kills. He would rather go hungry than risk the chance of being accused
of stinginess. "I'll save you my portion," I said to Etewa. "I
prefer fish to meat."
"Why are you taking epena? Etewa's voice was stern, but his
eyes were sparkling with amusement.
"We had to check if Ritimi mixed the powder properly," I
mumbled. "It's not strong enough. Haven't seen a hekura yet."
"It's strong," Etewa retorted. Putting his hands on my
shoulders, he made me squat on the ground in front of him. "Epena
made from seeds is stronger than the kind made from bark." He filled the
cane with the snuff. "Ritimi's breath does not have much strength." A
devilish grin creased his face as he placed the tube against my nostril and
blew.
I fell backward, cradling my head, which reverberated with Iramamowe's
and Etewa's uproarious laughter. Slowly I stood up. My feet felt as though they
were not touching the ground.
"Dance, white girl," Iramamowe urged me. "See if you can
lure the hekuras with your chant."
Mesmerized by his words, I held out my arms and began to dance with
small jerky steps, the way I had seen the men dance when in an epena
trance.
Through my head ran the melody and words of one of Iramamowe's hekura
songs.
After days of calling the hekura of
the hummingbird,
she finally came to me.
Dazzled, I watched her dance.
I fainted on the ground,
and did not feel as she
pierced my throat
and tore out my tonsue.
I did not see how my blood
flowed into the river,
tinting the water red.
She filled the gap with precious feathers.
That is why I know the hekura songs.
That is why I sing so well.
Etewa guided me to the edge of the river, then splashed water on my face
and chest. "Don't repeat his song," he warned me. "Iramamowe
will get angry. He will harm you with his magic plants."
I wanted to do as he told me, yet I was compelled to repeat Iramamowe's hekurasong.
"Don't repeat his song," Etewa pleaded. "Iramamowe will
make you deaf. He will make your eyes bleed." Etewa turned toward
Iramamowe. "Do not bewitch the white girl."
"I won't," Iramamowe assured him. "I'm not angry at her.
I know she is still ignorant of our ways." Framing my face with his hands,
he forced me to look into his eyes. "I can see the hekuras dancing
in her pupils."
In the light of the sun Iramamowe's eyes were not dark, but light, the
color of honey. "I can also see the hekuras in your eyes," I
said to him, studying the yellow specks on his iris. His face radiated a
gentleness that I had never seen before. As I tried to tell him that I finally
understood why his name was Jaguar's Eye, I collapsed against him. I was
vaguely aware of being carried in someone's arms. As soon as I was in my
hammock, I fell into a deep sleep from which I did not awaken until the
following day.
Arasuwe, Iramamowe, and old Kamosiwe had gathered in Etewa's hut.
Anxiously, I looked from one to the other. They were painted with onoto;
their perforated earlobes were decorated with short, feather-ornamented pieces
of cane. When Ritiroi sat next to me in my hammock, I was certain she had come
to protect me from their wrath. Before giving any of the men a chance to speak,
I began weaving excuses for having taken epenn. The faster I talked, the
safer I felt. A steady flow of words, I thought, was the surest way of
dispelling their anger.
Arasuwe finally cut into my incoherent chatter. "You talk too fast.
I can't understand what you are saying."
I was disconcerted at the friendliness of his tone. I was certain it was
not a result of my talking. I glanced at the others. Except for a vague
curiosity, their faces revealed nothing. I leaned against Ritimi and whispered,
"If they aren't upset, why are they all in the hut?"
"I don't know," she said softly.
"White girl, have you ever seen a hekura before
yesterday?" Arasuwe asked.
"I've never seen a hekura in my life," I rapidly
assured him. "Not even yesterday."
"Iramamowe saw hekuras in your eyes," Arasuwe insisted.
"He took epena last night. His personal hekura told him she
had taught you her song."
"I know Iramamowe's song because I've heard it so often," I
almost shouted. "How could his hekura have taught me? Spirits don't
come to women."
"You don't look like an Iticoteri woman," old Kamosiwe said,
gazing at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. "The hekuras
could easily be confused." He wiped the tobacco juice dribbling down the
side of his mouth. "There have been times when hekuras have come to
women."
"Believe me," I said to Iramamowe, "the reason I know
your song is because I've heard you sing it so many times."
"But I sing very softly," Iramamowe argued. "If you
really know my song, why don't you sing it now?"
Hoping this would bring the epena incident to an end, I began to
hum the melody. To my utter distress, I could not remember the words.
"You see," Iramamowe exclaimed triumphantly. "My hekura
taught you my song. That's why I didn't get angry at you yesterday, why I
didn't blow into your eyes and ears, why I didn't hit you with a burning
log."
"It must be so," I said, forcing a smile. Inwardly I
shuddered. Iramamowe was well known for his quick temper, revengeful nature,
and cruel punishments.
Old Kamosiwe spat his tobacco wad on the ground, then reached for a
banana hanging directly above him. Peeling it, he stuffed the fruit whole in
his mouth. "A long time ago there was a woman shapori," he
mumbled, still chewing. "Her name was Imaawami. Her skin was as white as
yours. She was tall and very strong. When she took epena, she sang to
the hekuras. She knew how to massage away pain and how to suck out
sickness. There was no one like her to hunt for the lost souls of children, and
to counteract the curses of enemy shamans."
"Tell us, white girl," Arasuwe said, "have you known a shapori
before you came here? Have you ever been taught by one?"
"I've known shamans," I said. "But they have never taught
me anything." In great detail I described the kind of work I had been
engaged in prior to my arrival at the mission. I talked about dona Mercedes and
how she had permitted me to watch and record the interaction between herself
and her patients. "Once dona Mercedes let me take part in a spiritual
seance," I said. "She believed that I might be a medium. Curers from
various areas had gathered at her house. We all sat in a circle chanting for
the spirits to come. We chanted for a very long time."
"Did you take epena?" Iramamowe asked.
"No. We smoked big, fat cigars," I said, and almost giggled at
the memory. There had been ten people in dona Mercedes's room. Rigidly we had
all sat on stools covered with goat skin. With obsessive concentration we had
puffed at our cigars, filling the room with smoke so thick we could hardly see each
other. I was too busy getting sick to be transported into a trance. "One
of the curers asked me to leave, saying that the spirits would not come as long
as I stayed in the room."
"Did the hekuras come after you left?" Iramamowe asked.
"Yes," I said. "Dona Mercedes told me the following day
how the spirits entered into the head of each curer."
"Strange," Iramamowe murmured. "But you must have learned
many things if you lived at her house."
"I learned her prayers and incantations to the spirits, and also
the types of plants and roots she used for her patients," I said.
"But I was never taught how to communicate with spirits or how to cure
people." I looked at each of the men. Etewa was the only one who smiled.
"According to her, the only way to learn about curing was to do it."
"Did you start curing?" old Kamosiwe asked.
"No. Dona Mercedes suggested I should go to the jungle."
The four men looked at one another, then slowly turned to me, and almost
in a chorus asked, "Did you come here to learn about shamans."
"No!" I shouted, then in a subdued tone added, "I came to
bring Angelica's ashes." Choosing my words very carefully, I explained how
it was my profession to study people, including shamans- not because I wanted
to become one, but because I was interested in learning about the similarities
and differences between various shamanistic traditions.
"Have you been with other shapori besides dona
Mercedes?" old Kamosiwe asked.
I told the men about Juan Caridad, an old man I had met years before. I
got up and reached for my knapsack, which I kept inside a basket tied to one of
the rafters. From the zipped side pocket, which because of the odd lock had
escaped the women's curiosity, I pulled out a small leather pouch. I emptied
its contents into Arasuwe's hands. Suspiciously, he gazed at a stone, a pearl,
and the uncut diamond I had been given by Mr. Barth.
"This stone," I said, taking it from Arasuwe's hand, "was
given to me by Juan Caridad. He made it jump out of the water before my
eyes." I caressed the smooth, deep golden-colored stone. It fitted
perfectly in my palm. It was oval-shaped, flat on one side, a round bulge on
the other.
"Did you stay with him the way you did with dona Mercedes?"
Arasuwe asked.
"No. I didn't Stay with him for very long," I said. "I
was afraid of him."
"Afraid? I thought you were never afraid," old Kamosiwe
exclaimed.
"Juan Caridad was an awesome man," I said. "He made me
have strange dreams in which he would always appear. In the mornings he would
give me a detailed account of what I had dreamt."
The men nodded knowingly at each other. "What a powerful shapori,"
Kamosiwe said. "What did he make you dream about?"
I told them that the dream that had frightened me the most had been, up
to a point, an exact sequential replica of an event that had taken place when I
was five years old. Once, while I was returning from the beach with my family,
my father decided, instead of driving directly home, to take a detour through
the forest to look for orchids. We stopped by a shallow river. My brothers went
with my father into the bush. My mother, afraid of snakes and mosquitoes,
remained in the car. My sister dared me to wade with her along the shallow
riverbank. She was ten years older than I, tall and thin, with short curly hair
so bleached by the sun it appeared white. Her eyes were a deep velvety brown,
not blue or green like most blondes'. As she squatted in the middle oŁ the
stream, she told me to watch the water between her feet, which to my utter
bewilderment turned red with blood. "Are you hurt?" I asked. She did
not say a word as she stood up. Smiling, she beckoned me to follow her. I
remained in the water, petrified, as I watched her climb up the opposite bank.
In my dream I experienced the same fear, but I told myself that now that
I was an adult there was nothing to be afraid of. I was about to follow my
sister up the steep bank when I heard Juan Caridad's voice urging me to remain
in the water. "She is calling you from the land of the dead," he
said. "Don't you remember that she is dead?"
No matter how much I begged him, Juan Caridad absolutely refused to
discuss how he succeeded in appearing in my dreams or how he knew that my
sister had died in a plane crash. I had never talked to him about my family. He
knew nothing about me except that I had come from Los Angeles to learn about
curing practices.
Juan Caridad did not get angry when I suggested that he probably was
familiar with someone who knew me well. He assured me that no matter what I
said or what I accused him of, he would not discuss a subject he had sworn to
remain silent about. He also urged me to return home.
"Why did he give you the stone?" old Kamosiwe asked.
"Can you see these dark spots and the transparent veins
crisscrossing the surface?" I said, holding the stone close to his one
eye. "Juan Caridad told me that they represent the trees and the rivers of
the forest. He said the stone revealed that I would spend a long time in the
jungle, that I should keep it as a talisman to protect me from harm."
The four men in the hut were silent for a long time. Arasuwe handed me
the uncut diamond and the pearl. "Tell us about these."
I talked about the diamond Mr. Earth had given me at the mission.
"And this?" old Kamosiwe asked, picking up the small pearl
from my hand. "I've never seen such a round stone."
"I've had it for a long time," I said.
"Longer than the stone Juan Caridad gave you?" Ritimi asked.
"Much longer," I said. "The pearl was also given to me by
an old man when I arrived at Margarita Island, where I had gone with some classmates
for a holiday. As we disembarked from the boat, an old fisherman came directly
toward me. Placing the pearl in my hand, he said, 'It was yours from the day
you were born. You lost it, but I found it for you at the bottom of the sea.'
"
"What happened then?" Arasuwe asked impatiently.
"Nothing much," I said. "Before I recovered from my
surprise, the old man was gone."
Kamosiwe held the pearl in his hand, letting it roll back and forth. It
looked strangely beautiful in his dark, calloused palm, as if it belonged
there. "I would like you to have it," I said to him.
Smiling, Kamosiwe looked at me. "I like it very much." He held
the pearl against the sunlight. "How beautiful it is. There are clouds
inside the stone. Did the old man who gave it to you look like me?" he
asked as all four men were walking out of the hut.
"He was old like you," I said as he turned toward his hut. But
the old man had not heard me. Holding the pearl high above his head, he pranced
around the clearing.
* * *
No one said a word about my having taken epena. On some evenings,
however, when the men gathered outside their huts to inhale the hallucinogenic
powder, some youths would jokingly cry out, "White girl, we want to see
you dance. We want to hear you sing Iramamowe's hekura song." But I
did not try the powder again.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 15
I never found out where Puriwariwe, Angelica's brother, lived. I
wondered if someone actually called him when he was needed or if he intuited
it. Whether he would stay in the shabono for days or weeks, no one knew.
There was something reassuring about his presence, about the way he chanted to
the hekuras at night, urging the spirits to protect his people,
especially the children, who were the most vulnerable of all, from the spells
of an evil shapori.
One morning the old shapori walked directly into Etewa's hut.
Sitting in one of the empty hammocks, he demanded I show him the treasures I
kept hidden in my knapsack.
I was tempted to retort that I kept nothing hidden, but remained silent
as I unfastened my basket from the ratter. I knew he was going to ask me for
one of the stones and fervently wished it would not be the one Juan Caridad had
given me. Somehow I was certain it was the stone that had brought me to the
jungle. I feared that if Puriwariwe were to take it from me, Milagros would
arrive and take me back to the mission. Or worse, something dreadful might
happen to me. I believed implicitly in the stone's protective powers.
Intently the old man studied both the diamond and the stone. He held the
diamond against the light. "I want this one," he said, smiling.
"It holds the colors of the sky." Stretching in the hammock, the old
man placed the diamond and the other stone on his stomach. "Now, I want
you to tell me about the shapori Juan Caridad. I want to hear of all the
dreams in which this man appeared."
"I don't know if I can remember them all." Glancing at his
thin, wrinkled face and emaciated body, I had the vague feeling I had known him
longer than I could remember. There was a familiar, tender response in me as
his smiling eyes held my gaze. Lying comfortably in my hammock, I began to
speak with an easy fluency. Whenever I did not know the Iticoteri word, I filled
in with a Spanish one. Puriwariwe did not seem to mind. I had the impression he
was more interested in the sound and rhythm of my words than in their actual
meaning.
When I finished with my narration, the old man spat out the wad of
tobacco Ritimi had prepared for him prior to leaving for work in the gardens.
In a soft voice he spoke of the woman shaman Kamosiwe had already told me
about. Not only was Imaawami considered a great shapori, but she was
also believed to have been a superb hunter and warrior who had raided enemy
settlements together with the men.
"Did she have a gun?" I asked, hoping to learn more about her
identity. Since I first heard about her, I had been obsessed with the
possibility that she might have been a captive white woman. Maybe as far back
as the time when the Spaniards first came looking for El Dorado.
"She used a bow and arrows," the old shaman said. "Her mamucori
poison was of the best kind."
No matter how I phrased my question, I was unable to learn whether
Imaawami was a real person or a being that belonged to a mythological epoch.
All the shapori was willing to say was that Imaawami existed a long time
ago. I was certain the old man was not being evasive; it was common for the
Iticoteri to be vague about past events.
On some evenings, after the women had cooked the last meal, Puriwariwe
would sit by the fire in the middle of the clearing. Both young and old
gathered around him. I always looked for a spot close to him, for I did not
want to miss a word of what he said. In a low, monotonous, nasal tone, he
talked about the origin of man, of fire, of floods, of the moon and the sun.
Some of these myths I already knew. Yet each time they were recounted it was as
if I were listening to a different story. Each narrator embellished, improved
upon it according to his own vision.
"Which one is the real myth of creation?" I asked Puriwariwe
one evening after he finished the story of Waipilishoni, a woman shaman who had
created blood by mixing onoto and water. She had given life to the woodlike
bodies of a brother and sister by making them drink this substance. The evening
before the shapori had told us that the first Indian was born out of the
leg of a manlike creature.
For an instant Puriwariwe regarded me with a perplexed expression. "They
are all real," he finally said. "Don't you know that man was created
many times throughout the ages?"
I shook my head in amazement. He touched my face and laughed.
"Ohoo, how ignorant you still are. Listen carefully. I will tell you of
all the times the world was destroyed by fires and floods."
A few days later, Puriwariwe announced that Xorowe, Iramamowe's oldest
son, was to be initiated as a shapori. Xorowe was perhaps seventeen or
eighteen years old. He had a slight, agile body and a narrow, delicately
featured face in which his deep brown eyes seemed overly large and glowing.
Taking only a hammock, he moved into the small hut that had been built for him
in the clearing. Since it was believed that hekuras fled from women, no
females were allowed near the dwelling- not even Xorowe's mother, grandmother,
or his sisters.
A youth who had never been with a woman was chosen to take care of the
initiate. It was he who blew epena into Xorowe's nostrils, who saw that
the fire was never out, and made sure each day that Xorowe had the proper
amount of water and honey, the only food the initiate was allowed. The women
always left enough wood outside the shabono, so the boy did not have to
search too far. The men were responsible for finding honey. Each day the shapori
urged them to go farther into the forest for new sources.
Xorowe spent most of the time inside the hut lying in his hammock.
Sometimes he sat on a polished tree trunk Iramamowe had placed outside the
dwelling, for he was not supposed to sit on the ground. Within a week, Xorowe's
face had darkened from the epena. His once glowing eyes were dull and
unfocused. His body, dirty and emaciated, moved with the clumsiness of a
drunkard.
Life went on as usual in the shabono, except for the families
living closest to Xorowe's hut, who were not allowed to cook meat on their
hearths. According to Puriwariwe, hekuras detested the smell of roasting
meat, and if they so much as caught a whiff of the offensive odor, they would
flee back to the mountains.
Like his apprentice, Puriwariwe took epena day and night.
Tirelessly, he chanted for hours, coaxing the spirits into Xorowe's hut,
begging the hekuras to cut open the young man's chest. Some evenings
Arasuwe, Iramamowe, and others accompanied the old man in his chants.
During the second week, in an uncertain, quivering voice, Xorowe joined
in the singing. At first he only sang the hekura songs of the armadillo,
tapir, jaguar, and other large animals, which were believed to be masculine
spirits. They were the easiest to entice. Next he sang the hekura songs
of plants and rocks. And last he sang the songs of the female spirits- the
spider, snake, and hummingbird. They were not only the most difficult to lure
but, because of their treacherous and jealous nature, were hard to control.
Late one night, when most of the shabono was asleep, I sat
outside Etewa's hut, and watched the men chant. Xorowe was so weak one of the
men had to hold him up so Puriwariwe could dance around him. "Xorowe, sing
louder," the old man urged him. "Sing as loud as the birds, as loud
as the jaguars." Puriwariwe danced out of the shabono into the
forest. "Xorowe, sing louder," he shouted. "The hekuras
dwelling in all the corners of the world need to hear your song."
Three nights later, Xorowe's joyful cries echoed through the shabono:
"Father, Father, the hekuras are approaching. I can hear their
humming and buzzing. They are dancing toward me. They are opening my chest, my
head. They are coming through my fingers and my feet." Xorowe ran out of
the hut. Squatting before the old man, he cried, "Father, Father, help me,
for they are coming through my eyes and nose."
Puriwariwe helped Xorowe to his feet. They began to dance in the
clearing, their thin emaciated shadows spilling across the moonlit ground.
Hours later, a despairing scream, the cry of a panic-stricken child, pierced
the dawn. "Father, Father, from today on let no woman come near my
hut."
"That's what they all say," Ritimi mumbled, getting out of her
hammock. She stocked the fire, then buried several plantains under the hot
embers. "When Etewa decided to be initiated as a shapori, I had
already gone to live with him," she said. "The night he begged
Puriwariwe to let no woman near him I went to his hut and drove the hekuras away."
"Why did you do that?"
"Etewa's mother urged me to do it," Ritimi said. "She was
afraid he would die. She knew Etewa liked women too much; she knew he would
never become a great shapori." Ritimi sat in my hammock. "I
will tell you the whole story." She snuggled comfortably against me, then
began to speak in a low whisper.
"The night the hekuras entered Etewa's chest, he cried out
just as Xorowe did tonight. It is the female hekuras who make such a
fuss. They want no woman in the hut. Etewa sobbed bitterly that night, crying
out that an evil woman had passed near his hut. I felt quite sad when I heard
him say that the hekuras had left him."
"Did Etewa know it was you who had been in his hut?"
"No," Ritimi said. "No one saw me. If Puriwariwe knew, he
didn't say. He was aware Etewa would never be a good shapori."
"Why did he get initiated in the first place?"
"There is always the possibility that a man may become a great shapori."
Ritimi rested her head against my arm. "That night many men stayed up
chanting for the hekuras to return. But the spirits had no desire to
come back. They had left not only because Etewa had been soiled by a woman, but
because the hekuras were afraid he would never be a good father to
them."
"Why does a man get soiled when he goes with a woman?"
"Shapori do," Ritimi said. "I don't know why,
because men as well as shapori enjoy it. I believe it's the female hekuras
who are jealous and afraid of a man who enjoys women too often." Ritimi
went on to explain how a sexually active man had little desire to take epena
and chant to the spirits. Male spirits, she explained, were not possessive.
They were content if a man took the hallucinogenic snuff before and after a
hunt or a raid. "I'd rather have a good hunter and warrior than a good shapori
for a husband," she confessed. "Shapori don't like women
much."
"What about Iramamowe?" I asked. "He is considered a
great shapori, yet he has two wives."
"Ohoo, you are so ignorant. I have to explain everything to
you." Ritimi giggled. "Iramamowe does not sleep with his two wives
often. His youngest brother, who has no woman of his own, sleeps with one of
them." Ritimi looked around to make sure no one was overhearing us.
"Have you noticed that Iramamowe often goes into the forest by
himself?"
I nodded. "But so do other men."
"And so do women," Ritimi aped me, mispronouncing the words
the way I had. I had great difficulty imitating the proper Iticoteri nasal
tone, which probably was a result of their usually having tobacco wads in their
mouths. "That's not what I mean," she said. "Iramamowe goes into
the forest to find what great shapori seek."
"What is that?"
"The strength to travel to the house of thunder. The strength to
travel to the sun and come back alive."
"I've seen Iramamowe sleep in the forest with a woman," I
confessed.
Ritimi laughed softly. "I will tell you a very important
secret," she whispered. "Iramamowe sleeps with a woman the way a shapori
does. He takes a woman's energy away, but gives nothing in return."
"Have you slept with him?"
Ritimi nodded. But no matter how much I coaxed and pleaded with her, she
would not elaborate any further.
A week later, Xorowe's mother, sisters, aunts, and cousins started to
wail in their huts. "Old man," the mother cried, "my son has no
more strength. Do you want to kill him of hunger? Do you want to kill him from
lack of sleep? It is time you left him alone."
The old shapori paid no attention to their cries. The following
evening Iramamowe took epena and danced in front of his son's hut. He
alternated between jumping high in the air and crawling on all fours, imitating
the fierce growls of a jaguar. He stopped abruptly. With his eyes fixed on some
point directly in front of him, he sat on the ground. "Women, women, do
not despair," he cried out in a loud, nasal voice. "For a few more
days Xorowe has to remain without food. Even though he appears weak, and his
movements are clumsy, and he moans in his sleep, he will not die."
