Version 2007.02.22

## “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.