Version 2007.02.24

## “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.