Standing up, Iramamowe walked toward Puriwariwe and asked him to blow more epena
into his head. Then he returned to the same spot where he had been sitting.
"Listen carefully," Ritimi urged me. "Iramamowe is one of
the few shapori who has traveled to the sun during his initiation. He
has guided others on their first journey. He has two voices. The one you just
heard was his own; the other one is that of his personal hekura."
Now Iramamowe's words sprang from deep in his chest; like stones
rumbling down a ravine, the words tumbled into the silence of people gathered
in their huts. Huddled together in an atmosphere heavy with smoke and
anticipation, they seemed to be barely breathing. Their eyes glittered with
longing for what the personal hekura of Iramamowe had to say, for what
was about to take place in the mysterious world of the initiate.
"My son has traveled into the depths of the earth, and has burned
in the hot fires of their silent caves," said Iramamowe's rumbling hekura
voice. "Guided by the hekura eyes, he has been led through cobwebs
of darkness, across rivers and mountains. They have taught him songs of birds,
fishes, snakes, spiders, monkeys, and jaguars.
"Although his eyes and cheeks are sunken, he is strong. Those who
have descended into the silent burning caves; those who have traveled beyond
the forest mist, will return with their personal hekura in their chest.
Those are the ones who will be guided to the sun, to the luminous huts of my
brothers and sisters, the hekuras of the sky.
"Women, women, do not cry out his name. Let him go on his journey.
Let him depart from his mother and sisters, so he can reach this world of
light, which is more exhausting than the world of darkness."
Spellbound, I listened to Iramamowe's voice. No one talked, no one
moved, no one looked anywhere but at his figure, sitting rigidly in front of
his son's hut. After every pause, his voice rose to a higher pitch of
intensity.
"Women, women, do not despair. On his path he will meet those who
have withstood the long nights of mist. He will meet those who have not turned
back. He will meet those who have not trembled in fear by what they have
witnessed during their journey. He will meet those who had their bodies burned
and cut up, those who had their bones removed and dried in the sun. He will
meet those who did not fall into the clouds on their way to the sun.
"Women, women, do not disturb his balance. My son is about to reach
the end of his journey. Do not watch his dark face. Do not look into his hollow
eyes that shine with no light, for he is destined to be a solitary man."
Iramamowe stood up. Together with Puriwariwe he entered Xorowe's hut, where
they spent the rest of the night chanting softly to the hekuras.
A few days later, the youth who had taken care of Xorowe during his long
weeks of initiation washed him with warm water and dried him with fragrant
leaves. Then he painted his body with a mixture of coals and onoto- wavy
lines extending from his forehead down his cheeks and shoulders. The rest of
his body was marked with evenly distributed round spots that reached to his
ankles.
For a moment Xorowe stood in the middle of the clearing. His eyes shone
sadly from their hollow sockets, filled with an immense melancholy, as if he
had just realized he was no longer his former human self, but only a shadow.
Yet there was an aura of strength about him that had not been there before, as
if the conviction of his newfound knowledge and experience were more enduring
than the memory of his past. Silently Puriwariwe led him into the forest.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 16
"White girl!" Ritimi's six-year-old son shouted, running along
the manioc rows. Out of breath, he stopped in front of me, then cried out
excitedly, "White girl, your brother..."
"My what?" Dropping my digging stick, I ran toward the shabono.
I stopped at the edge of the cleared strip of forest around the wooden palisade
circling the shabono. Although it was not considered a garden, gourds,
cotton, and an assortment of medicinal plants grew there. According to Etewa,
the reason for this cleared strip was that enemies could not possibly trespass
silently through this kind of vegetation as they could a forest cover.
No unusual sounds came from the huts. Crossing the clearing toward the
group of people squatting outside Arasuwe's hut, I was not surprised to see
Milagros.
"Blond Indian," he said in Spanish, motioning me to squat
beside him. "You even smell like one."
"I'm glad you are here," I said. "Little Sisiwe said you
were my brother."
"I spoke to Father Coriolano at the mission." Milagros pointed
to the writing pads, pencils, sardine cans, boxes of crackers, and sweet
biscuits the Iticoteri were passing around. "Father Coriolano wants me to
take you back to the mission," Milagros said, looking at me thoughtfully.
I could think of nothing to say. Picking up a twig, I drew lines on the
dirt. "I can't leave yet."
"I know." Milagros smiled, but there was a trace of sadness
about his lips. His voice was quite gentle, ironic. "I told Father
Coriolano you were doing much work. I convinced him how important it is for you
to finish this remarkable research you are conducting."
I could not repress my giggles. He sounded like a pompous
anthropologist. "Did he believe you?"
Milagros pushed the writing pads and pencils toward me. "I assured
Father Coriolano that you are well." From a small bundle Milagros pulled
out a box containing three bars of Camay soap. "He also gave me
these for you."
"What am I to do with them?" I asked, sniffing the scented
bars.
"Wash yourself!" Milagros said emphatically, as it he really
believed I had forgotten what soap was for.
"Let me smell it," Ritimi said, lifting a bar from the box.
She held it against her nose, closed her eyes and took one long breath.
"Hum. What are you going to wash with it?"
"My hair!" I exclaimed. It occurred to me that perhaps the
soap would kill the lice.
"I'll wash mine too," Ritimi said, rubbing the bar on her
head.
"Soap only works with water," I explained. "We have to go
to the river."
"To the river!" cried the women who had gathered around the
men as they stood up.
Laughing, we ran down the path. Men returning from the gardens just
gaped at us, whereas the women accompanying them turned around and ran after
us, toward Ritimi, who was holding the precious soap in her upraised hand.
"You have to get your hair wet," I called out from the water.
The women remained on the bank, looking doubtfully at me. Grinning, Ritimi
handed me the soap. Soon my head was covered with a thick lather. I scrubbed
hard, enjoying the dirty suds squishing through my fingers, down my neck, back,
and chest. With a halved calabash I rinsed my hair, using the soapy water to
wash my body. I began to sing an old Spanish commercial advertising Camay soap-
one I used to hear on the radio as a child. "For a heavenly array, there
is nothing like jabon Camay."
"Who wants to be next?" I asked, wading toward the bank where
the women stood. I felt I was glowing with cleanliness.
Stepping back, the women smiled, but none volunteered. "I will, I
will," little Texoma shouted, running into the water.
One by one, the women came closer. Awed, they watched attentively as the
suds seemed to grow out of the child's head. I worked up a stiff lather and
shaped Texoma's hair until spikes stuck out all around her head. Hesitantly,
Ritimi touched her daughter's hair. A timid smile crinkled the corners of her
mouth. "Ohoo, what beauty!"
"Keep your eyes closed until I've rinsed out all the soap," I
admonished Texoma. "Close them tight. It hurts if the suds run into your
eyes."
"For a heavenly array," Texoma cried out as the soapy water
ran down her back. "There is nothing like . . ." She looked at me and
I filled in the rest. "Sing that song again. I want my hair to turn the
color of yours."
"It won't turn my color," I said. "But it will smell
good."
"I want to be next!" the women began shouting.
Except for the pregnant ones, who were afraid that the magic soap might
harm their unborn children, I washed at least twenty-five heads. However, not
wanting to be outdone, the pregnant women decided to wash their hair in the
accustomed manner- with leaves and mud from the bottom of the river. To them
too I had to sing the silly Camay soap commercial. By the time we were all
scrubbed, my voice was hoarse.
The men gathered around Arasuwe's hut were still listening to Milagros's
account of his visit to the outside world. They sniffed our hair as we squatted
beside them. An old woman crouching next to a youth, pushed his head between
her legs. "Sniff this, I washed it with Camay soap." She began to hum
the melody of the commercial.
The men and women burst into guffaws. Still laughing, Etewa shouted,
"Grandmother, no one wants your vagina, even if you fill it with
honey."
Cackling, the woman made an obscene gesture, then went inside her hut.
"Etewa," she shouted from her hammock, "I've seen you lying
between the legs of even older hags than myself."
After the laughter subsided, Milagros pointed to the four machetes
placed on the ground in front of him. "Your friends left these at the
mission before departing for the city," he said. "They are for you to
give away."
I looked at him helplessly. "Why so few?"
"Because I couldn't carry more," Milagros said cheerfully.
"Don't give them to the women."
"I will give them to the headman," I said, gazing at the
expectant faces around me. Grinning, I pushed the four machetes in front of
Arasuwe. "My friends sent these for you."
"White girl, you are clever," he said, checking the sharp
point of one of the machetes. "This one I will keep for myself. One is for
my brother Iramamowe, who has protected you from the Mocototeri. One is for
Hayama's son, from whose garden and game you eat the most." Arasuwe looked
at Etewa. "One should be for you, but since you were given a machete not
too long ago at one of our feasts I will give the machete to your wives, Ritimi
and Tutemi. They take care of the white girl as if she were their own
sister."
For a moment there was absolute silence; then one of the men stood up
and addressed Ritimi. "Give me your machete so I can cut down trees. You
don't need to do the work a man does."
"Don't give it to him," Tutemi said. "It's easier to work
in the gardens with a machete than with a digging stick."
Ritimi looked at the machete, picked it up, then handed it to the man.
"I will give it to you. The worst sin of all is not to give away what
others ask of you. I don't want to end up in shopariwabe."
"Where is that?" I whispered to Milagros.
"Shopariwabe is a place like the missionaries'
hell."
I opened one of the sardine cans. After popping one of the silvery oily
fish into my mouth, I offered the can to Ritimi. "Try one," I coaxed
her.
She looked at me uncertainly. Between thumb and forefinger, she daintily
lifted a piece of sardine into her mouth. "Ugh, what an ugly taste,"
she cried, spitting it out.
Milagros took the can from my hand. "Save them. They are for the
journey back to the mission."
"But I'm not going back yet," I said. "They will spoil if
we save them for long."
"You should return before the rains," Milagros said gravely.
"Once they start, it will be impossible to cross rivers or walk through
the forest."
I could not help the smug grin. "I have to stay at least until
Tutemi's child is born," I said. I was sure the baby would arrive during
the rains.
"What shall I tell Father Coriolano?"
"What you told him already," I said mockingly. "That I'm
doing remarkable work."
"But he expects you to return before the rains," Milagros
said. "It rains for months!"
Smiling, I took one of the boxes of crackers. "We better eat these-
they will spoil with the humidity."
"Don't open the other sardine cans," Milagros said in Spanish.
"The Iticoteri won't like them. I will eat them myself."
"Aren't you afraid to go to shopariwabe?"
Without answering, Milagros passed the already opened can around. Most
of the men only smelled the contents, then handed it to the next person. The
ones who were daring enough to taste the sardines, spit them out. The women did
not bother either smelling or trying them. Milagros smiled at me when the can
was returned to him. "They don't like sardines. I will not go to hell if I
eat them all by myself."
The crackers were no success either, except with a few children, who
licked off the salt. But the sweet biscuits, even though they tasted rancid,
were eaten with smacking sounds of approval.
Ritimi appropriated the writing pads and pencils. She insisted I teach
her the same kind of designs with which I had decorated my burned notebook.
Dutifully, she practiced writing the Spanish and English words I had taught
her. She was not interested in learning how to write, even though she
eventually learned to draw all the letters of the alphabet, including a few
Chinese ideograms I had once been taught in a calligraphy class. To Ritimi they
remained designs that she painted sometimes on her body, preferring the letters
S and W.
Milagros stayed for a few weeks at the shabono. He went hunting
with the men and helped them in the gardens. Most of the time, however, he
spent lounging in his hammock, doing nothing but play with the children. At all
hours one could hear their shrieks of delight as Milagros balanced the younger
ones high in the air on his upraised feet. In the evenings he entertained us
with stories about the nape- the white men he had met through the years;
the places he had visited; and the eccentric customs he had observed.
Nape was a term applied to all foreigners- that is, all
who were not Yanomama. The Iticoteri made no distinction between
nationalities. To them a Venezuelan, Brazilian, Swede, German, or American,
regardless of their color, were nape.
Seen through Milagros's eyes, these white men appeared peculiar even to
me. It was his sense of humor, his knack for the absurd, and his dramatic
rendition that transformed the most mundane, insignificant event into an
extraordinary happening. If ever anyone in the audience dared to doubt the
veracity of his account, Milagros, in a very dignified manner, would turn to
me. "White girl, tell them if I'm lying." No matter how much he had
exaggerated, I never contradicted him.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 17
Tutemi joined Ritimi and me in the gardens. "I think my time is
coming," she said, dropping her wood-filled basket on the ground. "My
arms have no strength. My breathing is not deep. I can no longer bend
easily."
"Are you in pain?" I asked, seeing Tutemi's face twist into a
grimace.
She nodded. "I'm also afraid."
Gently Ritimi probed the girl's stomach, first on the sides, then the
front. "The baby is kicking hard. It's time for it to come out."
Ritimi turned to me. "Go get old Hayama. Tell her that Tutemi is in pain.
She will know what to do."
"Where will you be?"
Ritimi pointed straight ahead. I cut through the forest, jumping over
fallen trunks, heedless of thorns, roots, and stones. "Come quickly,"
I shouted, gasping for air, in front of Hayama's hut. "Tutemi is having
her child. She's in pain."
Picking up her bamboo knife, Ritimi's grandmother first went to see an
old man living in a hut across the clearing. "I'm sure you heard the white
girl," Hayama said. Seeing the old man nod, she added, "If we need
you, I will send her to get you."
I walked in front of Hayama, impatiently waiting every fifty paces for
her to catch up. Leaning heavily on the piece of broken bow she used as a cane,
she seemed to be moving even more slowly then usual. "Is the old man a shapori?"
I asked.
"He knows all there is to know about a child that does not want to
be born."
"Tutemi has only pains."
"When there is pain," Hayama said deliberately, "it means
that the child doesn't want to leave the womb."
"I don't think it means that at all." I was unable to disguise
the argumentative tone of my voice. "It's normal for the first child to be
difficult," I affirmed, as if I really knew. "White women have pains
with almost every child."
"It's not normal," Hayama affirmed. "Maybe white babies
don't want to see the world."
Tutemi's moans came muffled through the underbrush. She was crouching on
the platanillo leaves Ritimi had spread on the ground. Dark shadows
circled her feverish eyes. Minute drops of perspiration shone above her brow
and on her upper lip.
"The water has already broken," Ritimi said. "But the
baby doesn't want to come."
"Let us go farther into the forest," Tutemi begged. "I
don't want anyone at the shabono to hear my screams."
Tenderly, old Hayama pushed the young woman's bangs back from her
forehead, and wiped the sweat from her face and neck. "It will be better
in a moment," she said soothingly, as if speaking to a child. Each time
the contractions came, Hayama pressed hard on Tutemi's stomach. After what I
judged to be an interminably long time, Hayama told me to get the old shapori.
He was prepared. He had taken epena, and over the fire a dark
concoction was boiling. With a stick he flicked the mucus from his nose, then
poured the brew into a gourd.
"What is it made of?"
"Roots and leaves," he said, but did not mention the name of
the plant. As soon as we reached the three women, he urged Tutemi to empty the
gourd to the last drop. While she drank, he danced around her. In a high nasal
voice, he pleaded with the hekura of the white monkey to release the
neck of the unborn child.
Slowly, Tutemi's face relaxed, and her eyes lost their frightened
expression. "I think the baby will come now," she said, smiling at
the old man.
Hayama held her from behind, stretching Tutemi's arms over her head.
While I was wondering whether it was the concoction or the shaman's dance that
had induced such a state of relaxation, I missed the actual birth. I put my
hand over my mouth to stifle a scream as I saw the umbilical cord wrapped
around the neck of the purple-skinned boy. Hayama cut the cord, then put a leaf
on the navel to absorb the blood. She rubbed her forefinger in the afterbirth,
then smeared the finger against the child's lips.
"What is she doing?" I asked Ritimi.
"She is making sure the boy will learn to speak properly."
Before I had a chance to blurt out that the child was dead, the most
disconcerting human cry I have ever heard echoed through the forest. Ritimi
picked up the screaming infant, and motioned me to follow her to the river. She
filled her mouth with water, waited for a moment for it to warm up, then
squirted it over the baby. Imitating her, I helped her rinse his little body
clean of slime and blood.
"Now he has three mothers," Ritimi said, handing the baby to
me. "Whoever washes a newborn baby is responsible for it should something
happen to the mother. Tutemi will be happy that you have helped wash her
child."
Ritimi filled a large platanillo leaf with mud, while I cradled
the boy in uncertain arms. I had never held a newborn baby before. Looking in
awe at the purplish wrinkled face, at his tiny fists, which he tried to push
into his mouth, I wondered what miracle had made him live.
Hayama wrapped the placenta into a tight bundle of leaves, and placed it
under a small elevated windscreen the old man had built under a tall ceiba. It
was to be burned in a few weeks. With the mud we covered all traces of blood on
the ground to prevent wild animals and dogs from sniffing around.
With the child safely in her arms, Tutemi led the way back to the shabono.
Before entering her hut, she placed him on the ground. We who had witnessed the
birth had to step three times over the baby, thus marking his acceptance into
the settlement.
Etewa did not look up from his hammock: He had been resting there since
learning that his youngest wife was in labor. Tutemi entered the hut with their
newborn son, and sat by the hearth. After squeezing her nipple, she pushed it
inside the baby's mouth. Avidly, the boy began to suck, opening his still
unfocused eyes from time to time as if imprinting on his mind this source of
food and comfort.
Neither parent ate anything that day. On the second and third day Etewa
caught a basketful of small fish which he cooked and fed to Tutemi. Thereafter
both of them slowly resumed a normal diet.
The day after giving birth, Tutemi returned to work in the gardens with
the newborn baby strapped on her back. Etewa, on the other hand, remained
resting in his hammock for a week. Any physical effort on his part was believed
to be deleterious to the infant's health.
On the ninth day Milagros was asked to pierce the boy's earlobes with
long rasha palm thorns, which were kept in the holes. After cutting the
sharp points close to the lobes, Milagros coated each end with resin so the
child would not pull the blunted thorns out. On that same day, the infant was
also given the name of Hoaxiwe, for it was a white monkey that had wanted to
keep the child in the womb. It was only a nickname. By the time the boy started
walking, he would be given his real name.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 18
It was not quite dawn when Milagros leaned over my hammock. I felt his
calloused hand brushing my forehead and cheeks. I could hardly see his features
in the darkness. I knew he was leaving. I waited for him to speak, but fell
asleep without finding out whether he had actually wanted to say something.
"The rains will come soon," old Kamosiwe announced that
evening. "I've seen the size of the young turtles. I've been listening to
the croaking of the rain frogs."
Four days later, in the early afternoon, the wind blew with terrifying
force through the trees and the shabono. The empty hammocks swung back
and forth like boats on a tempestuous sea. The leaves on the ground swirled in
spiralling dances that died as suddenly as they had begun.
I stood in the middle of the clearing, watching the gusts of wind coming
from every direction. Pieces of bark flattened against my shins. Kicking my
legs, I tried to shake the bark off, but it stuck to me as if it had been glued
on. Giant black clouds darkened the sky. The steady far-off roar of approaching
rain grew louder as it moved across the forest. Thunder rumbled through the
clouds, and the flickering of white lightning flashed through the afternoon
darkness. The groans of a falling tree, hit by lightning, echoed through the
forest with the mournful clamor of other uprooted trees crashing to the ground.
Shrieking, the women and children huddled together behind the plantains
stacked against the sloping roof. Seizing a log from the fire, old Hayama
rushed into Iramamowe's hut. Desperately, she began to beat one of the poles.
"Wake up!" she screamed. "Your father is not here. Wake up!
Defend us from the hekuras." Hayama was addressing Iramamowe's
personal hekura, for he was out hunting with several other men.
Thunder and lightning receded into the distance as the clouds broke open
above us. The rain came in a solid sheet, so dense we could not see across the
clearing. Moments later, the sky was clear. I accompanied old Kamosiwe to look
at the roaring river. Masses of earth toppled from the banks, gouged out by the
raging torrent. Each landslide was followed by the tearing of vines, which
snapped with sounds like breaking bowstrings.
A great stillness settled over the forest. Not a bird, insect, or frog
could be heard. Suddenly, without any warning, a growl of thunder seemed to
come directly out of the sun, cracking over our heads. "But there are no
clouds," I shouted, falling on the ground as if struck.
"Don't defy the spirits," Kamosiwe warned me. Cutting two
large leaves, he motioned me to take cover. Squatting side by side, we watched
the rain cascade down from a clear sky. Gusts of wind shook the forest until
the curtain of dark clouds hid the sun once more.
"Storms are caused by the dead whose bones have not been burned;
whose ashes have not been eaten," old Kamosiwe said. "It's these
unfortunate spirits, longing to be cremated, who heat up the clouds until fires
light up the sky."
"Fires that will finally burn them," I completed his sentence.
"Ohoo, you are not so ignorant anymore," Kamosiwe said.
"The rains have started. You will be with us for many days- you will learn
so much more."
Smiling, I nodded. "Do you think Milagros has reached the
mission?"
Kamosiwe looked at me askance, then broke into a hoarse, raspy laughter,
the laughter of a very old man, resounding eerily in the noise of the rain. He still
had most of his teeth. Strong and yellowish, they stood out from his receding
gums like pieces of aged ivory. "Milagros did not go to the mission. He
went to see his wife and children."
"At which settlement does Milagros live?"
"In many."
"Does he have a wife and children in all of them?"
"Milagros is a talented man," Kamosiwe said, his one dark eye
shining with a devilish glint. "He has a white woman somewhere."
Filled with anticipation, I looked at Kamosiwe. I was finally going to
learn something about Milagros. But the old man remained silent. When he put
his hand in mine, I knew his mind had wandered elsewhere. Slowly, I massaged
his gnarled fingers.
"Old man, are you really Milagros's grandfather?" I asked,
hoping to bring him back to the subject of Milagros.
Startled, Kamosiwe looked into my face, his one eye scrutinizing me
intently as if he had thought of something. Mumbling, he gave me his other hand
to massage.
Absentmindedly, I watched his one eye rolling into his socket as he
drowsed. "I wonder how old you really are?"
Kamosiwe's eye came to rest on my face, clouded with memories. "If
you lay out the time I've lived, it would reach all the way to the moon,"
Kamosiwe murmured. "That's how old I am."
We stayed under the leaves, watching the dark clouds disperse across the
sky. Mist drifted through the trees, filtering the light to a ghostly gray.
"The rains have started," Kamosiwe repeated softly as we
walked back to the shabono. The fires in the huts produced more smoke
than heat, but the rainy air created a misty warmth. I stretched in my hammock,
and fell asleep to the distant and confused sounds of the storming forest.
The morning was cold and damp. Ritimi, Tutemi, and I stayed in our
hammocks the whole day, eating baked plantains, and listening to the rain pound
on the palm-hatched roofs.
