Version 2007.02.22

## “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.