Version 2007.02.22

## “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.