"I wish Etewa and the others had returned last night from the
hunt," Ritimi mumbled from time to time, looking at the sky, which changed
only from a faint white to gray.
The hunters returned late in the afternoon of the following day.
Iramamowe and Etewa walked directly into old Hayama's hut carrying her youngest
son Matuwe in a litter made from bark strips. Matuwe had been injured by a
falling branch. Carefully, the two men transferred him to his own hammock. His
leg hung limply down and his shinbone threatened to pierce the swollen purple
skin.
"It's broken," old Hayama said.
"It's broken," I repeated with the rest of the women in the
hut. I had adopted the habit of stating the obvious. It was a way of expressing
concern, love, sympathy all at once.
Matuwe gasped in pain as Hayama set the leg straight. Ritimi held his
foot outstretched while the old woman made a splint with broken pieces of arrow
shafts. Deftly, she arranged them along each side of the leg, inserting cotton
fibers in between the skin and cane. Around the splint, extending all the way
from the ankle to the middle of his thigh, Hayama bound fresh strips of a thin,
resistant bark.
Totemi and Xotomi, the man's young wife, giggled each time Matuwe moaned.
They were not amused, but were trying to cheer him up. "Oh, Matuwe, it
doesn't hurt," Xotomi tried to convince him. "Remember how glad you
were when your head was bleeding after you had been hit with a club at the last
feast."
"Stay still," Hayama said to her son. Fastening a liana rope
over one of the rafters, she tied one end to his ankle, the other to his thigh.
"Now you cannot move your leg," she said, inspecting her work with
satisfaction.
About two weeks later, Hayama removed the bark and cane splint. The
purple bruised leg had turned green and yellowish but was no longer swollen.
She probed around the bone lightly. "It's growing together," she
announced, then proceeded to massage the leg with warm water. Every day, for
almost a month, she went through the same routine of unfastening the cast,
massaging the leg, then tying it back to the rafter.
"The bone is mended," Hayama affirmed one day, breaking the
cane splint into small pieces.
"But my leg is not healed!" Matuwe protested in alarm. "I
cannot move it properly."
Hayama calmed him, explaining that his knee had become stiff from having
had his leg stretched out for so long. "I'll continue massaging your leg
until you can walk as you did before."
The rains brought with them a sense of tranquillity, of timelessness, as
day and night blurred into each other. No one worked much in the gardens. For
endless hours we lay or sat in our hammocks conversing in that odd way people
do when it rains, with long pauses and absentminded stares into the distance.
Ritimi tried to make a basket weaver out of me. I started out with what
I thought was the easiest kind- the large U-shaped basket used for carrying
wood. The women had great fun watching my awkward attempts at trying to master
the simple twining technique. I then concentrated my efforts on something I
believed to be more manageable- the flat, disklike baskets used for storing
fruit or separating the ashes from the bones of the dead. Although I was quite
pleased with the finished product, I had to agree with old Hayama that the
basket did not look the way it was supposed to.
Grinning at her, I remembered the time a school friend had done her best
to teach me how to knit. In the most relaxed manner, while watching TV,
talking, or waiting for an appointment, she knitted beautiful sweaters,
mittens, and skiing caps. I sat tensely beside her, with tight shoulders, my
stiff fingers holding the needles only inches away from my face, cursing every
time I dropped a stitch.
I was not ready to give up basketry. One had to try at least three
times, I told myself, as I began to make one of the flat fishing baskets.
"Ohoo, white girl." Xotomo giggled uncontrollably. "You
didn't twine it tight enough." She put her fingers through the loosely
woven vine strips. "The fish will slip through the holes."
Finally I resigned myself to the simple task of splitting the bark and
vines needed for weaving into the most perfectly even strands, which were much
in demand. Emboldened by my success, I made a hammock. I cut strands about
seven feet long, tied the ends firmly together, reinforcing them with
intertwined bark rope below the binding. I joined the liana strands loosely
with transverse cotton yarn, which I had dyed red with onoto. Ritimi was
so enchanted with the hammock, she replaced Etewa's old one with it.
"Etewa, I made a new hammock for you," I said as he came in
from working in the gardens.
He looked at me skeptically. "You think it will hold me?"
I clicked my tongue in affirmation, showing him how well I had
reinforced the ends.
Hesitantly he sat in the hammock. "It seems strong," he said,
stretching fully. I heard the rubbing of the vine rope against the pole, but
before I could warn him Etewa and the hammock were on the ground.
Ritimi, Tutemi, Arasuwe, and his wives, watching from the hut next to
us, burst into guffaws, immediately attracting a large crowd. Slapping each
other on their thighs and shoulders, they doubled up with laughter. Later I
asked Ritimi if she had tied the hammock loosely on purpose.
"Naturally," she said, her eyes shining with loving malice.
She assured me that Etewa was not in the least upset. "Men enjoy being
outwitted by a woman."
Although I had my doubts as to whether Etewa had actually enjoyed the
incident, he certainly held no grudge against me. He advertised throughout the shabono
how well he was resting in his new hammock. I was besieged with requests.
Sometimes I made as many as three hammocks a day. Several men busied themselves
supplying me with cotton, which they separated by hand from the seeds. With a
whorl stick they spun the fibers into thread, and twisted them into the strong
yarn which I loosely wove in between the strands.
With a finished hammock draped over my arm, I entered Iramamowe's hut
one afternoon. "Are you going to make arrows?" I asked him. He had
climbed up a pole in his hut and was reaching for cane stored under the rafters
of the roof.
"Is this hammock for me?" he asked, handing me the cane. He
took the hammock, fastened it, then sat astride on it. "It's well
made."
"I made it for your eldest wife," I said. "I'll make you
one if you teach me how to make arrows."
"It isn't time to make arrows," Iramamowe said. "I was
only checking if the cane is still dry." He regarded me mockingly, then
burst into laughter. "The white girl wants to make arrows," he
shouted at the top of his voice. "I will teach her, and take her hunting
with me." Still laughing, he motioned me to sit beside him. He spread the
cane on the ground, then sorted the shafts according to size. "The long
ones are best for hunting. Short ones are best for fishing and killing the
enemy. Only a good marksman will use long ones for whatever he pleases. They
are often flawed and their trajectory is imprecise."
Iramamowe selected a short and a long shaft. "In here I will fit
the arrowhead," he said, splitting one end of each cane. Firmly he tied
them together with cotton thread. He cut a few feathers in half, then attached
them to the other end by means of resin and cotton thread. "Some hunters
decorate their shafts with their personal designs. I only do so when I go
raiding. I like my enemy to know who killed him."
Like most Iticoteri men, Iramamowe was a superb raconteur, animating his
stories with precise onomatopoeia, [* onomatopoeia-
using words that imitate the sound they denote] dramatic gestures, and
pauses. Step by step, he took his listener through the hunt: how he first
spotted the animal; how before releasing his arrow he blew on it the powdered
roots of one of his magic plants to immobilize his victim, thus making sure his
arrow would not fail to hit its target; and how, once hit, the animal resisted
dying.
With his eyes fixed on me, he emptied the contents of his quiver on the
ground. In great detail he explained about all the arrowheads he had. "This
is one of the palmwood points," he said, handing me a sharp piece of wood.
"It's made from splinters. The ringlike grooves cut into the point are
smeared with mamucori. They break inside the animal's body. It's the
best point for hunting monkeys." He smiled, then added, "And for
killing the enemy."
Next he held up a long, wide point, sharpened along its edges and
decorated with meandering lines. "This one is good for hunting jaguars and
tapirs."
The excited barking of dogs, mingled with the shouts of people,
interrupted Iramamowe's explanation. I followed him as he rushed toward the
river. An anteater the size of a small bear had taken refuge from the barking
dogs in the water. Etewa and Arasuwe had wounded the animal on the neck,
stomach, and back. Raised on its hind legs, it pawed the air desperately with
its powerful front claws.
"Want to finish it off with my arrow?" Iramamowe asked.
Unable to avert my gaze from the animal's long tongue, I shook my head.
I was not sure whether he was serious or joking. The animal's tongue hung out
of a narrow muzzle, dripping a sticky liquid in which dead ants swam.
Iramamowe's arrow hit the anteater's tiny ear, and instantly the animal
collapsed. The men tied ropes around the massive body, then hoisted it up the bank,
where Arasuwe quartered the animal so the men could carry the heavy pieces to
the shabono.
The men singed off the hair, then placed the various pieces on a wooden
platform built over the fire. As soon as Hayama wrapped the innards in pishaansi
leaves, she buried them in the embers.
"An anteater," the children cried out. Clapping their hands in
delight, they danced around the fire.
"Wait until it's cooked properly," old Hayama warned the
children, whenever one poked at the tightly wrapped bundles. "You will get
sick if you eat meat that isn't well done. It has to cook until no more juice
drips from the leaves."
The liver was done first. Hayama cut me a piece before the children got
to it. It was tender, juicy, and unpleasantly sour, as if it had been marinated
in rancid lemon juice.
Later Iramamowe brought me a piece of the roasted hind leg. "Why
didn't you want to try my arrow?" he asked.
"I might have hit one of the dogs," I said evasively, biting
into the tough meat. It too tasted sour. I looked up into Iramamowe's face, and
wondered if he had been aware that I did not want to be even vaguely compared
to Imaawami, the woman shaman who knew how to call the hekuras and
hunted like a man.
On stormy afternoons the men took epena, and chanted to the hekura
of the anaconda to twist herself around the trees so as to prevent the wind
from breaking their trunks. During one particularly vicious storm, old Kamosiwe
rubbed white ashes over his wrinkled body. In a hoarse, raspy voice he called
out to the spider, his personal hekura, to spin her protective silvery
threads around the plants in the gardens.
Suddenly his voice changed to a higher pitch, as shrill as the piercing
shriek of a parakeet. "I was once an old child who climbed to the tallest
treetop. I fell, and was transformed into a spider. Why do you disturb my
peaceful sleep?"
Reverting again to his old man's voice, Ramosiwe rose from his squatting
position. "Spider, I want to blow your sting on those hekuras who
break and tear the plants in our gardens." With his epena cane, he
blew all around the shabono, aiming the spider sting against the
destructive spirits.
The following morning I accompanied Kamosiwe into the gardens. Smiling,
he pointed to the small hairy spiders busily reweaving their webs. Minute drops
of moisture clung to the tenuous silvery threads. In the sunshine they
glistened like jade pearls, reflecting the greenness of leaves.
We walked through the steaming forest toward the river. Squatting next to
each other we silently watched the broken lianas, trees, and masses of leaves
speeding by in the muddy waters. Back in the shabono, Kamosiwe invited
me into his hut to share with him his specialty- roasted ants dipped in honey.
A favorite pastime during these rainy nights was for a woman to ridicule
her husband for a wrongdoing through a song. A quarrel ensued whenever the
woman hinted that her man was better fit to carry a basket than a bow. These
disputes always ended up as public arguments, in which others took an active
part by expressing their own opinions. Sometimes hours after the quarrel had
ended someone would shout across the clearing with a fresh insight into the
particular problem, thus renewing the squabble.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 19
Whenever the sun pierced through the clouds, I went with the women and
men to work in the gardens. The weeds were much easier to pull from the soaked
ground, but I had little energy. Like old Kamosiwe, I just stood amidst the
high blades of the manioc plants, and soaked up the light and warmth of the
sun. Counting the birds, which had not appeared for days, crossing the sky, I
wished for the hot rainless days. After so many weeks of rain, I longed for the
sun to stay long enough to lift the mist.
One morning I felt so dizzy I could not get out of my hammock. I lowered
my head toward my knees, and waited for the spell to pass. I did not have the
strength to lift my head and answer Ritimi's anxious words which were lost in
the loud persistent noise around me. It must be the river, I thought: It was
not too far away.
But then I realized the noise came from another direction. Desperately,
as if my life depended on it, I tried to think where the sound actually came
from: It came from within me.
For days I heard nothing but drumming in my head. I wanted to open my
eyes. I could not. Through my closed lids I saw the stars burn brighter instead
of fading in the sky. Panic seized me at the thought that it would be night
forever, that I was descending deeper and deeper into a world of shadows and
disconnected dreams.
Waving from misty riverbanks, Ritimi, Tutemi, Etewa, Arasuwe, Iramamowe,
Hayama, old Kamosiwe drifted by me. Sometimes they jumped from cloud to cloud,
sweeping the mist with leafy brooms. Whenever I called them, they melted into
the fog. Sometimes I could see the light of the sun, shining red and yellow,
between branches and leaves. I forced my eyes to stay open, and realized it had
only been the fire dancing on the palm-thatched roof.
"White people need food when they are sick," I distinctly
heard Milagros's shouts. I felt his lips on mine as he pushed masticated meat
into my mouth.
Another time I recognized the shapori Puriwariwe's voice.
"Clothes make people ill." I felt him pull my blanket away. "I
need to cool her down. Get me white mud from the river." I felt his hands
coil around my body, covering me with mud from the top of my head to the tip of
my toes. His lips left a trail of coldness on my skin as he sucked the evil
spirits out of me. My hours of wakefulness and sleep were filled with his
voice.
Wherever I focused my eyes in the darkness, Puriwariwe's face appeared.
I heard the song of his hekura. I felt the sharp hummingbird's beak cut
open my chest. The beak turned into light. Not the light of the sun or the
light of the moon, but the dazzling radiance of the old shapori's eyes.
He urged me to look into his deep pupils. His eyes appeared lidless, extending
toward his temples. They were filled with dancing birds.
The eyes of a madman, I thought.
I saw his hekuras suspended in dewdrops, dancing in the shiny
eyes of a jaguar, and I drank the watery tears of the epena. A violent
tickling in my throat tightened my stomach until I vomited water. It flowed out
of the hut, out of the shabono, and down the path to the river, melting
with the night of smoke and chanting.
Opening my eyes, I sat up in my hammock. I distinctly saw Puriwariwe
running outside the hut. He stretched his arms to the night, his fingers spread
wide as if summoning the energy of the stars. Turning around, he looked at me.
"You are going to live," he said. "The evil spirits have left
your body." Then he disappeared into the shadows of the night.
After weeks of violent storms, the rains abated to an even, almost
predictable pattern. Dawns would arrive opaque and misty, but by midmorning
white fluffy clouds would drift across the sky. Hours later the clouds would
gather above the shabono. They would hang so low that they appeared to
be suspended from the trees, ominously darkening the afternoon sky. A heavy
downpour would follow, fading to a light drizzle that often continued far into
the night.
I did not work much in the gardens during those rainless mornings but
usually accompanied the children into the swamps that had formed around the
river. There we would catch frogs and pry out crabs from underneath stones.
The children, on all fours, eyes and ears alert to the slightest motion
and sound, pounced with uncanny agility. on the unsuspecting frogs. With eyes
that looked almost transparent because of the diffused light, the little girls
and boys worked with the precision of evil gnomes as they pulled the fiber
loops around the frogs' necks until the last croak died down. Smiling, with the
candor only children have when unaware of their cruelty, they would cut open
the frogs' feet so that all the blood, which was believed to be poisonous,
could flow out. After the frogs had been skinned, each child would wrap his
catch in pishaansi leaves and cook them over the fire. With manioc
gruel, they tasted delicious.
Mostly, I just sat on a rock in the tall bamboo grass and watched rows
of shiny black and yellow scarabs climb with careful, almost imperceptible
slowness up and down the light green stems. They looked like creatures of
another world, protected by their brilliant armor of obsidian and gold. On
windless mornings it was so quiet in the bamboo grass that I could hear the
beetles sucking sap from the tender shoots.
Early one morning, Arasuwe sat at the head of my hammock. There was a
cheerful glow on his face, extending from his high cheekbones to his lower lip,
where a wad of tobacco protruded. The concentration of wrinkles around his eyes
deepened as he grinned, adding a reassuring warmth to his expression. I fixed
my gaze on his thick, ribbed nails as he cupped his brown hand to catch the
last drops of honey from a calabash. He extended his hand toward me and I
dipped my finger in his palm. "This is the best honey I've had for a long
time," I said, licking my finger with relish.
"You can come with me downriver," Arasuwe said. He went on to
explain that with two of his wives and his two youngest sons-in-law, one of
which was Matuwe, he was going to an abandoned garden where months earlier they
had felled several palm trees to harvest the tasty palm hearts. "Do you
remember how much you liked the crisp, crunchy shoots?" he asked. "By
now the decaying pith in the dead trunks must be filled with fat worms."
As I was pondering on how to express that I would not like the grubs as
much as I had enjoyed the palm hearts, Ritimi came to sit beside me. "I
will also go to the gardens," she said. "I have to watch over the
white girl."
Arasuwe blew his nose, flicking the mucus away with his forefinger, then
laughed. "My daughter, we are going by canoe. I thought you didn't like
traveling on water."
"It's better than walking through a swampy forest," Ritimi
said flippantly.
Ritimi came instead of Arasuwe's youngest wife. For a short distance we
walked along the riverbank until we reached an embankment. Hidden underneath
the thicket was a long canoe.
"It looks like one of the large troughs you use for making
soup," I said, eyeing the bark contraption suspiciously.
Proudly, Arasuwe explained that both were made in exactly the same
fashion. The bark of a large tree was loosened in one piece by pounding the
trunk with clubs. Then the ends were heated over a fire to make them pliable
enough to be folded back and pinched into a flat-nosed basin, and finally the
ends were lashed together with vines. A crude framework of sticks Was added to
give the boat its stability.
The men pushed the canoe into the water. Giggling, Arasuwe's second
wife, Ritimi, and I climbed inside. Afraid to upset the tublike craft, I did
not dare move from my crouching position. Arasuwe maneuvered the canoe with a
pole into the middle of the river.
With their backs turned to their mother-in-law, the two young men sat as
far away from her as they could. I wondered why Arasuwe had brought them at
all. It was considered incestuous for a man to be familiar with his wife's
mother, especially if the woman was still sexually active. Men usually avoided
their mothers-in-law altogether, to the extent that they did not even look at
them. And under no circumstances did they say their names aloud.
The current seized us, carrying us swiftly down the gurgling, muddy
river. There were stretches when the waters were calm, reflecting the trees on
either side of the bank with exaggerated intensity. Gazing at the mirrored
leaves, I had the feeling we were ripping through an intricately laced veil.
The forest was silent. From time to time we caught sight of a bird gliding
across the sky. Without flapping its wings, it seemed to be flying asleep. The
ride was over all too soon. Arasuwe beached the canoe in the sand amidst black
basalt rocks.
"Now we have to walk," he said, looking at the dark forest
ascending in front of us.
"What about the canoe?" I asked. "We should turn it
upside down so the afternoon rain won't fill it with water."
Arasuwe scratched his head, then burst into laughter. He had mentioned
on different occasions that I was far too opinionated- not necessarily because
I was a woman, but because I was young. Old people, regardless of sex, were
respected and held in esteem. Their advice was sought and followed. It was the
young ones who were discouraged from voicing their judgments. "We will not
use the boat to get back," Arasuwe said. "It's too hard to pole
upriver."
"Who is going to take it back to the shahonof" I could
not help asking, afraid we would have to carry it.
"No one," he assured me. "The boat is only good for going
downstream." Grinning, Arasuwe turned the canoe upside down. "Maybe
someone else will need it to go farther downriver."
It felt good to move my cramped legs. We walked silently through the
wet, marshy forest. Matuwe was in front of me. He was thin and long legged. His
quiver hung so low on his back that it bumped back and forth on his buttocks. I
began to whistle a little tune. Matuwe turned around. His scowling face made me
giggle. I had the overwhelming temptation to poke his buttocks with the quiver,
but controlled my impulse. "Don't you like your mother-in-law?" I
asked, unable to refrain myself from teasing him.
Grinning shyly, Matuwe blushed at my impudence for having spoken
Arasuwe's wife's name aloud in front of him. "Don't you know that a man
cannot look at, talk to, or be near his mother-in-law?"
His stricken tone made me feel guilty for having teased him. "I
didn't know," I lied.
Upon arriving at the site, Ritimi assured me that it was the same
abandoned garden she and Tutemi had taken me to after our first encounter in
the forest. I did not recognize the place. It was so overgrown with weeds, I
had a hard time finding the temporary shelters I knew to stand around the
plantain trees.
Slashing the weeds with their machetes, the men looked for the fallen palm
tree trunks. After uncovering them, they dug out the decaying pith, then broke
it open with their bare hands. Ritimi and Arasuwe's wife shrieked ecstatically
as they saw the wriggling grubs, some as big as Ping-Pong balls. Squatting
beside the men, they helped bite off each larva's head, pulling it away
together with the intestines. The white torsos were collected in pishaansi leaves.
Whenever Ritimi damaged a grub, which she did quite often, she ate it raw on
the spot, smacking her lips in approval.
Despite their mocking pleas that I help them prepare the grubs, I could
not bring myself to touch the squirming blobs, let alone to bite off their
heads. Borrowing Matuwe's machete, I cut down banana fronds with which to cover
the roofs of the badly weathered shelters.
Arasuwe called me as soon as some of the larvae were roasting on the
fire. "Eat it," he urged, pushing one of the bundles in front of me.
"You need the fat- you haven't had enough lately. That's why you have
diarrhea," he added in a tone that begged no argument.
I grinned sheepishly. With a resoluteness I did not feel, I opened the
tightly bound package. The shrunken, whitish grubs were swimming in fat; they
smelled like burnt bacon. Watching the others, I first licked the pishaansi leaf,
then carefully popped a grub into my mouth. It tasted wonderfully similar to
the burned gristly fat around a New York steak.
At dusk, soon after we had settled into one of the repaired huts,
Arasuwe announced in a solemn tone that we had to return to the shabono.
"You want to travel at night?" Matuwe asked incredulously.
"What about the roots we wanted to dig up in the morning?"
"We cannot stay here," Arasuwe reiterated. "I can feel it
in my legs that something is about to happen at the shabono."
Closing his eyes, he swung his head to and fro as if the slow, rhythmic
movement could provide him with an answer as to what he should do. "We
have to reach the shabono by dawn," he said determinedly.
Ritimi distributed among our baskets the nearly forty pounds of grubs the
men had recovered from the decaying palm trunks, placing the smallest amount
into mine. Arasuwe and his two sons-in-law took the half-burned logs from the
fire, then we set out in single file. To keep the makeshift torches glowing,
the men blew on them periodically, dispersing a shower of sparks amidst the
damp shadows.
At times the almost full moon cut through the leaves, casting an eerie,
bluish-green light on the path. The tall tree trunks stood like columns of
smoke dissolving in the humid air, as if intent on eluding the embrace of vines
and parasitic growths hanging across space. Only the trees' crowns were
perfectly outlined against the moving clouds.
Arasuwe stopped often, cocking his ear to the slightest sound, his eyes
darting back and forth in the darkness. He breathed deeply, dilating his
nostrils, as if he could detect something besides the smell of wetness and
decay. When he looked at us women, his eyes appeared anxious. I wondered if the
memories of raids, ambushes, and God knows what other dangers rushed through
his mind. But I did not dwell for too long on the headman's worried expression.
I was too concerned in making sure the exposed roots of the giant ceibas were
not bulging anacondas digesting a tapir or a peccary.
Arasuwe waded into a shallow river. He cupped his hand behind his
ear as if trying to catch the faintest sound. Ritimi whispered that her father
was listening to the echoes of the current, to the murmur of the spirits that
knew of the dangers lying ahead. Arasuwe placed his hands on the surface of the
water, and for a moment held the reflected image of the moon.
As we walked on, the moon faded into a misty, barely discernible image.
I wondered if the lonely clouds traversing the sky were trying to keep abreast
of us in their journey toward morning. Little by little, the calls of monkeys
and birds faded, the night breeze ceased, and I knew dawn was not far away.
We arrived at the shabono at that time of still indeterminate
grayness when it is no longer night and not yet morning. Many of the Iticoteri
were still asleep. Those who were up greeted us, surprised to see us back so
soon.
Relieved that Arasuwe's fears had been unfounded, I lay down in my
hammock.
I was awakened abruptly when Xotomi sat beside me. "Eat this
quickly," she urged, handing me a baked plantain. "Yesterday I saw
the kind of fish you and I like best." Without waiting to hear whether or
not I was too tired to go, she handed me my small bow and short arrows. The
thought of eating fish instead of grubs quickly dispelled my fatigue.
"I want to come too," little Sisiwe said, following us. We
headed upriver, where the waters formed wide pools. Not a leaf stirred, not a
bird or frog could be heard.
Squatting on a rock, we watched the early rays of the sun filter through
the mist-enshrouded canopy of leaves. As if strained through a gauzy veil, the
faint rays lit the dark waters of the pool.
"I heard something," little Sisiwe whispered, holding on to my
arm. "I heard a branch snap."
"I heard it too," Xotomi said softly.
I was sure it was not an animal but the unmistakable sound of a human
who steps with caution, then stops at the noise he has made.
"There he is," Sisiwe shouted, pointing across the river.
"It's the enemy," he added, then fled toward the shabono.
Grabbing my arm, Xotomi pulled me to the side. I turned around. All I
saw were the dewy ferns on the opposite bank. At that same instant Xotomi let
out a piercing scream. An arrow had hit her in the leg. I dragged her into the
bushes by the side of the path, insisting we crawl farther into the thicket
until we were hidden completely.
"We will wait here until the Iticoteri come to rescue us," I
said, examining her leg.
Xotomi wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
"If it's a raid, the men will stay in the shabono to defend the
women and children."
"They will come," I said with a confidence I was far from
feeling. "Little Sisiwe went for help." The barbed point had pierced
through her calf. I broke the arrow, pulled the head from the ghastly wound
that was bleeding from both sides, then wrapped my torn underpants around her
leg. Blood soaked through the thin cotton instantly. Worried that the arrow
might have been poisoned, I carefully undid the makeshift bandage and examined
the wound once again to see if the flesh around it was getting dark. Iramamowe
had explained to me that a wound caused by a poisoned arrow invariably
darkened. "I don't think the arrowhead was smeared with mamiicori,"
I said.
"Yes. I also noticed," she said, smiling faintly. Leaning her
head to one side, she motioned me to be still.
"Do you think there is more than one man?" I whispered when I
heard the sound of a twig snapping.
Xotomi looked at me, her eyes wide with fear. "There usually
are."
"We can't wait here like frogs," I said, taking my bow and
arrows. Quietly, I crawled toward the path. "Show your face, you coward,
you monkey! You have shot at a woman!" I yelled in a voice that did not
sound like my own. For good measure I added the words I knew an Iticoteri warrior
would say: "I will kill you on the spot when I see you!"
No farther than twelve feet from where I stood a blackened face peeked
from behind the leaves. His hair was wet. I had an irrational desire to laugh.
I was sure he had not taken a bath, but had slipped crossing the river, for the
water was only waist high.
I pointed my arrow at him. For an instant I was at a loss as to what to
say next. "Drop your weapons on the path," I finally shouted. Then
for good measure I added, "My arrows are poisoned with the best mamucori
the Iticoteri make. Drop your weapons," I repeated. "I'm aiming at
your stomach, right where death lies."
Wide-eyed, as if he were apprehending an apparition, the man stepped out
on the trail. He was not much taller than I, but was powerfully built. His bow
and arrows were clutched tightly in his hands.
"Drop your weapons on the ground," I repeated, stomping my
right foot for emphasis.
With careful slowness, the man placed his bow and arrows on the path in
front of him.
"Why did you shoot at my friend?" I asked as I saw Xotomi
crawling out to the path.
"I did not want to shoot at her," he said, his eyes fixed on
the torn, bloodied makeshift bandage wrapped around Xotomi's leg. "I
wanted to shoot at you."
"At me!" I felt helpless in my anger. I opened and closed my
mouth repeatedly, unable to utter a single word. When I finally regained my
speech, I stammered insult upon insult in all the languages I knew, including
Iticoteri, which had the most descriptive profanities of all.
Transfixed, the man stood in front of me, seemingly more surprised by my
foul language than at the arrow I still held pointed at him. Neither one of us
noticed Arasuwe and Etewa approach.
"A Mocototeri coward," Arasuwe said. "I ought to kill you
on the spot."
"He wanted to kill me," I said in a cracking voice. I felt all
my courage melt away, leaving me shaking. "He shot Xotomi in the
leg."
"I didn't want to kill you," the Mocototeri said, eyeing me
supplicantly. "I only wanted to hit your leg so as to prevent you from running
away." He turned to Arasuwe. "You can be assured of my good
intentions; my arrows are not poisoned." He looked at Xotomi. "I hit
you accidentally when you dragged the white girl away," he mumbled, as if
not fully accepting that he had missed.
"How many more of you are here?" Arasuwe asked, squatting
beside his daughter. Not for a moment did he take his eyes from the Mocototeri
as he ran his fingers over the wound. "It's not bad," he said,
straightening up.
"There are two more." The Mocototeri imitated the call of a
bird, and was immediately answered by similar cries. "We wanted to take
the white girl with us. Our people want her to stay at our shabono."
"How do you think I could have walked if I was injured?" I
asked.
"We would have carried you in a hammock," the man said
promptly, smiling at me.
Shortly, two other Mocototeri emerged from the thicket. Grinning, they
stared at me, not in the least embarrassed or afraid for having been caught.
"How long have you been here?" Arasuwe asked.
"We have been watching the white girl for several days," one
of the men said. "We know she likes to catch frogs with the
children." The man smiled broadly as he turned toward me. "There are
many frogs around our shabono."
"Why have you waited so long?" Arasuwe asked.
In the frankest manner the man observed that there had always been too
many women and children around me. He had hoped to capture me at dawn when I
went to relieve myself, for he had heard that I preferred going far into the
forest by myself. "But we didn't see her go, not even once."
Grinning, Arasuwe and Etewa looked at me, as if waiting for me to
elaborate on the matter. I stared back at them. Since the rains had started, I
had noticed a lot more snakes around the usual places set aside for bodily
functions, but I was not going to discuss with them where I went instead.
With the same enthusiasm as if he were telling a story, the Mocototeri
went on to explain that they had not come to kill any of the Iticoteri, or to
abduct any of their women. "All we wanted was to take the white girl with
us." The man laughed, then uttered, "Wouldn't it have surprised you
and your people if suddenly the white girl had disappeared without leaving a
trace?"
Arasuwe conceded that indeed it would have been quite a feat. "But
we would have known it was the Mocototeri who had taken her. You were careless
enough to leave footprints in the mud. I saw plenty of evidence as I was
scouting around the shabono that Mocototeri had been here. Last night I
had the certainty something was amiss- that's why I returned so promptly from
our trip to the old gardens." Arasuwe paused for a moment, as if giving
the three men time for his words to sink in, then declared, "Had you taken
the white girl with you, we would have raided your settlement and taken her
back, as well as some of your women."
The man who had shot Xotomi in the leg picked up his bow and arrows from
the ground. "Today was a good time, I thought. There was only one woman
and a child with the white girl." He looked helplessly at me. "But I
hit the wrong person. There must be powerful hekuras in your settlement
protecting the white girl." He shook his head, as if full of doubt, then
fixed his gaze on Arasuwe. "Why does she use a man's weapon? We saw her
one morning at the river with the women, shooting fish like a man. We did not
know what to think of her. That is why I failed to hit her. I no longer knew
what she was."
Arasuwe commanded the three men to walk toward the shabono.
I was overwhelmed with the absurdity of the whole situation. Only the
thought that Xotomi had been hurt kept me from laughing, yet a convulsive smile
kept rising to my lips. I tried to keep a sober expression but I could feel my
mouth twitching. I carried Xotomi piggyback, but she laughed so hard her leg
started to bleed again.
"It will be easier if I lean against you," she said. "My
leg doesn't hurt too much."
"Are the Mocototeri prisoners?" I asked.
She looked at me uncomprehendingly for an instant, then finally said,
"No. Only women are taken captive."
"What will happen to them at the shabonof"
"They will be fed."
"But they are enemies," I said. "They shot you in the
leg. They ought to be punished."
Xotomi looked at me, then shook her head as if knowing that it was
beyond her to make me understand. She asked me if I would have killed the
Mocototeri if he had not dropped his weapons on the ground.
"I would have shot him," I said loud enough for the men to
hear. "I would have killed him with my poisoned arrows."
Arasuwe and Etewa glanced back. The stern expression on their faces
relaxed into a smile. They knew my arrows were not poisoned. "Yes, she
would have shot you," Arasuwe told the Mocototeri. "The white girl is
not like our women. Whites kill very fast."
I wondered if I actually would have shot my arrow at the Mocototeri. I
certainly would have kicked him in the groin or stomach had he not dropped his
bow and arrows. I was aware of the folly of trying to overpower a stronger
opponent, but I saw no reason a small person could not startle an unsuspecting
assailant with a quick punch or kick. That, I was sure, would have given me
enough time to run away. A kick would certainly have shocked the unaware
Mocototeri even more than my bow and arrows. That thought gave me much comfort.
Arriving at the shabono, we were met by the Iticoteri men staring
at us down the shaft of their drawn arrows. The women and children were hiding
inside the huts. Ritimi came running toward me. "I knew you would be
fine," she said, helping me carry her half-sister into old Hayama's hut.
Ritimi's grandmother washed Xotorni's leg with warm water, then poured epena
powder into the wound. "Don't get out of your hammock," she
admonished the girl. "I will get some leaves to wrap around your
calf."
Exhausted, I went to rest in my hammock. Hoping to fall asleep, I pulled
the sides over me. But I was awakened shortly by Ritimi's laughter. Leaning
over me, she covered my face with resounding kisses. "I heard how you
scared the Mocototeri."
"Why did only Arasuwe and Etewa come to rescue us?" I asked.
"There might have been many Mocototeri men."
"But my father and husband didn't come to rescue you," Ritimi
informed me candidly. She made herself comfortable in my hammock, then
explained that no one in the shabono had realized I had gone with Xotomi
and little Sisiwe to catch fish. It was purely accidental that Arasuwe and
Etewa had found Xotomi and myself.
Arasuwe, following his premonitions, had gone to scout the shabono's
surroundings upon returning from our night-long trek. Although he suspected
that something was amiss, he had not actually known there were Mocototeri
outside.
Her father, Ritimi declared, was only performing his headman's duty and
checking to see if there was evidence of intruders. It was a task a headman had
to perform by himself, for usually no one was willing to accompany him on such
a dangerous mission. No one was expected to.
Only lately had I come to realize that although Arasuwe had been
introduced to me by Milagros as the headman of the Iticoteri, it was an
uncertain title. The powers of a headman were limited. He wore no special
insignia to distinguish him from the other men, and all adult males were
involved in important decisions. Even if a judgment had been reached, each man
was still free to do what he pleased.
Arasuwe's importance stemmed from his kinship following. His brothers,
numerous sons, and sons-in-law gave him power and support. As long as his
decisions satisfied the people of his shabono, there was little dispute
as to his authority.
"How come Etewa was with him?"
"That was totally unforeseen," Ritimi said, laughing. "He
was probably returning from a clandestine rendezvous with one of the women of
the shabono when he stumbled upon his father-in-law."
"You mean no one would have come to rescue us?" I asked
incredulously.
"Once the men know that the enemy is around, they will not
purposely go outside. It's too easy to be ambushed."
"But we could have been killed!"
"Women are hardly ever killed," Ritimi stated with utter
conviction. "They would have captured you. But our men would have raided
the Mocototeri settlement and brought you back," she argued with
astounding simplicity, as if it were the most natural course of events.
"But they shot Xotomi's leg." I felt like crying. "They
intended to maim me."
"That's only because they didn't know how to capture you,"
Ritimi said, putting her arms around my neck. "They know how to deal with
Indian women. We are easy to abduct. The Mocototeri must have been at their
wits' end with you. You should be happy. You are as brave as a warrior.
Iramamowe is certain you have special hekuras protecting you, so
powerful they even deviated the arrow intended for you into Xotomi's leg."
"What will happen to the Mocototeri?" I asked, looking into
Arasuwe's hut. The three men were sitting in hammocks, eating baked plantains
as if they were guests. "It is strange how you treat the enemy."
"Strange?" Ritimi looked at me, puzzled. "We treat them
right. Didn't they reveal their plan? Arasuwe is glad they didn't
succeed." Ritimi mentioned that the three men would probably stay with the
Iticoteri for some time- especially if they suspected that there was a good
chance their settlement was to be raided by the Iticoteri. The two shabonos
had been raiding back and forth for many years- as far back as her grandfather's
and great-grandfather's time, and even before.
Ritimi pulled my head toward her and whispered in my ear, "Etewa
has been wishing to take revenge on the Mocototeri for a long time."
"Etewa! But he was so happy to go to their feast," I said,
bewildered. "I thought he liked them. I know Arasuwe believes they are a
treacherous lot- even Iramamowe. But Etewa! I was sure he was delighted to
dance and sing at their party."
"I told you once that one doesn't go to a feast only to dance and
sing but to find out what other people's plans are," Ritimi whispered. She
looked at me anxiously. "Etewa wants his enemy to think that he has no
intention of avenging his father."
"Was his father killed by the Mocototeri?"
Ritimi put her hand to my lips. "Let us not talk about it. It's bad
luck to mention a person who has been killed in a raid."
"Is there going to be a raid?" I managed to ask before Ritimi
pushed a piece of baked plantain in my mouth.
She only smiled at me but did not answer. The thought of a raid made me
feel extremely uncomfortable. I had a hard time swallowing the plantain.
Somehow I had associated raids with the past. The few times I had asked
Milagros about them, he had been vague with his answers. Only now did I wonder
if there had been regret in Milagros's voice when he stated that the
missionaries had been quite successful in their attempt to put an end to
intervillage feuding.
"Is there going to be a raid?" I asked Etewa as he entered the
hut.
He looked at me, his face set in a scowl. "That's not a question for
a woman to ask."
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 20
It was dusk when Puriwariwe walked into the shabono. I had not
seen him since my illness, since the night he had stood in the middle of the
clearing, arms outstretched as if pleading with the darkness.
From Milagros I had learned that for six consecutive days and nights the
old shapori had taken epena. The old man had been on the verge of
collapsing under the weight of the spirits he had called into his chest. Yet
perseveringly he had beseeched the hekuras to cure me from the onslaught
of a tropical fever.
Ritimi had also emphasized that it had been a particularly hard struggle
to cure me in that the hekuras resent being called in the rainy season.
"It was the hekura of the hummingbird that saved you," she had
explained. "In spite of its small size, the hummingbird is a powerful
spirit. It's used by an accomplished shapori as a last resort."
I had not been comforted in the least when Ritimi had wrapped her arms
around my neck, assuring me that if I had died my soul would not have wandered
aimlessly in the forest but would have ascended peacefully to the house of
thunder, for my body would have been burned and my pulverized bones would have
been eaten by her and her relatives.
I joined Puriwariwe in the clearing. "I'm well now," I said,
squatting beside him.
He looked at me with veiled, almost dreamy eyes, then ran his hand over
my head. It was a small dark hand that moved rapidly, yet felt heavy and slow.
A vague tenderness softened his features, but he did not say a word. I wondered
if he knew that I had felt the beak of a hummingbird cutting into my chest
during my illness. I had told no one.
A group of men, their faces and bodies painted black, gathered around
Puriwariwe. They blew epena into each other's noses, and listened to his
chant, pleading with the hekuras to come out of their hiding places in
the mountains. The men's black figures were more like shadows, barely
illuminated by the fires of the huts. Softly, they repeated the shaman's songs.
I felt a chill run up my spine as the quickened pace of their unintelligible
words became more menacing and forceful.
Upon returning to the hut I asked Ritimi what the men were celebrating.
"They are sending hekuras to the Mocototeri settlement to
kill the enemy."
"Will the enemy really die?"
Drawing up her knees, she looked pensively beyond the palm fringe of the
hut into the pitch-dark sky, bereft of moon and stars. "They will
die," she said softly.
Convinced there was not going to be a real raid, I dozed off and on in
my hammock, listening to the chanting outside. More than hearing the men, I
visualized the fragments of sound, endlessly rising and falling, as being carried
away by the smoke from the hearths.
Hours later I got up and sat outside the hut. Most of the men had
retired to their hammocks. Only ten remained in the clearing, Etewa among them.
With closed eyes, they repeated Puriwariwe's song. His words came to me clearly
through the humid air:
Follow me, follow my vision.
Follow me over the treetops.
Look at the birds and butterflies; such colors you will never see on the
ground.
I'm rising into heaven, toward the sun.
The shapori's song was interrupted abruptly by one of the men.
"I've been struck by the sun- my eyes are burning," he shouted as he
stood up. He looked helplessly around in the darkness. His legs gave way under
him and, he collapsed with a thud on the ground. No one took any notice.
Puriwariwe's voice became more insistent, as if he were trying to raise
the men collectively toward his vision. He repeated his song again and again to
those still squatting around him. Urging the men not to get sidetracked in the
dew of their visions, he warned them of spearlike bamboo leaves and poisonous
snakes lurching from behind trees and roots on the path to the sun.
Above all, he urged the men not to pass into human sleep, but to step
from the darkness of the night to the white darkness of the sun. He promised
them that their bodies would be soaked with the glow of the hekuras,
that their eyes would shine with the sun's precious light.
I remained outside the hut until the dawn erased the shadows on the
ground. Expecting to find some visible evidence of their journey to the sun, I
walked from man to man, peering intently into each face.
Puriwariwe watched me curiously, a mocking grin on his haggard face.
"You'll find no outward indication of their flight," he said as if he
had read my thoughts. "Their eyes are dull and red from the night's
vigil," he added, pointing to the men who were staring indifferently into
the distance, totally unconcerned with my presence. "That precious light
you expect to see reflected in their pupils, only shines inside them. Only they
can see it."
Before I had a chance to ask him about his journey to the sun, he had
walked out of the shabono into the forest.
In the days that followed, a gloomy oppressive mood enveloped the
settlement. At first it was only a vague feeling, but I finally became obsessed
with the certainty I was being purposely kept in the dark about some impending
event. I became morose, distant, and irritable. I struggled against my
sensation of isolation. I tried to hide my ill-focused apprehension, yet I felt
as if I were being attacked by unidentifiable forces. Whenever I asked Ritimi
or any of the other women if there was some approaching change, they would not
even acknowledge my question. Instead they would comment on some silly
incident, hoping to make me laugh.
"Are we going to be raided?" I finally asked Arasuwe one day.
He turned his perplexed face toward me as if he were trying to untangle
my words.
I felt confused, nervous, and close to tears. I told him that I was not
stupid, that I had noticed how the men were constantly on the alert and how the
women were afraid to go by themselves into the gardens or to fish in the river.
"Why can't someone tell me what is going on?" I yelled.
"There is nothing going on," Arasuwe said calmly. Folding his
arms behind his neck, he stretched comfortably in his hammock. He began to talk
about something unrelated to my question, chuckling frequently at his own tale.
But I was not to be soothed. I did not laugh with him. I did not even
pay attention to his words. He seemed totally bewildered as I stomped back to
my hut.
I was miserable for days, feeling alternately resentful and sorry for
myself. I did not sleep well. I kept repeating to myself that I, who had so
totally embraced this new life, was suddenly treated like a stranger. I felt
angry and betrayed.
I could not accept that Arasuwe had not taken me into his confidence.
Not even Ritimi had been willing to put me at ease. If only Milagros were here,
I wished fervently. Surely he would dispel my anxiety. He would tell me
everything.
One night, when I could not quite lose myself in sleep, but hovered in a
half-waking state, I was suddenly hit by an insight. It did not come in words,
but translated itself as a whole process of thoughts and memories that flashed
like pictures before me, and put everything into a proper perspective.
I felt elated. I began to laugh with relief that turned into sheer joy.
I could hear my laughter echo through the huts. Sitting up in my hammock, I
noticed that most of the Iticoteri were laughing with me.
Arasuwe squatted by my hammock. "Have the spirits of the forest
made you mad?" he inquired, holding my head between his hands.
"Quite mad," I said, still laughing. I looked into his eyes;
they shone in the darkness. I gazed at Ritimi, Tutemi, and Etewa standing next
to Arasuwe, their curious, sleepy faces aglow with laughter. Words blurted out
of me in an unending procession, piling onto one another with astonishing
velocity. I was speaking in Spanish, not because I wanted to conceal anything,
but because my explanation would not have made sense in their language. Arasuwe
and the others listened as if they understood, as if they sensed my need to
unburden myself of the turmoil within me.
I had realized that I was, after all, an outsider, and my demand to be
informed of events not even the Iticoteri talked about among themselves was due
to my feelings of self-importance. What had turned me into an intolerable
individual was the thought of being left out- excluded from something I
believed I had a right to know.
I had not questioned why I believed I had the right to know. It had made
me miserable, blinding me to all the joyful moments I had so much cherished
before. The gloom and oppressiveness I had felt was not outside, but within me;
communicating itself to the shabono and its people.
I felt Arasuwe's calloused hand on my shaven tonsure. I did not feel
ashamed of my feelings, but was glad to realize that it was up to me to restore
the sense of magic and wonder at being in a different world.
"Blow epena in my nose," Arasuwe said to Etewa. "I
want to make sure the evil spirits stay away from the white girl."
I heard murmuring, a rustling of voices, a soft laughter, then Arasuwe's
monotonous chant. I fell into a peaceful sleep, the best I had had for days.
Little Texoma, who had not come into my hammock for days, awoke me at
dawn. "I heard you laugh last night," she said, snuggling against me.
"You had not laughed for so many days, I was afraid you would not laugh
ever again."
I gazed into her bright eyes as it I might find in them the answer that
would enable me in the future to laugh away all the anxiety and turmoils of my
spirit.
An unusual stillness enshrouded the shabono as the shades of
night closed in around us. The lulling touch of Tutemi's fingers as she
searched my head for lice almost put me to sleep. The women's noisy chatter
subsided to whispers as they went about preparing the evening meals and nursing
their babies.
As if obeying an unspoken command, the children forsook their vociferous
evening games, and gathered in Arasuwe's hut to listen to old Kamosiwe's tales.
He seemed to be totally engrossed in his own words, gesturing dramatically with
his hands as he talked. Yet his own eye was fixed intently on the long tubes of
sweet potatoes sticking out from the embers. I watched in awe as the old man
picked the roots out of the fire with his bare hand. Not waiting for the
potatoes to cool, he crammed them into his mouth.
From where I sat I could see the waning moon appear over the treetops,
obscured by the traveling clouds that shone white against the dark sky. The
night stillness was pierced by an eerie sound- something between a scream and a
growl. The next instant Etewa, his face and body painted black, materialized
out of the shadows. He stood in front of the fires that had been lit in the
clearing and clacked his bow and arrows high above his head. I did not see from
which hut the others appeared, but eleven more men, their faces and bodies
equally blackened, joined Etewa in the clearing.
Arasuwe pushed and pulled each of them until they all stood in a
perfectly straight line, then, after positioning the last man in place, he
joined them. The headman began to sing in a deep, nasal tone. The others
repeated the last line of his song in a chorus. I could distinguish each
separate voice in the murmured harmony, though I understood none of the words.
The longer they sang, the angrier the men seemed to become. At the end
of each song, they let out the most ferocious screams I had ever heard. Oddly,
I had the feeling that the louder they yelled, the more remote was their rage,
as if it was no longer part of their black-painted bodies.
Abruptly they became silent. The faint light of the fires accentuated
the wrathful expression on their rigid, mask-like faces; and the feverish glow
in their eyes. I could not see if Arasuwe gave the command, but in unison they
shouted, "How I will enjoy watching my arrow hit the enemy. How I will
enjoy seeing his blood splash all over the ground."
Holding their weapons above their heads, the warriors broke the line,
and gathered into a tight circle. They began to shout, first softly, then in
such piercing voices that I felt a chill run down my spine.
They were silent once more, and Ritimi whispered in my ear that the men
were listening to the echo of their screams so they could determine from which
direction it came. The echoes, she explained, carried the spirits of the enemy.
Groaning, clacking their weapons, the men began to prance about the
clearing. Arasuwe calmed them down. Two more times they gathered into a tight
circle and shouted with all their might. Instead of walking into the forest, as
I had expected and feared, the men moved toward the huts standing close to the
entrance of the shabono. They lay down in the hammocks, and forced
themselves to vomit.
"While they chanted, they devoured their enemies," she said.
"Now they have to get rid of the rotten flesh."
I sighed with relief, yet I felt oddly disappointed that the raid had
been acted out symbolically.
Shortly before dawn, I was awakened by the wailing of women. I rubbed my
eyes to make sure I was not dreaming. As if no time had elapsed, the men stood
outside in exactly the same straight formation they had assumed earlier in the
night. Their cries had lost their fierceness, as if the wails of the women had
dampened their wrath. They flung the plantain bundles, which had been stacked
at the shabono's entrance, over their shoulders, then marched
dramatically down the path leading to the river.
Old Kamosiwe and I followed the men at a distance. I thought it was
raining, but it was only dew dripping from leaf to leaf. For a moment the men
stood still, their shadows perfectly outlined against the light sand of the
riverbank. The half-moon had traveled across the sky, shimmering faintly
through the misty air.
As if the sand had sucked in their shadows, the men vanished before my
eyes. All I heard was the sound of rustling leaves, of snapping branches
receding into the forest. The mist closed in on us like an impenetrable wall,
as though nothing had happened, as if all I had seen was only a dream.
Old Kamosiwe, sitting beside me on a rock, touched my arm lightly.
"I no longer hear the echoes of their steps," he said, then slowly
walked into the water. I followed him. I shivered with coldness. I felt the
little fish that hide beneath the submerged roots brush against my legs, but I
could not see them in the dark waters.
Old Kamosiwe giggled as I rubbed him dry with leaves. "Look at the sikomasik,"
he said rapturously, pointing to the white mushrooms growing on a rotten tree
trunk.
I picked them up for him, wrapping them in leaves. When roasted over the
fire, they were considered a delicacy, particularly by the old people.
Kamosiwe held the end of his broken bow toward me;
I pulled him up the slippery path leading to the shabono. The
mist did not rise the whole day, as if the sun were afraid to witness the men's
journey through the forest.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 21
Little Texoma sat next to me on the log in the bamboo grass.
"Aren't you going to catch any frogs?" I asked her.
She looked at me woefully. Her eyes, usually so bright, were dull.
Slowly they filled with tears.
"What makes you sad?" I asked, cradling her in my arms.
Children were never left to cry for fear that their soul might escape through
their mouths. Lifting her on my back, I headed toward the shabono.
"You are as heavy as a basket full of ripe plantains," I said in an
effort to make her laugh.
But the little girl did not even smile. Her face remained pressed
against my neck; her tears rolled unchecked down my breasts. Carefully, I laid
her down in her hammock. She clung to me tenaciously, forcing me to lie beside
her. Soon she was asleep. It was not a peaceful sleep. From time to time her
little body trembled as if she were in the throes of some dreadful nightmare.
With Tutemi's baby strapped to her back, Ritimi entered the hut. She
began to cry as she looked at the sleeping child next to me. "I'm sure one
of the evil Mocototeri shapori has lured her soul away." Ritimi
wept with such heartbreaking sobs, I left Texoma's hammock and sat next to her.
I did not know quite what to say. I was sure Ritimi was not only crying
for her little daughter, but also for Etewa, who had been gone with the raiding
party for almost a week. Since her husband's departure, she had not been her
usual self. She had not worked in the gardens; neither had she accompanied any
of the women to gather berries or wood in the forest.
Listless and dejected, she moped around the shabono. Most of the
time she lay in her hammock, playing with Tutemi's baby. No matter what I did
or said to cheer her up, I was unable to erase the forlorn expression on her
face. The rueful little smile with which Ritimi responded to my efforts only
made her look all the more despondent.
I put my arms around her neck and planted loud kisses on her cheek,
reassuring her all the time that Texoma had nothing but a cold. Ritimi was not
to be consoled. Weeping did not bring her any release or tire her out, but only
intensified her distress.
"Maybe something has happened to Etewa," Ritimi said.
"Maybe a Mocototeri has killed him."
"Nothing has happened to Etewa," I stated. "I can feel it
in my legs."
Ritimi smiled slightly, as if doubting my words."But why is my
little daughter sick?" she insisted.
"Texoma is sick because she got chilled playing in the swamps with
the frogs," I stated matter-of-factly. "Children get sick very fast,
and recuperate just as speedily."
"Are you sure that's the way it is?"
"Absolutely sure," I said.
Ritimi looked at me doubtfully, then said, "But none of the other
children are sick. I know Texoma has been bewitched."
Not knowing how to answer, I suggested that it would be best to call
Ritimi's uncle. Moments later I returned with Iramamowe. During his brother
Arasuwe's absence, Iramamowe assumed the duties of a headman. His bravery made
him the most qualified man to defend the shabono from potential raiders.
His reputation as a shaman insured the settlement of protection against evil hekuras
sent by enemy sorcerers.
Iramamowe looked at the child, then asked me to fetch his epena
cane and the container with the hallucinogenic powder. He had a young man blow
the snuff into his nose, then chanted to the hekuras, pacing up and down
in front of the hut. From time to time he jumped high in the air, yelling at
the evil spirits- which he believed had lodged in the child's body- to leave
Texoma alone.
Gently Iramamowe massaged the child, starting with her head, down her
chest, her stomach, all the way to her feet. He flicked his hands repeatedly,
shaking off the evil hekuras he had drawn out of Texoma. Several other
men took epena and chanted with Iramamowe throughout the night. He
alternately massaged and sucked the disease from her little body.
However, the child was not any better the following day. Motionless, she
lay in her hammock. Her eyes were red and swollen. She refused all food,
including the water and honey I offered her.
Iramamowe diagnosed that her soul had wandered from her body and
proceeded to build a platform with poles and lianas in the middle of the
clearing. He fastened assai palm leaves in his hair: He drew circles
around his eyes and mouth with a mixture of onoto and coals. Prancing
around the platform, he imitated the cries of the harpy eagle. With a branch from
one of the bushes growing around the shabono he swept the ground
thoroughly in an effort to locate the wandering soul of the child.
Unable to find the soul, he gathered several of Texoma's playmates
around him. He decorated their hair and faces the same as his, then lifted them
onto the platform. "Examine the ground from above," he told the
children. "Find your sister's soul."
Imitating the cries of the harpy eagle, the children jumped up and down
on the precariously built structure. They swept the air with the branches the
women had handed them; but they too were unable to catch the lost soul.
Taking the branch Ritimi gave me, I joined the others in the quest. We
swept the paths leading to the river, to the gardens, and to the swamps, where
Texoma had been catching frogs. Iramamowe exchanged his branch for mine.
"You carried her to the shabono," he said. "Maybe you can
find her soul."
Without any thoughts as to the futility of the task, I swept the ground
with the same eagerness as the others. "How does one know the soul is
nearby?" I asked Iramamowe as we retraced our steps back to the shabono.
"One just knows," he said.
We searched in every hut, sweeping under hammocks, around each hearth,
and behind stacks of plantains. We lifted baskets from the ground. We moved
bows and arrows leaning against the sloping roof. We scared spiders and
scorpions out of their nests in the thatched roof. I gave up the hunt when I
saw a snake slithering from behind one of the rafters.
Laughing, old Hayama cut the reptile's head off with one swift blow of
Iramamowe's machete. She wrapped the still wriggling, headless snake in pishaansi
leaves, then placed it on the fire. Hayama also collected the spiders falling
on the ground. These too were wrapped in leaves and roasted. Old people were
particularly fond of the soft bellies. The legs Hayama saved, to be ground
later. The powder was believed to heal cuts, bites, and scratches.
By dusk little Texoma showed no signs of improvement. Motionless, she
lay in her hammock, her eyes staring vacantly at the thatched roof. I was
filled with an indescribable sense of helplessness as Iramamowe once again bent
over the child to massage and suck out the evil spirits.
"Let me try to cure the child," I said.
Iramamowe smiled almost imperceptibly, focusing his gaze alternately on
me and Texoma. "What makes you think you can cure my grand-niece?" he
asked with deliberate thoughtfulness. There was no mockery in his tone- only a
vague curiosity. "We have not found her soul. A powerful enemy shapori
has lured it away. Do you think you can counteract an evil sorcerer's
curse?"
"No," I hastily assured him. "Only you can do that."
"What will you do then?" he asked. "You said once that
you never cured anyone. What makes you think you can now?"
"I will help Texoma with hot water," I said. "And you
will cure her with your chants to the hekuras."
Iramamowe deliberated for a moment: Gradually his thoughtful expression
relaxed. He held his hand over his mouth as if he were hiding an urge to
giggle. "Did you learn much from the shapori you knew?"
"I remember some of the ways they cured," I answered, but did
not mention that the cure I intended for Texoma was my grandmother's way of
dealing with a fever that had not broken. "You said you have seen hekuras
in my eyes. If you chant to them, maybe they will help me."
An easy smile came and lingered around Iramamowe's lips. He seemed
almost convinced by my reasoning. Yet he shook his head as if full of doubt.
"Curing is not done this way. How can I ask the hekuras to help
you? Will you also want to take epena?"
"I won't need to take the snuff," I assured him, then remarked
that if a powerful shapori could command his hekuras to steal the
soul of a child, then an accomplished sorcerer like himself could certainly
command his spirits, which according to him were already acquainted with me, to
come to my aid.
"I will call the hekuras to assist you," Iramamowe
declared. "I will take epena for you."
While one of the men blew the hallucinogenic substance into Iramamowe's
nostrils, Ritimi, Tutemi, and Arasuwe's wives brought me calabashes filled with
hot water that old Hayama had heated in the large aluminum pots. I soaked my
cut-up blanket in the hot water and, using the legs of my jeans as gloves, I
wrung each thin strip of cloth until not a drop of moisture was to be squeezed
out. Carefully, I wrapped them around Texoma's body, then covered her with the
heated palm fronds some of the older boys had cut for me.
I could hardly move among the crowd gathered in the hut. Silently they
watched my every motion, intent and alert, so as not to miss anything.
Iramamowe squatted beside me, chanting tirelessly into the night. As the hours
passed, the people retired to their hammocks. I was not put off by their show
of disapproval, but kept changing the compresses as soon as they cooled off.
Ritimi sat silently in her hammock, her interlaced fingers resting limply on
her lap in an attitude of supreme hopelessness. Whenever she glanced at me she
broke into tears.
Texoma seemed oblivious to my ministrations. What if she had something
other than a cold? I thought. What if she got worse? My assurance faltered. I
mumbled a prayer for her with a fervor I had not had since I was a child. Looking
up, I noticed Iramamowe gazing at me. He seemed anxious, as if aware of the
mixture of feelings- magic, religion, and fear- fighting inside me.
Determinedly, he went on chanting.
Old Kamosiwe came and joined us. He squatted close to the hearth. The
cold of dawn had not yet crept into the hut, but the mere fact that there was a
fire made him huddle over it instinctively. Softly, he began to chant. His
murmured song filled me with comfort: It seemed to carry the voices of past
generations. The rain prattled on the thatched roof with a determined vigor,
then relaxed into a light drizzle that plunged me into a kind of stupor.
It was almost dawn when Texoma began tossing in her hammock. Impatiently
she tore at the wet pieces of blanket, at the palm fronds wrapped around her.
With eyes opened wide in surprise, she sat up, then smiled at old Kamosiwe,
Iramamowe, and myself crouching beside her hammock. "I'm thirsty,"
she said, then gulped down the water and honey I gave her.
"Will she be well?" Ritimi asked hesitantly.
"Iramamowe lured her soul back," I said. "The hot water
has broken her fever. Now she needs to be kept warm and sleep peacefully."
I walked into the clearing, and stretched my cramped legs. Old Kamosiwe,
leaning against a pole, looked like a child with his forearms tightly wrapped
around his chest to keep warm. Iramamowe stopped beside me on the way to his
hut. We did not talk, but I was certain we shared a moment of absolute understanding.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 22
At the sound of approaching steps, Tutemi motioned me to lower myself
beside the moldy leaves of the squash vines. "It's the raiding
party," she whispered. "Women are not supposed to see from which
direction the warriors return."
Unable to curb my curiosity, I slowly stood up. There were three women
with the men: one of them was pregnant.
"Don't look," Tutemi pleaded, pulling me down. "If you
see the path on which the raiders return, the enemy will capture you."
"How beautiful the men look with the bright feathers streaming from
their armbands, and the onoto designs on their bodies," I said.
"But Etewa is missing! Do you think he has been killed?" I asked in
dismay.
Tutemi looked at me, a dazed expression on her face. There was no
nervousness in her movements as she separated the large squash leaves to peek
at the retreating figures. Her anxious face beamed with a smile as she grabbed
my arm. "Look, there is Etewa." She pulled my head close to hers so I
could see where she was pointing. "He is unucai."
Trailing a distance behind the others, Etewa walked slowly, with his
shoulders hunched forward as if he were burdened by a heavy weight on his back.
He was not adorned with feathers or paint. Only short little sticks of arrow
cane were stuck through his pierced earlobes and one arrow cane stick was tied
to each wrist like a bracelet.
"Is he ill?"
"No! He is unucai," she said admiringly. "He has
killed a Mocototeri."
Unable to share Tutemi's excitement, I could only stare at her in dumb
incredulity. I felt my eyes fill with tears, and turned my gaze away from her.
We waited until Etewa was out of sight, then slowly headed toward the shabono.
Tutemi quickened her pace upon hearing the welcoming shouts from the men
and women in the huts. Surrounded by the exultant Iticoteri, the raiders stood
proudly in the clearing. Turning away from her husband, Arasuwe's youngest wife
approached the three captive women, who had not been included in the jubilant
greetings. Silently they stood apart, their apprehensive gazes fixed on the
approaching Iticoteri woman.
"Painted with onoto- how disgusting," Arasuwe's wife
yelled. "What else can one expect from a Mocototeri woman? Do you think
you have been invited to a feast?" Glaring at the three women, she picked
up a stick. "I will beat you all. If I had been captured, I would have run
away," she shouted.
The three Mocototeri huddled closer to each other.
"At least I would have arrived crying pitifully," Arasuwe's
wife hissed, pulling the hair of one of the women.
Arasuwe stepped in between his wife and the Mocototeri. "Leave them
alone. They have cried so much they have soaked the path with their tears. We
made them stop. We didn't want to listen to their wails." Arasuwe took the
stick away from his wife. "We demanded they paint their faces and bodies
with onoto. These women will be happy here. They will be treated well!"
He turned to the rest of the Iticoteri women who had gathered around his wife.
"Give them something to eat. They are hungry like us. We haven't eaten for
two days."
Arasuwe's wife was not intimidated. "Were your men killed?"
she asked the three women. "Did you burn them? Have you eaten their
ashes?" She faced the pregnant woman. "Was your husband also killed?
Do you expect an Iticoteri man to become a father to your child?"
Pushing his wife roughly away, Arasuwe announced, "Only one man was
killed. He was shot by Etewa's arrow. He was the man who killed Etewa's father
the last time the Mocototeri raided us so treacherously." Arasuwe turned
to the pregnant woman. There was no sympathy in his eyes or in his voice as he
continued, "You were captured by the Mocototeri some time ago. You have no
brothers among them who will rescue you. You are now an Iticoteri. Do not cry
any longer." Arasuwe went on to explain to the three captives that they
would be better off with his people. The Iticoteri, he stressed, had enjoyed
meat almost every day as well as plenty of roots and plantains throughout the
rainy season. No one had gone hungry.
One of the captives was only a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven years
old. "What will happen to her?" I asked Tutemi.
"Like the others, she will be taken as a wife," Tutemi said.
"I was probably her age when I was abducted by the Iticoteri." A
wistful little smile curved her lips. "I was lucky Ritimi's mother-in-law
chose me as a second wife for Etewa. He has never beaten me. Ritimi treats me
like a sister. She does not quarrel with me, nor does she make me work
too..." Tutemi broke in midsentence as Arasuwe's youngest wife resumed her
shouting at the Mocototeri women.
"How disgusting to come all painted. All you need is to stick flowers
in your ears and start to dance." She followed the three women into her
husband's hut. "Did the men rape you in the forest? Is that why you stayed
away so long? You must have enjoyed it." Pushing the pregnant woman, she
added, "Did they also sleep with you?"
"Shut up!" Arasuwe yelled, "or I'll beat you till I draw
blood." Arasuwe turned to the women who had followed behind. "You
should rejoice that your men have returned unharmed. You should be content that
Etewa has killed a man, that we have brought three captives. Go to your huts
and prepare food for your men."
Grumbling, the women dispersed to their respective hearths.
"Why is only Arasuwe's wife so upset?" I asked Tutemi.
"Don't you know?" she asked, smiling maliciously. "She is
afraid he will take one of the women as his fourth wife."
"Why does he want so many?"
"He is powerful," Tutemi stated categorically. "He has
many sons-in-law who bring plenty of game and help him work in the gardens.
Arasuwe can feed many women."
"Were the captives raped?" I asked.
"One was." Tutemi was momentarily puzzled by my shocked
expression, then went on to explain that a captured woman was usually raped by
all the men in the raiding party. "It's the custom."
"Did they also rape the young girl?"
"No," Tutemi said casually. "She is not yet a woman.
Neither did they rape the pregnant one- they are never touched."
Ritimi had remained in her hammock throughout the whole commotion. She
told me she had no reason to get worked up about the Mocototeri women, for she
knew Etewa would not take a third wife. I was happy to notice that her sadness
and dejection, which had been so much a part of her during the last few days,
had vanished.
"Where is Etewa?" I asked. "Is he not coming to the shabono"
Ritimi's eyes appeared almost feverish with excitement as she explained
that her husband, since he had killed an enemy, was searching for a tree not
too far from the settlement on which he could hang his old hammock and quiver.
However, before he could do so, he had to strip the tree's trunk and branches
of its bark.
Ritimi's eyes expressed a deep concern as she faced me. She warned me
against gazing at such a tree. She was certain I would not confuse it with the
kind that is stripped of its bark to make troughs and canoes. Those trees, she
explained, still looked like trees. Whereas the ones stripped by a man who has
killed looked like a ghostly shadow, all white among the greenness around them,
with hammock and quiver, bow, and arrows dangling from the peeled branches.
Spirits- evil ones in particular- liked hiding in the vicinity of such places.
I had to promise Ritimi that if I ever found myself in the neighborhood of such
a tree, I would run from the spot as fast as possible.
In a voice so low I thought she was talking to herself, Ritimi confided
her fears to me. She hoped Etewa would not collapse under the weight of the man
he had killed. The hekuras of a slain man lodge themselves in the
killer's chest, where they remain until the dead man's relatives have burned the
body and eaten the pulverized bones. The Mocototeri would postpone for as long
as possible the burning of the body in the hope that Etewa would die from
weakness.
"Will the men talk about the raid?" I asked.
"As soon as they have eaten," Ritimi said.
With his bow and arrows in hand, Etewa walked across the clearing toward
the hut where Iramamowe's son had been initiated as a shaman. The men who had
been with Etewa on the raid covered the sides of the hut with palm fronds. Only
a small entrance was left open at the front. They brought him a water-filled
calabash and built a fire inside.
Etewa was to remain in the hut until Puriwariwe would announce that the
dead Mocototeri had been burned. Day and night Etewa had to be on the alert in
case the dead man's spirit came prowling about the hut in the form of a jaguar.
Were Etewa to talk, touch a woman, or eat during those days, he would die.
Old Hayama, accompanied by her daughter-in-law, came into our hut.
"I want to find out what's going on at Arasuwe's place," the old
woman said, sitting beside me. Xotomi sat on the ground, reclining her head
against my legs, dangling from my hammock. A purple scar- a reminder of the
arrow wound- marred the smooth line of her calf. That did not worry Xotomi: She
was grateful the wound had not become infected.
"Matuwe caught one of the women," Hayama said proudly.
"It's a good time for him to get another wife. I'd better select the right
one for him. I'm sure he will make a mistake if it's left up to him to make the
choice."
"But he has a wife," I stammered, looking at Xotomi.
"Yes," the old woman agreed. "But if he is to have a
second wife, this is the best time. Xotomi is young. It will be easy for her to
be friends with another woman now. Matuwe should take the youngest of the three
captives." Hayama brushed her hand over Xotomi's shaven tonsure. "The
girl is younger than you. She will obey you. If you menstruate, she can cook
for us. She can help you in the gardens and with the gathering of wood. I'm
getting too old to work much."
Xotomi examined the three Mocototeri women in Arasuwe's hut. "If
Matuwe is to take another wife, I wish him to take the young girl. I will like
her. She can warm his hammock when I'm pregnant."
"Are you?" I asked.
"I'm not certain," she said, smiling smugly.
Hayama had told me some time ago that a pregnant woman usually waited
three to four months, sometimes even longer, before telling her husband of her
state. The man was a tacit accomplice in this deception, for he also dreaded
the restrictive food and behavior taboos. Whenever a woman suffered a
miscarriage or gave birth to a deformed child, she was never at fault. It was
the husband who was always blamed. In fact, if a woman repeatedly bore a sickly
infant, she was encouraged to conceive by another man. Her own husband,
however, had to obey the taboos and raise the baby as his own.
Hayama went over to Arasuwe's hut. "I will take this Mocototeri
girl with me. She will make a fine wife for my son," she said, taking the
girl by the hand. "She will live with me in my hut."
"I captured a woman," Matuwe said. "I don't want this
child. She is too thin. I want a strong woman who will bear healthy sons."
"She will grow strong," Hayama said calmly. "She is still
green, but soon she will be ripe. Look at her breasts. They are already large.
Besides," she added, "Xotomi will not mind it you take her."
Hayama faced the men gathered inside and outside Arasuwe's hut. "No one is
to touch her. I will take care of her until she becomes my Son's wife. From
today on she is my daughter-in-law."
No objections were raised by the men as Hayama took the girl into our
hut. Shyly, the Mocototeri sat on the ground, close to the hearth. "I will
not beat you," Xotomi said, taking the girl's hand in hers. "But you
must do what I tell you."
Matuwe grinned sheepishly at us across the hut. I wondered if he was
proud to have two wives, or actually embarrassed to be forced into taking a
child when he had captured a woman.
"What will happen to the other captives?" I asked.
"Arasuwe will take the pregnant one," Hayama declared.
"How do you know?" Without waiting for her answer, I asked
about the third one.
"She will be given to someone as a wife after she has been taken by
any of the men in the shabono who wish to do so," Hayama said.
"But she has already been raped by the raiders," I said
indignantly.
Old Hayama burst into laughter. "But not by the men who didn't
participate in the raid." The old woman patted my head. "Don't look
so stricken. It is the custom. I was captured once. I was raped by many men. I
was lucky and found a chance to escape. No, don't interrupt me, white
girl," Hayama said, putting her hand over my mouth. "I didn't run
away because I had been raped. I forgot that very fast. I escaped because I had
to work too hard and was not given enough food."
As the old woman had predicted, Arasuwe took the pregnant woman for
himself.
"You have three wives already," the youngest one shouted, her
face contorted in anger. "Why do you want another one?"
Giggling nervously, Arasuwe's two other wives watched from their
hammocks as the youngest pushed the pregnant woman on the burning coals of the
hearth. Arasuwe jumped out of his hammock, took a burning log from the fire,
and handed it to the fallen Mocototeri woman. "Burn my wife's arm,"
he urged the Mocototeri woman as he held his youngest wife pinned against one
of the poles in the hut. Sobbing, the pregnant woman covered her burned
shoulder with her hand.
"Burn me!" Arasuwe's wife dared her, twisting away from her
husband's grip. "If you do, I will burn you alive- but no one will eat
your bones. I shall scatter them in the forest, so we can piss on them..."
She stopped, her eyes widened in genuine astonishment as she discovered the
extent of the woman's injured shoulder. "You are really burnt! Does it
hurt much?"
Looking up, the Mocototeri wiped the tears from her face. "I'm in
great pain."
"Oh, you poor woman." Solicitously, Arasuwe's wife helped her
to stand up, guiding her over to her own hammock. She took leaves from a
calabash and gently placed them on the woman's shoulder. "It will heal
very fast. I will make sure of it."
"Don't weep any longer," Arasuwe's oldest wife said, sitting
next to the Mocototeri woman. She patted her leg affectionately. "Our husband
is a good man. He will treat you well. I will make sure no one in the shabono
mistreats you."
"What will happen when the baby is born?" I asked Hayama.
"That's hard to say," the old woman conceded. She remained
quiet for a moment as if deep in thought. "She may kill it. Yet it it is a
boy Arasuwe might ask his oldest wife to raise him as if it were his own."
Hours later, Arasuwe began his tale about the events of the raid. He
talked in a slow, nasal tone. "We traveled slowly the first day and stopped
to rest often. Our backs ached from the heavy loads of plantains. That first
night we hardly slept, for we didn't have enough firewood to keep warm. The
rain fell with such force the night sky seemed to melt with the darkness around
us. The following day we walked somewhat faster, arriving in the vicinity of
the Mocototeri settlement. We were still far enough away that the enemy hunters
would not discover our presence that night, yet close enough that we didn't
dare light a fire in our camp."
I could only see Arasuwe's face in profile. Fascinated, I watched the
red and black designs on his cheeks moving animatedly with the rhythm of his
speech, as if they had a life of their own. The feathers in his earlobes added
a softness to his stern, tired face, a playfulness that belied the horror of
his tale.
"For a few days we carefully watched the comings and goings of our
enemy. Our aim was to kill a Mocototeri without alarming their shabono
of our presence. One morning we saw the man who had killed Etewa's father walk
into the thicket after a woman. Etewa shot him in the stomach with one of his
poisoned arrows. The man was so dazed he did not even shout. By the time
he recovered from his surprise, Etewa had shot a second arrow in his stomach
and another in his neck, right behind his ear. He fell on the ground, dead.
"Walking like a stunned man, Etewa headed home, accompanied by my
nephew. Meanwhile Matuwe had found the woman hiding in the thicket. He
threatened to kill her if she so much as opened her mouth to cough. Matuwe,
together with my youngest son-in-law, headed toward our settlement with the
reluctant woman. We were all to meet later at a predetermined location.
As the rest of us were deciding whether to split into even smaller
groups, we saw a mother with her little son, a pregnant woman, and a young
girl, all heading into the forest. We could not resist the temptation. Quietly,
we followed them." Leaning back in his hammock, hands locked behind his
head, Arasuwe regarded his spellbound audience.
Taking advantage of the headman's pause, one of the men who had been on
the raid stood up. Motioning the people to make space for him to move, he
opened his narration with exactly the same words Arasuwe used. "We
traveled slowly the first day."
But that was all his and the headman's narratives had in common.
Gesticulating a great deal, the man mimicked with exaggerated flare the moods
and expressions of different members of the raiding party, thus adding a touch
of humor and melodrama to Arasuwe's dry, matter-of-fact rendition.
Encouraged by his audience's laughter and cheers, the man told at great
length about the two youngest members of the raiding party. They were no older
than sixteen or seventeen. Not only had they complained of sore feet, the cold,
and their aches and pains, but they had been afraid of prowling jaguars and
spirits on the second night when they had all slept without lighting a fire.
The man interspersed his account with detailed information on the variety of
game and ripening wild fruit- color, size, and shape- he had spotted on the
way.
Arasuwe resumed his own report as soon as the man paused. "When the
three women and the girl were far enough from the shabono," the
headman continued, "we threatened to shoot them if they tried to run away
or scream. The small boy managed to sneak into the bushes. We did not pursue
him, but retreated as fast as possible, making sure not to leave footprints
behind. We were sure that as soon as the Mocototeri discovered the dead man
they would follow us.
"Just before dusk, the mother of the boy who had sneaked away cried
out in pain. Sitting on the ground, she pressed her foot between her hands. She
wept bitterly, complaining that a poisonous snake had bitten her. Her
heartbreaking wails saddened us so much we did not even make sure there had
been a snake. 'What good has it been,' she sobbed, 'for my little son to run
away if he no longer has a mother to take care of him?' Screaming that she
could not bear the pain any longer, the woman hobbled into the bushes. It took
us a moment to realize we had been tricked. We searched the forest thoroughly,
but we couldn't discover in which direction she had fled."
Old Kamosiwe laughed heartily. "It's good that she tricked you. It
never pays to abduct a woman who has left behind a small child. They cry until
they become ill and, worse: They almost always escape."
The men talked until the rainy dawn enshrouded the shabono. In
the middle of the clearing stood the solitary hut where Etewa was enclosed. It
was so quiet and apart- so close, yet so far removed from the voices and
laughter.
A week later, Puriwariwe visited Etewa. As soon as he had eaten a baked
plantain and honey, the old man asked Iramamowe to blow epena into his
head. Chanting, Puriwariwe danced around Etewa's hut. "The dead man has
not yet been burned," he announced. "His body has been placed in a
trough. It is rotting high up in a tree. Do not break your silence yet. The hekuras
of the dead man are still in your chest. Prepare your new arrows and bow. Soon
the Mocototeri will burn the rotting flesh for the worms are already crawling
out of the carcass." The old shapori circled Etewa's hut once more,
then danced across the clearing into the forest.
Three days later, Puriwariwe announced that the Mocototeri had burned the
dead man. "Take out the sticks from your earlobes, untie the ones from
your wrists," he said, helping Etewa stand up. "In a few days take
your old bow and arrows to the same peeled tree on which you hung your hammock
and quiver."
Puriwariwe led Etewa into the forest. Arasuwe, together with some of the
men who had been on the raid, followed behind.
They returned in the late afternoon. Etewa's hair had been cut, his
tonsure shaven. His body had been washed and painted afresh with onoto.
Cane rods, decorated with red macaw feathers, had been inserted in his
earlobes. He also wore the new fur armbands, adorned with feathers, and the
thick cotton waist belt Ritimi had made for him. Arasuwe offered Etewa a basket
full of tiny fish he had cooked for him in pishaansi leaves.
Three days later, Etewa ventured for the first time by himself into the
forest. "I've shot a monkey," he announced hours later, standing in
the clearing. As soon as a group of men had gathered around him, he gave them
precise information as to where the animal could be found.
To insure the aid and protection of the hekuras during future
hunts, Etewa went two more times by himself into the forest. On each occasion
he returned without the kill, then informed others where they could locate it.
Etewa did not eat of the monkey and the two peccaries he had shot.
One afternoon he returned with a curassow hung from his back. He scalped
the bird, saving the strip of skin where the curly black feathers were
attached. It would serve as an armband. The wing feathers he saved for
feathering his arrows. He cooked the almost two-foot-long bird on a wooden
platform he had built over the fire. Tasting to see if the curassow was done
thoroughly, he then proceeded to divide it between his children and two wives.
"Is the white girl your child or your wife?" old Hayama
shouted from her hut as Etewa handed me a piece of the dark breast meat.
"She is my mother," Etewa said, joining the laughing
Iticoteri.
Days later, Arasuwe supervised the cooking of plantain pap. Etewa
emptied a small gourd into the soup. Ritimi told me they were the last of the
powdered bones of Etewa's father. Tears rolled down the men's and women's
cheeks as they swallowed the thick soup. I took the calabash ladle Etewa
offered me and cried for his dead father.
As soon as the trough was empty, Arasuwe shouted at the top of his
voice, "What a waiter! man we have amongst us. He has killed his
enemy. He has carried the dead man's hekuras in his chest without
succumbing to hunger or loneliness during his confinment."
Etewa walked around the clearing. "Yes, I am waiteri,"
he sang. "The hekuras of a dead man can kill the strongest warrior.
It is a heavy burden to carry them for so many days. A person can die of
sorrow." Etewa began to dance. "I no longer think about the man I
killed. I dance with the shadows of the night, not with the shadows of
death." The longer he danced, the lighter and faster his steps became, as
though through the movements he was finally able to shake off the burden he had
borne in his chest.
Many an evening the events of the raid were retold by the men. Even old
Kamosiwe had a version. All the stories had in common with the original one was
that Etewa had killed a man, that three women had been captured. In time only a
vague memory of the actual facts remained, and it became a tale of the distant
past like all the other stories the Iticoteri were so fond of telling.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 23
As if only a moment had passed, the memories of the bygone days, weeks,
and months drifted through my mind in vivid detail.
The pressure of tiny feet kneading on my stomach woke me from my
reveries. Words of protest died on my lips as Tutemi lowered Hoaxiwe on top of
me. I cradled the baby in my arms, lest he awaken little Texoma who had fallen
asleep in my hammock while waiting for me to get up. I reached for Hoaxiwe's
frog skulls threaded on a liana string hanging at the head of my hammock and
rattled them in front of him. Gurgling with delight, the baby tried to reach
them.
"Are you awake?" Texoma mumbled, touching my cheek lightly.
"I thought you were going to sleep the whole day."
"I've been thinking about all I've seen and learned since I first
came here," I said, taking her small hand in mine: The narrow palm, the
long, delicately shaped fingers were oddly mature for a five-year-old child,
and contrasted sharply with her dimpled face. "I didn't realize the sun's
already up."
"You didn't even notice my brother and cousins leaving your hammock
as soon as the plantains were baked," Texoma said. "Were you thinking
very hard?"
"No," I laughed. "It was more like dreaming. It seems as
if no time has passed since the day I arrived at the shabono."
"To me it's like a long time," Texoma said seriously,
caressing her half-brother's soft hair. "When you first arrived, this tiny
baby was still sleeping inside Tutemi's belly. I remember well the day my
mothers found you." Giggling, the little girl buried her face in my neck.
"I know why you wept that day. You were afraid of my great-uncle
Iramamowe- he has an ugly face."
"That day," I whispered conspiringly, "I was afraid of
all the Iticoteri." Feeling a warm wetness on my stomach, I held Hoaxiwe
away from me. Etewa, sitting astride his hammock, smiled in amusement as he
watched the arc of his son's urine spanning over the fire.
"Of all of us?" Texoma asked. "Even of my father and
grandfather? Even of my mothers and old Hayama?" Bending over my face, she
gazed at me with an expression of incredulity, almost of anguish, as if she
were searching for something in my eyes. "Were you also afraid of
me?"
"No. I wasn't afraid of you," I assured her, bouncing the
laughing Hoaxiwe on my thighs.
"I wasn't afraid of you either." Sighing with relief, Texoma
lay back in the hammock. "I didn't hide like most of the children did when
you first walked into our hut. We had heard that whites were tall and hairy
like monkeys. But you looked so little, I knew you couldn't be a real
white."
As soon as her basket was securely fastened to her back, Tutemi lifted
her baby from my lap. Expertly she placed him in the wide, softened-bark sling
she wore across her chest. "Ready," she said, smiling, then looked
questioningly at Etewa and Ritimi.
Grinning, Etewa picked up his machete and his bow and arrows.
"Will you come later?" Ritimi asked me as she adjusted the
long, slender rod stuck through the septum of her nose. The corners of her
mouth, free of the usual smooth sticks, turned up in a smile, dimpling her
cheeks. As if sensing my indecision, Ritimi did not wait for my reply but
followed her husband and Tutemi to the gardens.
"Hayama is coming," Tutemi whispered. "She is wondering
why you haven't come to eat her baked plantain." The little girl slid from
the hammock, and ran toward a group of children playing outside.
Muttering, Hayama walked through Tutemi's hut. Her loose skin hung in
long vertical wrinkles down her thighs and belly. Her face was set in a stern
mien as she handed me a half-gourd filled with plantain mush. Sighing, she sat
in Ritimi's hammock, letting her hand trail along the ground as she rocked
herself to and fro, apparently entranced by the rhythmic squeaking of the liana
knot against the pole. "It's too bad I've not been able to fatten you
up," the old woman said after a long silence.
I assured her that her plantains had worked wonders- that given a bit
more time I might even become fat.
"There isn't much time," Hayama said softly. "You are
leaving for the mission."
"What?" I cried, struck by the definiteness of her tone.
"Who says so?"
"Before he left, Milagros made Arasuwe promise that if we were to
move to one of our old gardens deeper in the forest, we were not to take
you." The nostalgic, almost dreamy gaze of her eyes softened Hayama's
expression as she reminded me of the various families who several weeks before
had left for the old gardens. Believing they were to return soon, I had not
paid much attention to their departure at the time. Hayama went on to explain
that Arasuwe's household, as well as those of his brothers, cousins, sons, and
daughters, had not yet followed the others for the simple reason that the
headman was waiting to hear from Milagros.
"Is the shabono going to be abandoned?" I asked.
"What about the gardens here? They were only recently expanded. What will
happen to all the new plantain shoots?" I said excitedly.
"They will grow." Hayama's face crinkled with cheerful
amusement. "The old people and many of the children will remain here. We
will build temporary shelters close to the plantain patches, for no one likes
to live in ancillary shabono. We will take care of the gardens until the
others return. By then the bananas and rasha fruit will be ripe and once
again it will be time to feast."
"But why are so many Iticoteri leaving?" I asked. "Isn't
there enough food here?"
Hayama did not actually say that there was a food shortage, yet she
stressed the fact that old gardens, which have not been visited for a long
time, become a feeding ground for monkeys, birds, agouti, peccary, and tapir.
Men have an easy time hunting and the women still find plenty of roots and
fruits in such gardens to last until the game has been exhausted.
"Besides," Hayama went on, "a temporary move is always good,
especially after a raid. If I weren't too old, I would also go."
"Like a holiday," I said.
"Yes. A holiday!" Hayama laughed, once I explained what was
meant by the word. "Oh, how much I'd like to go and sit in the shade,
stuffing myself with kafu fruit."
Kafu trees were prized for their bark and bast fibers.
The clusters of fruit, each about ten inches long, hang on a common stalk. The
gelatinous, fleshy fruit is filled with tiny seeds and tastes like an overripe
fresh fig.
"If I can't move with Arasuwe and his family to the old
gardens," I said, squatting at the head of Hayama's hammock, "then I
will stay here with you. There is no reason for me to return to the mission.
We'll await the return of the others together."
Hayama's eyes shone with an unnatural brightness as they rested on my
face. In a slow, deliberate tone, she made it clear that, although it was not
customary to raid an empty shabono or to kill old people and children,
the Mocototeri would undoubtedly make trouble if they were to learn, which the
old woman assured me they would, that I had been left behind in an unprotected
settlement.
I shuddered, remembering how several weeks before a group of Mocototeri
men, armed with clubs, had arrived at the shabono demanding the return
of their women. After both groups had shouted threats and insults at each
other, Arasuwe told the Mocototeri that he had purposely freed one of the
abducted women on his way home. He stressed the fact that not for an instant
had he been taken in by the woman's trick of having been bitten by a snake.
However, after more bickering on both sides, the headman reluctantly handed
over the girl old Hayama had chosen as a second wife for her youngest son.
Threatening to retaliate at a later date, the Mocototeri left.
It was Etewa who had explained to me that although the Mocototeri had
had no intention of starting a shooting war- they had left their bows and
arrows hidden in the forest- the headman had acted wisely in returning the girl
so promptly. The Iticoteri were outnumbered, as several men had already left
for the abandoned gardens.
"When will Arasuwe join the others in the old gardens?" I
asked Hayama.
"Very soon," she said. "Arasuwe has sent several men to
find Milagros. Unfortunately, they have been unable to get in touch with him so
far."
I smiled to myself. "It seems that regardless of what Arasuwe
promised, I'll end up going with Ritimi and Etewa," I said smugly.
"You won't," Hayama assured me, then grinned maliciously.
"It's not only from the Mocototeri we have to protect you, but a shapori
might abduct you on the way to the gardens, and keep you as his woman in a faraway
hut."
"I doubt it," I said, giggling. "You told me once that no
man would want me this skinny." I told the old woman about the incident in
the mountains with Etewa.
Pressing her folded arms across her hanging bosom, Hayama laughed until
tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks. "Etewa would take any woman that's
available," she said. "But he's afraid of you." Hayama leaned
over her hammock, then whispered, "A shapori isn't an ordinary man.
He wouldn't want you for his pleasure. A shapori needs the femaleness in
his body." She lay back in the hammock. "Do you know where that
femaleness is?"
"No."
The old woman looked at me as if she thought I was slow-witted. "In
the vagina," she finally said, almost choking on her laughter.
"Do you think that Puriwariwe might abduct me?" I asked
mockingly. "I'm sure that he's too old to care about women."
Genuine amazement widened her eyes. "Haven't you seen? Hasn't
anyone told you that that old shapori is stronger than any man in the shahono?"
she asked. "There are nights when that old man goes from hut to hut,
sticking his cock inside every woman he can find. And he doesn't get tired. At
dawn, when he returns to the forest, he's as ready as ever." Hayama
assured me that Puriwariwe could not possibly abduct me, for he no longer
needed anything. She warned me, however, that there were other shamans, less
powerful than the old man, who might.
Closing her eyes, she sighed loudly. I thought she had fallen asleep,
but, as if sensing my motion to get up, the old woman turned to me abruptly.
She placed both her hands on my shoulders, then asked me in a voice that shook
with emotion, "Do you know why you like being with us?"
I looked at her uncomprehendingly, and as I opened my mouth to respond
Hayama went on to say, "You are happy here because you have no
responsibilities. You live like us. You have learned to speak quite well, and
know many of our customs. To us you are neither child or adult, man or woman.
We make no demands on you. If we did, you would resent it." Hayama's eyes
were so dark as they held my gaze, they made me uncomfortable. In her wrinkled
face they seemed too large and bright, as if glowing with an inexhaustible
inner energy. After a long pause, she added provokingly, "Were you to
become a woman shapori, you would be very unhappy."
I felt threatened. Yet, as I stammered inanities to defend myself, I
suddenly realized that she was right and I was seized by a desperate desire to
laugh.
Gently the old woman pressed her fingers over my lips. "There are
powerful shapori living in remote places where the hekuras of
animals and plants dwell," Hayama said. "In the dark of night, those
men consort with beautiful female spirits."
"I'm glad I'm not a beautiful spirit," I said.
"No. You are not beautiful." Hayama with her cajoling laugh
and mocking gaze made it impossible for me to take offense at her
uncomplimentary remark. "Yet to many of us you are strange." There
was great tenderness in her voice as she tried to make me understand why the
Mocototeri wanted to take me to their shabono. Their interest in me was
not due to the usual reasons Indians befriend whites- to get machetes, cooking
pots, and clothes- but because the Mocototeri believed I had powers. They had
heard of how I had cured little Texoma, about the epena incident, and
how Iramamowe had seen hekuras reflected in my eyes. They had even seen
me use a bow and arrow.
All my endeavors to make the old woman realize that it required no
special powers, only common sense, to help a child with a cold were in vain. I
argued that even she herself could be considered to have healing powers- she
set bones and smeared secret concoctions made from animal parts, roots, and
leaves on bites, scratches, and cuts. But my reasonings were futile. To her
there was a vast difference between setting a bone, and coaxing the lost soul
of a child back into its body. That, she stressed, only a shapori could
do.
"But Iramamowe brought her soul back," I asserted. "I
only cured her cold."
"He didn't," Hayama insisted. "He heard you chant."
"That was a prayer," I said feebly, realizing that a prayer
was in no way different from Iramamowe's hekura chants.
"I know whites are not like us," Hayama interrupted me,
determined to prevent me from arguing further. "I'm talking about
something different altogether. Had you been born an Iticoteri, you would still
be different from Ritimi, Tutemi, or me." Hayama touched my face, running
her long, bony fingers over my forehead and cheeks. "My sister Angelica would
never have asked you to accompany her into the forest. Milagros would never
have brought you to stay with us if you were like the whites he knows."
She regarded me thoughtfully, then, as if struck with an afterthought, added,
"I wonder if any other whites would have been as happy as you have been
with us."
"I'm sure they would have," I said softly. "There aren't
many whites who have a chance to come here."
Hayama shrugged her shoulders. "Do you remember the story about
Imawaami, the woman shapori?" she asked.
"That's a myth!" Afraid that the old woman was trying to make
some connection between Imawaami and myself, I hastily added, "It's like
the story of the bird who stole the first fire from the alligator's
mouth."
"Maybe," Hayama said dreamily. "Lately, I have been
thinking about the stories my father, grandfather, and even my
great-grandfather used to tell about the white men they had seen traveling
along the big rivers. There must have been whites journeying through the forest
long before my great-grandfather's time. Perhaps Imawaami was one of
them." Hayama moved her eager face close to mine, then continued in a
whisper. "It must have been a shapori who captured her, believing
the white woman was a beautiful spirit. But she was more powerful than the shapori.
She stole his hekuras and became a sorceress herself." Hayama
looked at me provokingly, as if daring me to contradict her.
I was not surprised by the old woman's reasoning. The Iticoteri were in
the habit of bringing their mythology up to date, or of incorporating facts
into their myths. "Do Indian women ever become shapori?" I
asked.
"Yes," Hayama said promptly. "Female shapori are
strange creatures. Like men, they hunt with bow and arrows. They decorate their
bodies with the spots and broken circles of a jaguar. They take epena,
and lure the hekuras into their chests with their songs. Women shapori
have husbands who serve them. But if they have children, they once again
become ordinary women."
"Angelica was a shapori, wasn't she?" I was unaware I
had thought out loud. The thought came with the certainty of a revelation.
I recalled the time Angelica had awakened me from a nightmare at the
mission, the way her incomprehensible song had soothed me. It had not resembled
the melodious song of the Iticoteri women but the monotonous chant of the
shamans. Like them, Angelica seemed to possess two voices- one that orginated
from somewhere deep inside her, the other from her throat.
I remembered the days of walking with Milagros and Angelica through the forest
and how Angelica's remarks about the spirits of the forest lurking in the
shadows- that I should always dance with them, but never let them become a
burden- had enchanted me. I clearly visualized how Angelica had danced that
morning- her arms raised above her head, her feet moving with quick jerky steps
in the same manner that the Iticoteri men danced when in an epena
trance.
Until now I had never thought it in the least odd that Angelica, as
opposed to the other Indian women at the mission, had considered it very
natural for me to have come to hunt in the jungle.
Hayama's words awoke me from my musings. "Did my sister tell you
she was a shapori?" A profound grief filled Hayama's eyes; tears
gathered at their corners. The drops never rolled down her cheeks but lost
themselves in a network of wrinkles.
"She never told me," I murmured, then lay down in my hammock.
With one leg on the ground I pushed myself back and forth, adjusting the rhythm
of my hammock to Hayama's so that the vine knots would squeak in unison.
"My sister was a shapori," Hayama said after a long
silence. "I don't know what happened to her after she left our shabono.
While she was with us, she was a respected shapori, but she lost her
powers when she had Milagros." Hayama sat up abruptly. "His father
was a white man."
Afraid that my curiosity might escape through my eyes, I closed them. I
did not dare breathe, lest the smallest sound put an end to the old woman's
reveries. There was no way of learning which country Milagros's father had come
from. Regardless of their origins, any non-Indian was considered a nape.
"Milagros's father was a white man," Hayama repeated. "A
long time ago, when we lived closer to the big river, a nape came to
stay at our settlement. Angelica believed she could get his power. Instead she
got pregnant."
"Why didn't she abort?"
A broad grin crossed Hayama's lined face. "Perhaps Angelica was too
confident," the old woman murmured. "Maybe she believed she could
still be a shdpori after having a child by a white man." Hayama's
mouth opened wide with laughter, revealing yellowish teeth. "There is
nothing white about Milagros," she said mischievously. "Even though
my sister took him away. In spite of all he learned from the white man,
Milagros will always be an Iticoteri." Hayama's eyes shone with a strong,
unwavering stare, and her face revealed a certain indefinable, pent-up triumph.
The thought that I would soon be returning to the mission filled me with
apprehension. On several occasions since my illness I had tried to imagine what
it would be like to return to Caracas or to Los Angeles. How would I react to
seeing relatives and friends? During those moments, I had known I would never
leave of my own accord.
"When will Milagros take me back to the mission?" I asked.
"I don't think Arasuwe will wait for Milagros. The headman can no
longer postpone his departure," Hayama said. "Iramamowe will take you
back."
"Iramamowe!" I exclaimed in disbelief. "Why not
Etewa?"
Patiently, Hayama explained that Iramamowe had been near the mission on
several occasions: He knew the way better than any of the Iticoteri. There was
also the possibility of Etewa being discovered by Mocototeri hunters, in which
case he would be killed and I would be abducted. "Iramamowe, on the other
hand," Hayama assured me, "can make himself invisible in the
forest."
"But I can't!" I protested.
"You will be guarded by Iramamowe's hekuras," Hayama
said with utter conviction. Cumbersomely, the old woman stood up, rested for a
moment with her hands on her thighs, then took my arm and slowly walked me over
to her own hut. "Iramamowe has protected you before," Hayama reminded
me, then eased herself into her hammock.
"Yes," I agreed. "But I can't go to the mission without
Milagros. I need sardines and crackers."
"That stuff will only make you sick," she said contemptuously.
Hayama assured me that I would not suffer from hunger on the way, for
Iramamowe's arrows would hit plenty of game. Besides, she would give me a
basketful of plantains.
"I'm too weak to carry such a heavy load," I objected, knowing
that Iramamowe would carry nothing besides his bow and arrows.
Hayama regarded me with gentle mockery. She stretched in her hammock,
opened her mouth in an interminable yawn, and promptly fell asleep.
I walked into the clearing. A group of children, mostly little girls,
were playing with a puppy. Each girl tried to make the animal suck from her
flat nipples.
Except for a few old people resting in their hammocks, and several
menstruating women crouching near the hearths, most of the huts were deserted.
I went from dwelling to dwelling, wondering if they knew I was soon to leave.
An old man offered me his tobacco wad. Smiling, I declined. "How can
anyone refuse such a treat?" his eyes seemed to say as he reinserted the
wad between his lower lip and gum.
Late in the afternoon I walked into Iramamowe's hut. His oldest wife,
who had just returned from the river, was hanging two water-filled gourds on
the rafters. We had become good friends since the time her son Xorowe had been
initiated as a shapori, and we had spent many afternoons talking about
him. Occasionally Xorowe returned to the shabono to cure people
afflicted with colds, fevers, and diarrhea. He chanted to the hekuras'
with the same zeal and strength as the more experienced shamans did. Yet,
according to Puriwariwe, it would still be some time before Xorowe could send
his own spirits to cause harm among an enemy settlement. Only then would he be
accepted as a full-fledged sorcerer.
Iramamowe's wife poured some water into a small calabash, then added
some honey. Greedily, I watched the runny paste, studded with bees in the
various stages of their metamorphic process. After stirring it thoroughly with
her finger she offered me the gourd. Smacking my lips between each sip, I
finished the drink, and licked the bottom clean. "What a delight," I
exclaimed. "I'm sure it's from the amoshi bees." They were a
stingless variety, and greatly prized for their dark aromatic honey.
Smiling in agreement, Iramamowe's wife motioned me to sit beside her in
her hammock. She examined my back for flea and mosquito bites. Discovering two
recent ones, she sucked out the poison. The light entering the hut grew dimmer.
It seemed that such a long time had passed since I had talked with Hayama that
morning. Drowsily, I closed my eyes.
I dreamt I was with the children by the river. Thousands of butterflies
fluttered out of the trees, swirling through the air like autumn leaves. They
alighted on our hair, faces, and bodies, covering us with the tenuous golden
light of dusk. Despondently I gazed at their wings, like delicate hands waving
farewell. "You cannot be sad," the children were saying. I looked
into each face, and kissed the laughter on their lips.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 24
Instead of the bamboo knife she always used, Ritimi trimmed my hair with
a sharp grass blade. Frowning with concentration, she made sure the hair was
cut evenly all around my head.
"Not my tonsure," I said, covering the top of my head with my
folded hands. "It hurts."
"Don't be so cowardly," Ritimi laughed. "You don't want
to arrive at the mission looking like a barbarian."
I could not make her understand that among whites I would be considered
an oddity with a bald spot on the top of my head. Ritimi insisted that it was
not merely for aesthetic reasons but practical ones as well that she needed to
shave the crown of my head.
"Lice," she pointed out, "like that particular spot best.
I'm certain Iramamowe will not delouse you in the evenings."
"Maybe you should shave my hair completely," I suggested.
"That's the best way to get rid of them."
Horrified, Ritimi stared at me. "Only the very sick have their
heads shaved. You would look ugly."
Nodding in agreement, I submitted to her ministrations. Upon finishing,
she rubbed the bald spot with onoto. Then, she very carefully painted my
face with the red paste. She drew a wide straight line just below my bangs and
wavy ones across my cheeks with dots between each of the lines. "What a
shame I did not pierce your nose and the corners of your mouth when you first
arrived," she said disappointedly. Removing the polished slender stick
from her septum, she held it under my nose. "How beautiful you would have
looked," she sighed with comical resignation, and proceeded to paint my
back with wide onoto lines rounding toward my buttocks. On the front,
starting below my breasts, she drew wavy lines all the way to my thighs. Lastly
she encircled my ankles with broad red bands. Looking down my legs, I had the
feeling I was wearing socks.
Tutemi tied a newly made cotton belt around my waist, the front fringe
resting on my pubis. Pleased at my appearance, she clapped her hands and jumped
up and down excitedly. "Oh, the ears!" she cried, motioning Ritimi to
hand her the white feather tufts held together on a thin string. Tutemi tied
them on my earrings. Around my upper arms and below my knees she fastened
red-dyed cotton strands.
Encircling my waist with her arm, Ritimi took me from hut to hut, so I
could be admired by the Iticoteri. For one last time I saw myself reflected in
the women's shiny eyes; and delighted in the men's mocking smiles. Yawning, old
Kamosiwe stretched his skinny arms until they seemed about to be pulled from
their sockets. He opened his one eye, studying my face as if he were trying to
memorize my features. With slow, deliberate movements, he unfastened the small
pouch he wore around his neck, and took out the pearl I had given him.
"Whenever I let this stone roll on my palm, I will think of you."
Unwilling to believe that never again would I stand there in the shabono,
that never again would I awake to the children's laughter as they climbed into
my hammock at dawn, I wept.
There were no good-byes. I simply followed Iramamowe and Etewa into the
forest. Ritimi and Tutemi were behind me, as if we were going to collect
firewood. Silently we walked along the path the whole day, stopping only
momentarily to snack.
The sun was setting behind the horizon of trees when we came to a halt
beneath the dark shadows of three giant ceibas. They had grown so close
together that they appeared to be one. Ritimi fastened the basket she had been
carrying for me on my back. It was packed with plantains, roasted monkey meat,
a honey-filled calabash, several empty gourds, my hammock, and my knapsack
which contained my jeans and a torn shirt.
"You won't grow sad if you paint your body with onoto each
time you bathe in the river," Ritimi said, tying a small gourd around my
waist. It had been polished with abrasive leaves. Smooth and white, it hung
from my cotton belt like a giant teardrop.
The forest, the three smiling faces, blurred before me. Without another
word, Ritimi led the way into the thicket. Only Etewa turned around before
melting into the shadows. A grin lit his face as he waved the way he had so
often seen Milagros do when he bid me farewell.
I gave free rein to the vast desolation inside me. It did not make me
feel any better, but only heightened my despondency. Yet, in spite of my
wretchedness, I was strangely aware of the three ceibas in front of me. As if
in a dream, I recognized the trees. I had been on this very spot before.
Milagros had squatted in front of me. Impassively, he had watched the rain wash
my face and body of Angelica's ashes. Today it was Iramamowe squatting on the
same spot, gazing at the tears rolling uncontrollably down my cheeks.
"It was here that I first saw Ritimi, Tutemi, and Etewa," I
said. Suddenly I realized it had been Ritimi's deliberate choice to accompany
me this far. I understood all she had left unsaid, how deeply she felt. She had
given me back a basket and a gourd, the two items I was carrying that distant
day. Only now the gourd was not filled with ashes, but with onoto, a
symbol of life and happiness. A quiet loneliness, humble and accepting, filled
my heart. I carefully dried my tears so as not to erase the onoto
designs.
"Perhaps one day Ritimi will find you on this spot again,"
Iramamowe said, his habitually stern face softened by a fleeting smile.
"Let's walk a bit farther before we rest for the night." Lifting the
heavy bunch of plantains from my basket, he Hung it over his shoulder. He was
slightly swaybacked and his belly stuck out.
Iramamowe must have felt the same urge to walk as I did. My feet seemed
to move of their own accord, knowing exactly where to step in the darkness. I
never lost sight of Iramamowe's arrow quiver, immobilized under the load of
plantains. Moving through the darkness, I had the illusion that it was not I
but the forest that was leaving.
"We'll sleep here," Iramamowe said, inspecting the weathered
lean-to that stood away from the path. He built a small fire inside, then hung
his hammock next to mine.
I lay awake watching the stars and the faint moon through the opening of
the hut. Mist thickened the darkness until there was no light left. Trees and
sky formed one mass through which I imagined bows falling from the clouds like
heavy rain; and hekuras rising from invisible crevices in the earth:
They danced to the sound of a shaman's song.
The sun was high over the treetops when Iramamowe woke me. After
finishing a baked plantain and a piece of monkey meat, I offered him my
calabash with honey.
"You'll need it for the days of walking," he said. A friendly
glance softened his words of refusal. "We will find more on the way,"
he promised, reaching for his machete and his bow and arrows.
We walked at a steady pace, much faster than I remember ever having
walked in my life. We crossed rivers, we moved up and down hills that bore no
familiar landmark. Days spent walking, nights spent sleeping chased each other
with predictable swiftness. My thoughts did not reach beyond each day or night.
There was nothing between them but a short-lived dawn and dusk during which we
ate.
"I know this place!" I exclaimed one afternoon, breaking the
long silence. I pointed to the dark rocks jutting from the earth. They formed a
perpendicular wall along the river's edge. But the longer I gazed at the river
and trees, already purple in the twilight, the less sure I felt I had been
there before. I climbed over a tree trunk that extended all the way into the
water. The day had been deadly still, but now the leaves began to stir gently,
sending forth a fresh whisper along the river. Arching branches and creepers
brushed the water's surface, burying themselves in the dark liquid that
harbored no fish and discouraged mosquitoes. "Are we close to the
mission?" I asked, turning to Iramamowe.
He did not answer. After a moment, as if annoyed by the silence he was
unwilling to break, he motioned me to follow.
I felt tired- each step was an effort- yet I could not remember having
gone very far that day. I lifted my head as I heard the cry of a bird. A yellow
leaf, like a giant butterfly, fluttered from a branch. As if afraid to fall and
rot on the ground, the leaf clung to my thigh. Iramamowe held out his hand
behind him, gesturing me to remain still. Stealthily he stalked along the
riverbank. "We will eat meat tonight," he whispered, then disappeared
in the uncertain light, his body but a line against the shimmering river's
surface.
Lying down on the dark sand, I watched the sky ablaze for a moment as
the earth swallowed the sun. I drank the last of the honey Iramamowe had found
that morning, then fell asleep with its sweetness on my lips. Awakened by the
sound of crackling flames, I turned on my stomach. On a small platform built
over the fire Iramamowe was roasting an almost two-foot-long agouti.
"It's not good to sleep at night without the protection of a
fire," he said, facing me. "The spirits of the forest might bewitch
you."
"I am so tired," I yawned, moving closer to the fire. "I
could sleep for days."
"It will rain during the night," Iramamowe announced as he
planted the three poles that would make our shelter around the roasting meat. I
helped him cover the roof and sides with the wild banana fronds he had cut
while I slept. He fastened the hammocks close to the fire, so we could push the
logs to the flames without having to get up.
The agouti tasted like roast pork, tender and juicy. What we did not
finish Iramamowe tied to a stick high above the fire. "We'll eat the rest
in the morning." Grinning, as if pleased with himself, he stretched fully
in his hammock. "It will give us strength to climb the mountains."
"Mountains?" I asked. "I only went over hills when I came
with Angelica and Milagros." I bent over Iramamowe. "The only time I
climbed up a mountain was when I returned to the shabono with Ritimi and
Etewa from the Mocototeri feast. Those mountains were close to the shabono."
I touched his face. "Are you sure you know the way to the mission?"
"What a question to ask," he said, closing his eyes, and
crossing his arms over his chest. His bristly eyebrows slanted toward his
temples. There were a few hairs at the edge of his upper lip. The skin over his
high cheekbones was stretched taut, only a faint trace of the onoto
designs still recognizable. As if annoyed by my scrutiny, he opened his eyes:
They reflected the light of the fire, but his gaze revealed nothing.
I lay down in my hammock. I ran my fingers along my forehead and cheeks,
wondering if the onoto lines and dots had also faded on my face.
Tomorrow I'll bathe in the river, I thought. And my uneasiness, which is
probably nothing but exhaustion, will vanish as soon as I paint myself anew
with onoto. Yet, no matter how I tried to reassure myself, I was unable
to still my mounting distrust. My body and mind were tight with a vague
premonition I could not put into words. The air became chilly. Leaning over, I
pushed one of the logs closer to the flames.
"It will be even colder in the mountains," Iramamowe mumbled.
"I will make us a drink from plants that will keep us warm."
Reassured by his words, I began to inhale and exhale with exaggerated
depth, deliberately pushing all thoughts away, until I was aware of nothing but
the sound of the rain, the smoke-warmed air, the smell of damp earth. And I
slept a calm, untroubled sleep that lasted throughout the night.
In the morning we bathed in the river, then painted each other's faces
and bodies with onoto. Iramamowe was specific about the designs he
desired: A serpentine line across his forehead, extending down to his jaws,
then around his mouth; a circle between his brow, at the corners of his eyes,
and two on each cheek. On his chest he wanted wavy lines, running all the way
to his navel, and on his back the lines had to be straight. A smile of gentle
mockery softened his face as he covered me from head to foot with uniform
circles.
"What do they mean?" I asked eagerly. Ritimi had never
decorated me thus.
"Nothing," he said, laughing. "This way you don't look so
skinny."
At first the ascent up the narrow trail was easy. The undergrowth was
free of serrated grasses and thorny weeds. A warm mist enshrouded the forest,
creating a diaphanous light through which the crowns of the tall palm trees
seemed to hang suspended from the sky. The sound of waterfalls echoed eerily
through the misty air, and each time I brushed against a branch or leaf tiny
drops of moisture clung to me. The afternoon rain, however, turned the path into
a muddy menace. I bruised my toes repeatedly on the roots and stones beneath
the slippery surface.
We made camp late in the afternoon, halfway up the summit. Exhausted, I
sat on the ground and watched Iramamowe pound three strong poles into the
earth. I did not have the strength to help him cover the triangular structure
with palm fronds and giant leaves.
"Are you coming back this way on your return to the shabonof"
I asked, wondering why he was reinforcing the hut so well. It appeared
altogether too sturdy for a one-night shelter.
Iramamowe gave me a sidelong glance but did not answer.
"Is there going to be a storm tonight?" I asked in an
exasperated tone.
An irrepressible smile played around his lips, and his face looked
uncannily childish as he squatted beside me. A mischievous sparkle, as if he
were planning some prank, shone in his eyes. "Tonight you will sleep
well," he finally said, then proceeded to build a fire inside the cozy
hut. He fastened my hammock in the back: His own he hung close to the narrow
entrance. "Tonight we will not feel the cold air," he said, looking
for the gourd in which were soaking the shredded leaves and pale yellow flowers
of a plant he had found the previous day, growing over some rocks in a sunny
spot along the river's edge. He unsealed the calabash, added more water, then
placed it over the fire. Softly he began to chant, his eyes fixed on the dark
simmering liquid.
Trying to figure out the words of his song, I fell asleep. I was
awakened shortly by him. "Drink this," he urged, holding the gourd
close to my lips. "It has been cooled by the mountain dew."
I took a sip. It tasted like herb tea, bitter but not unpleasantly so.
After a few more gulps, I pushed the calabash toward him.
"Drink it all," Iramamowe said coaxingly. "It will keep
you warm. You will sleep for days."
"Days?" I emptied the gourd, smiling at his remark as if it
were a joke. A faint touch of malice seemed to be lurking somewhere within him.
By the time it fully dawned on me that he was not being facetious, a pleasant
numbness seeped through my body, melting my anxiety into a comforting heaviness
that made my head feel as if it were lead. I was sure it would break off my
neck. The image of my head rolling on the ground, a ball with two glass eyes,
threw me into spasms of laughter.
Crouching by the fire, Iramamowe watched me with growing curiosity.
Slowly, I stood up. I've lost my physicality, I thought. I had no control over
my legs as I tried to place one foot in front of the other. Dejected, I slumped
on the ground, next to Iramamowe. "Why don't you laugh?" I asked,
surprised at my own words. What I really wanted to know was if the sound of
drops prattling on the thatched roof was a storm. I wondered if I had actually
spoken, for the words kept reverberating in my head like a distant echo. Afraid
to miss his answer, I moved closer to him.
Iramamowe's face became taut as the cry of a nocturnal monkey broke the
night's stillness. His nostrils flared, his full lips set in a straight line.
His eyes, piercing into mine, grew larger, shining with a deep loneliness, a
gentleness that contrasted oddly with his severe masklike face.
As if I were animated by a slow-motion mechanism, I crawled to the edge
of the hut, each of my movements a gigantic effort. I felt as if all my tendons
had been replaced with elastic strings. I relished the sensation of being able
to stretch in any direction, into the most absurd postures I could imagine.
From the pouch hanging around his neck, Iramamowe poured epena
into his palm. He drew the hallucinogenic powder deep into his nostrils, then
began chanting. I felt his song inside me, surrounding me, drawing me toward
him. Without any hesitation I drank from the gourd he once again held to my
lips. The dark liquid no longer tasted bitter.
My sense of time and distance became distorted. Iramamowe and the fire
were so far away, I feared I had lost them across the wide expanse of the hut.
Yet the next instant, his eyes were so close to mine I saw myself reflected in
their dark pupils. I was crushed by the weight of his body, and my arms folded
beneath his chest. He whispered words into my ears that I could not hear. A
breeze parted the leaves, revealing the shadowy night, the treetops brushing
the stars- countless stars, massed together as if in readiness to fall. I
reached out: My hand grasped leaves adorned with diamond drops. For an instant,
they clung to my fingers, then disintegrated like dew.
Iramamowe's heavy body held me: His eyes sowed seeds of light inside me:
His gentle voice urged me to follow him through dreams of day and night, dreams
of rainwater and bitter leaves. There was nothing violent about his body
imprisoning mine. Waves of pleasure mingled with visions of mountains and
rivers, faraway places where hekuras dwell. I danced with the spirits of
animals and trees, gliding with them through mist, through roots and trunks,
through branches and leaves. I sang with the voices of birds and spiders,
jaguars and snakes. I shared the dreams of all those who feed on epena,
on bitter flowers and leaves.
I no longer knew if I was awake or dreaming. At moments I vaguely
remembered old Hayama's words about shamans needing the femaleness in their
bodies. But those memories were neither clear nor lasting: They remained dim,
unexamined premonitions. Iramamowe always knew whenever I was about to fall
into real sleep, whenever my tongue was ready to ask, whenever I was about to
weep.
"If you can't dream, I'll make you," he said, taking me in his
arms, and rubbing away my tears against his cheek. And my desire to refuse the
gourd sitting by the fire like a forest spirit vanished. Greedily I drank the
dark bearer of visions until once again I was suspended in a timelessness that
was neither day or night. I was one with the rhythm of Iramamowe's breath, with
the beat of his heart, as I merged with the light and the darkness inside him.
A time came when I felt I was moving through an undergrowth of trees,
leaves, and motionless vines. I knew I was not walking; yet I was descending
from the cold forest, sunk in mist. My feet were tied and my upside-down head
shook as though it were being emptied. Visions flowed from my ears, nostrils,
and mouth, leaving a faint line on the steep path. And for one last instant I
glimpsed shabonos inhabited by men and women shamans of another time.
When I awoke, Iramamowe was crouched by the fire, his face alight with
the flames and a faint streak of moon shining into the hut. I wondered how many
days had elapsed since the night he had first offered me the bitter-tasting
brew. There was no gourd by the fire. I was certain we were no longer in the
mountains. The night was clear. The soft breeze stirring the treetops
disentangled my thoughts and I drifted into a dreamless sleep as I listened to
the monotonous sound of Iramamowe's hekura songs.
The persistent growling of my stomach awoke me. I felt dizzy as I stood
on uncertain legs in the empty hut. My body was painted with wavy lines. How
strange it had all been, I thought. I felt no regret: I was not filled with
hate or repulsion. It was not that I was numbed emotionally. Rather I felt the
same indescribable sensation I experienced upon awakening from a dream that I
could not quite explain.
Near the fire lay a bundle containing roasted frogs. I sat on the ground
and gnawed on the tiny bones until they were clean. Iramamowe's machete
reclining against one of the poles reassured me that he was somewhere close by.
Following the sound of the river, I walked through the tangled growth.
Startled to see Iramamowe beaching a small canoe only a short distance away, I
hid behind some bushes. I recognized the craft as being one made by the
Maquiritare Indians. I had seen that kind, made from a hollowed tree trunk, at
the mission. The thought that we might be close to one of their settlements, or
perhaps even to the mission, made my heart beat faster. Iramamowe gave no
indication of having heard or seen me approach. Furtively, I returned to the
shelter, wondering how he came into possession of the canoe.
Moments later, with a vine rope and a large bundle slung over his back,
Iramamowe walked into the hut. "Fish," he said, dropping the rope and
bundle on the ground.
I blushed, and embarrassed at my blushing, laughed.
Unhurriedly, he balanced the wrapped fish between the logs, making sure
enough heat but no direct flames reached the platanillo leaves. Totally
engrossed in the sound of the simmering fish, he remained squatting by the
fire. As soon as all the juices were cooked away, he removed the bundle from the
logs with a forked stick and opened it. "It's good," he said,
scooping a handful of white, flaky meat into his mouth, then pushed the bundle
toward me.
"What happened in the mountains?" I asked,
Startled by my belligerent tone, his mouth gaped open. A piece of
unchewed fish fell into the ashes. Automatically, without checking the dirt
sticking to it, he put the morsel back into his mouth, then reached for the
liana rope on the ground.
An irrational fear seized me. I was convinced that Iramamowe was going
to tie me up and carry me farther into the forest. I was no longer aware that
only a short while before I had been certain we were near a Maquiritare
settlement, or even the mission. All I could think of was old Hayama's story
about shamans who kept captive women hidden in faraway places. I was convinced
Iramamowe would never take me back to the mission. The thought that had he
wanted to keep me hidden in the forest he would not have brought me down from
the mountains did not cross my mind at that moment.
I did not trust his smile, nor the gentle glint in his eyes. I picked up
the water-filled gourd standing by the fire and offered it to him. Smiling, he
dropped the rope. I moved closer as if I intended to bring the calabash to his
lips. Instead, I smashed it between his eyes with all my strength. Caught
totally unawares, he fell backward, staring at me in dumb incredulity as the
blood ran down on both sides of his nose.
Heedless of thorns, roots, and the sharp grass, I sped through the
thicket toward the place where I had seen the canoe. But I miscalculated where
Iramamowe had anchored it, for when I reached the river there was nothing but
stones strewn along the bank: The craft was farther upriver. With a swiftness I
hardly believed myself capable of, I leaped from rock to rock. Gasping for
breath, I slumped beside the canoe, pushed halfway up the sandy bank. A cry
escaped my throat when I saw Iramamowe standing in front of me.
Squatting, he opened his mouth and laughed. His laughter came in bursts,
extending from his face to his feet with such force the ground shook beneath
me. Tears ran down his cheeks, mingling with the blood from the gash between
his brows. "You forgot this," he said, dangling my knapsack in front
of me. He opened it, then handed me my jeans and shirt. "Today you will
reach the mission."
"Is this the river on which the mission stands?" I asked,
staring at his bloodstained face. "I don't recognize this place."
"You have been here with Angelica and Milagros," he assured
me. "The rains change the rivers and the forest the way the clouds change
the sky."
I pulled up my jeans; loosely they hung from my waist, threatening to
slide over my hips. The damp moldy-smelling shirt made me sneeze. I felt
awkward and turned uncertain eyes to Iramamowe. "How do I look?"
He walked around me, examining me meticulously from every angle. Then,
after a moment's deliberation, he squatted once more and pronounced with a
laugh, "You look better painted with onoto."
I squatted beside him. The wind was still: There was no movement on the
river. Shadows from the tall trees reached across the water, darkening the sand
at our feet. I wanted to apologize for smashing the gourd in his face, and to
explain my suspicions. I wanted him to tell me of the days in the mountains,
but was reluctant to break the silence.
As if cognizant and amused by my dilemma, Iramamowe lowered his face to
his knees and laughed softly, as if sharing his mirth with the drops of blood
falling between his wide spread toes. "I wanted to take the hekuras
I once saw in your eyes," he murmured. He went on to say that not only he
but also Puriwariwe, the old shapori, had seen the hekuras within
me. "Every time I lay with you and felt the energy bursting inside you, I
hoped to lure the spirits into my chest," Iramamowe said. "But they
didn't want to leave you." He turned his eyes to me, intense with protest.
"The hekuras would not answer my call; they would not heed my
songs. And then I became afraid that you might take the hekuras from my
body."
Anger and an indescribable sadness rendered me speechless for a moment.
"Did we stay longer than a day and a night in the mountains?" I
finally asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
Iramamowe nodded, but did not say for how long we had remained in the
hut. "When I was certain that I could not change your body; when I
realized that the hekuras would not leave you, I carried you in a sling
to this place."
"Had you changed my body would you have kept me in the
forest?"
Iramamowe looked at me sheepishly. A smile of relief parted his lips,
yet his eyes were veiled with a vague regret. "You have the soul and
shadow of an Iticoteri," he murmured. "You have eaten the ashes of
our dead. But your body and head is that of a nape." A silence
punctuated his last sentence before he softly added, "There will be nights
when the wind will bring your voice mingled with the cries of monkeys and
jaguars. And I will see your shadow dancing on the ground, painted by the
moonlight. On those nights I will think of you." He stood up and pushed
the canoe into the water. "Stay close to the bank- otherwise the current
will take you too swiftly," he said, motioning me to climb inside.
"Aren't you coming?" I asked, alarmed.
"It's a good canoe," he said, handing me a small paddle. It
had a beautifully shaped handle, a rounded shaft, and the oval blade was shaped
like a pointed concave shield. "It will take you safely to the
mission."
"Wait!" I cried before he let go of the craft. My hands
trembled as I fumbled with the zippered side pocket of my knapsack. I took out
the leather pouch, and handed it to him. "Do you remember the stone the
shaman Juan Caridad gave me?" I asked. "It's yours now."
Something between shock and surprise seemed to momentarily paralyze his
face. Slowly his fingers closed over the pouch, and his features relaxed into a
smile. Without a word, he pushed the canoe into the water. Folding his arms
across his chest, he watched me drift downriver. I turned my head often, until
he was out of sight. There was a moment when I thought I still saw his figure,
but it was only the wind playing with the shadows that tricked my eyes.
“Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the South American
Rainforest” - ©1982 by Florinda Donner-Grau
Chapter 25
The trees on either side of the banks, the clouds traveling across the
sky shadowed the river. Hoping to shorten the time between the world left
behind and the one now awaiting me, I paddled as fast as I could. But I soon
got tired, and then only used the small paddle to push myself free whenever I
got too close to the bank.
At times the river was clear, reflecting the lush greenness with
exaggerated intensity. There was something peaceful about the darkness of the
forest and the deep silence around me. The trees seemed to be nodding in
farewell as they bent slightly with the afternoon breeze; or perhaps they were
only lamenting the passing of day, of the sun's last rays fading in the sky.
Shortly before twilight deepened, I maneuvered the canoe toward the opposite
bank, where I had seen stretches of sand amidst the dark rocks.
As soon as the craft hit the sand, I jumped out and dragged the canoe
farther up the bank, close to the forest edge, where drooping vines and
branches formed a safe, dark nook. I turned around and gazed at the distant
mountains, violet in the dusk, and I wondered if I had been up there for more
than a week before Iramamowe carried me to the hut where I had awakened that
morning. I climbed to the highest rock and scanned the landscape for the lights
of the mission. It had to be farther than Iramamowe estimated, I thought. Only
darkness crept from out of the river, crawling up the rocks as the last
vestiges of sunlight disappeared from the sky. I was hungry but did not dare
explore the sandy river shore for turtle eggs.
I could not decide whether I should place my knapsack under my head as a
pillow or wrap it around my cold feet as I lay inside the canoe. Through the
tangled mass of branches above me I saw the clear sky, filled with innumerable
tiny stars shining like golden specks of dust. As I drifted off to sleep, my
feet tucked in my knapsack, I hoped that my feelings, like the light of the
stars spanning the sky, would reach those I had loved in the forest.
I awoke shortly. The air was filled with the sounds of crickets and
frogs. I sat up, then looked around me as if I could dispel the darkness.
Shafts of moonlight spilled through the branches, painting the sand with
grotesque shadows that seemed to come alive with the rustling of wind. Even
with my eyes closed, I was painfully conscious of the shadows brushing against
the canoe. And each time a cricket interrupted its continuous chirping I opened
my eyes, waiting for the sound to resume. Dawn finally silenced the cries,
murmurs, and whistling of the forest. The mist-coated leaves looked as if they
had been sprinkled with fine silver dust.
The sun rose over the treetops, tinting the clouds orange, purple, and
pink. I bathed, washed my clothes with the fine river sand, spread them over
the canoe to dry, then painted myself with onoto.
I was glad I had not arrived at the mission the day before, as I had
first hoped, but that I still had time to watch the clouds change the sky. To
the east, heavy clouds gathered, darkening the horizon. Lightning flashed in
the distance, thunder followed after long intervals, and white lines of rain
moved across the sky toward the north, keeping ahead of me. I wondered if
alligators were basking in the sun amid the driftwood scattered on the bank. I
had not floated downriver for long before the waters widened. The current
became so strong I had a hard time keeping from swirling around in the shallow
waters along the bank beset with rocks.
For an instant I thought I was hallucinating when I saw on the opposite
bank a long dugout slowly pushing its way upriver. I stood up, frantically
waving my shirt in the air, then cried with sheer happiness as the dugout
crossed the wide expanse of water and headed toward me. With calculated
precision, the almost thirty-foot-long canoe beached just a few paces away.
Smiling, twelve people climbed out of the canoe- four women, four men,
and four children. They looked odd in their Western clothes and the purple
designs on their faces. Their hair was cut like mine, but the crown of their
head was not shaved.
"Maquiritare?" I asked.
Nodding, the women bit their lips as if trying to contain their giggles.
Their chins quivered until they burst into uncontrollable laughter that was
echoed by the men. Hastily, I put on my jeans and shirt. The oldest woman came
closer. She was short and sturdy, her sleeveless dress revealing round fat arms
and long breasts, which hung to her waist. "You are the one who went into
the forest with the old Iticoteri woman," she said, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world to have found me paddling down-river in a dugout
made by her people. "We know about you from the father at the
mission." After formally shaking my hand, the old woman introduced me to
her husband, their three daughters, their respective husbands and children.
"We left early this morning," the old woman's husband said.
"We have been visiting relatives who live nearby."
"She has become a real savage," the youngest of the three
daughters cried, pointing to my cut feet with such an expression of outrage
that it was all I could do not to giggle. She searched my canoe and shook the
empty knapsack. "She has no shoes," she said in disbelief. "She
is a real savage!"
I looked at her bare feet.
"Our shoes are in the canoe," she affirmed, and proceeded to
bring an assortment of footwear from the boat. "See? We all have
shoes."
"Do you have any food with you?" I asked.
"We do," the old woman assured me, then asked her daughter to
put the shoes back into the canoe, and bring one of the bark boxes.
The box was lined with platanillo leaves and filled with cassava
bread. I huddled over the food, almost hugging it as I dunked piece after piece
into a water-filled calabash before popping it into my mouth. "My stomach
is full and happy," I said after I had eaten halfway down the box.
The Maquiritare regretted that they had no meat but only sugarcane with
them. The old man cut a foot-long piece, peeled the bamboolike bark with his
machete, then handed it to me. "It will give you strength," he said.
I chewed and sucked on the pale hard fibers until they were dry and tasteless.
The Maquiritare had heard about Milagros. One of the sons-in-law knew him
personally, but none of them knew where Milagros was.
"We will take you to the mission," the old man said.
I made a feeble attempt to convince him that it was not necessary for
him to retrace his steps, but my words lacked conviction. Eagerly I boarded the
craft, sitting between the women and children. To take advantage of the full
speed of the current, the men steered the canoe right into the middle of the
river. They paddled without saying a word to each other, yet each man was so
attuned to the others' rhythm that they were able to anticipate each other's
precise needs in advance. I remembered Milagros had once mentioned to me that
the Maquiritare were not only the greatest boat builders of the Orinoco area,
but also the best navigators.
Exhaustion pressed heavily on my eyes. The rhythmic splashing of the
paddles made me so drowsy, my head kept lolling forward and sideways. The
bygone days and nights drifted through my mind like fragmented dreams of
another time. It seemed all so vague, so far away, as if it had all been an
illusion.
It was noon when I was awakened by Father Coriolano, who had come into
the room to bring me a mug filled with coffee. "Eighteen hours of sleep is
a good start," he said. His smile held the same reassuring warmth with
which he had greeted me the day before as I stepped out of the Maquiritare's
boat.
My eyes were still heavy with sleep as I sat on the canvas cot. My back
was stiff from resting in a flat position. Slowly, I sipped the hot black brew,
so strong, and thickened with sugar it made me nauseous.
"I also have chocolate," Father Coriolano said.
I straightened the calico shift I had been given to sleep in, and
followed him into the kitchen. With the flair of a chef preparing a fancy meal,
he stirred two tablespoons of dried milk powder, four of Nestle's chocolate
powder, four of sugar, and a few grains of salt into a pot of water boiling on
a kerosene stove.
He drank my unfinished coffee while I spooned the delicious-tasting
chocolate. "I can radio your friends in Caracas to pick you up with their
plane anytime you want."
"Oh, not yet," I said faintly.
The days passed slowly. In the mornings I wandered around the gardens
along the riverbank and at noon I sat under the large mango tree that bore no
fruit outside the chapel. Father Coriolano did not ask me what my plans were,
or how long I intended to stay at the mission. He seemed to have accepted my presence
as something inevitable.
In the evenings I spent hours talking to Father Coriolano and to Mr.
Barth, who often came to visit. We chatted about the crops, the school, the
dispensary- always impersonal subjects. I was grateful that neither of them
asked me where I had been for over a year, what I had done, or what I had seen.
I would not have been able to answer- not because I wanted to be secretive, but
because there was nothing to say. If we exhausted our conversation, Mr. Barth
would read us articles from newspapers and magazines, some over twenty years
old. Regardless of whether we were listening or not, he rattled on as he
pleased, now and then interrupting himself to roar with laughter.
In spite of their humor and affable nature, there were evenings when
shadows of loneliness crossed their faces as we sat in silence listening to the
rain pattering on the corrugated roof; or to the solitary cry of a howler
monkey settling for the night. It was then that I wondered if they too had
learned the secrets of the forest: secrets of misty caves; of the sound of sap
running through branches and trunks; of spiders spinning their silvery webs. At
those times I wondered if that was what Father Coriolano had tried to warn me
about when he had talked of the dangers of the forest. And I wondered if it was
this that kept them from returning to the world they had left behind.
At night, enclosed in the four walls of my room, I felt a vast
emptiness. I missed the closeness of the huts, the smell of people and smoke.
Carried by the sound of the river flowing outside my window, I dreamt I was
with the Iticoteri. I heard Ritimi's laughter, I saw the children's smiling
faces, and there was always Iramamowe, squatting outside his hut calling to the
hekuras that had eluded him.
Walking along the river's edge one afternoon, I was overcome by an
uncontrollable sadness. The noise of the river was loud, drowning out the
voices of the people chatting nearby. It had rained at noon and the sun peeked
through the clouds without properly shining. Aimlessly I walked up and down the
sandy beach. Then in the distance I saw the lonely figure of a man approaching.
Dressed in khaki pants and a red checkered shirt, he looked indistinguishable
from any of the Westernized Indians around the mission. Yet there was something
familiar about the man's swaggering gait.
"Milagros!" I cried, then waited until he stood before me. His
face looked unfamiliar under the torn straw hat through which his hair stuck
out like blackened palm fibers. "I'm so glad you came."
Smiling, he motioned me to squat beside him. He brushed his hand over
the top of my head. "Your hair has grown," he said. "I knew you
would not leave until you saw me."
"I'm going back to Los Angeles," I said. There had been so
many things I wanted to ask him, but now that he was beside me, I no longer saw
the need to have anything explained. We watched the twilight spread over the
river and the forest. The darkness filled with the sounds of frogs and
crickets. A full moon ascended the sky. It grew smaller as it climbed and
covered the river with silver ripples. "Like a dream," I murmured.
"A dream," Milagros repeated. "A dream you will always
dream. A dream of walking, of laughter, of sadness." There was a long
pause before he continued. "Even though your body has lost our smell, a
part of you will always keep a bit of our world," he said, gesturing
toward the distance. "You will never be free."
"I didn't even thank them," I said. "There is no thank
you in your language."
"Neither is there good-bye," he added.
Something cold, like a drop of rain or dew, touched my forehead. When I
turned to face him, Milagros was no longer by my side. From across the river,
out of the distant darkness, the wind carried the Iticoteri's laughter.
"Good-bye is said with the eyes." The voice rustled through the
ancient trees, then vanished, like the silvery ripples on the water.
The End: Shabono - ©1982 by Florinda Donner
Glossary follows...
Glossary
ASHUKAMAKI (Ah shuh kah mah kee)
A vine used to thicken the curare poison.
AYORI-TOTO (Ah yo ree toh toh)
A vine used to poison fish.
EPENA (Eh peh nah)
A hallucinatory snuff derived from either the bark of theepena tree or
the seeds of the hisioma tree. Both substances are prepared and taken in the
same fashion.
HEKURAS (Heh kuh rahs)
Tiny humanoid spirits that dwell in rocks and mountains. Shamans contact the hekuras
by taking the hallucinatory snuff epena. Through chants the shamans lure
the hekuras into their chests. Successful shamans can control these
spirits at will.
MAMUCORI (Mah muh ko ree)
A thick vine used to make the curare poison.
MOMO (Moh moh)
A nutlike edible seed.
NABRUSHI (Nah bru shee)
A six-foot-long club used for fighting.
NAPE (Nah peh)
A foreigner. Anyone who is not an Indian, regardless of color, race, or
nationality.
OKO-SHIKI (Oh koh shee kee)
Magical plants used for malevolent purposes.
ONOTO (Oh no toh)
A red vegetable dye derived from the crushed, boiled seeds of the Bixa
orellana. The dye is used for decorating the face and body as well as
baskets, arrowheads, and ornaments.
PISHAANSI (Pee sha han see)
A large leaf used for wrapping meat, for cooking, or as a receptacle.
PLATANILLO (Plah tah neeyo)
A large, broad, sturdy leaf used for wrapping and as ground cover.
POHORO (Ph oh roh)
Wild cacao.
RASHA (Rah sha)
The cultivated spiny-trunked peach palm. Highly valued for its fruit, which it
produces for fifty years and longer. After the plantain, it is probably the
most important plant in the gardens. These palms are owned individually by
whoever planted them.
SHABONO (Sha boh noh)
A permanent Yanomama settlement consisting of a circle of huts around an
open clearing.
SHAPORI (Sha poh ree)
A shaman, witch doctor, sorcerer.
SIKOMASIK (See kouw mah seek)
A whitish edible mushroom that grows on decaying tree trunks.
UNUCAI (Uh nuh kah ee)
A man who has killed an enemy.
WAITERI (Wah ee teh ree)
A brave, courageous warrior.
WAYAMOU (Wah yah mow)
The formal, ritualized ceremonial language used by the men when bartering.