Shabono. ©1982 by Florinda Donner.

Part 4 - 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 did not 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 am 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 do not want a headache."

"Maybe it is different for you," she said. Standing up, she casually put the bamboo container and the three-foot-long cane into her basket. "Let us 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 do you not enjoy it instead of being so fussy about a little slime running into your belly button?" Ritimi said, grinning at my clumsy efforts. "I will 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 do not come to women," Ritimi said between fits of laughter. She placed the cane against my nose. "But perhaps if you chant they will come to you."

I felt each grain travel up my nasal passage, exploding in the top of my skull. Slowly, a delicious lassitude 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 will 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 is not strong enough. Have you not seen a hekura yet."

"It is 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.

Etewa guided me to the edge of the river, then splashed water on my face and chest. "Do not 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 hekura song.

"Do not 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 will not," Iramamowe assured him. "I am 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 Ritimi 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 epena. 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 not 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 are not upset, why are they all in the hut?"

"I do not know," she said softly.

"White girl, have you ever seen a hekura before yesterday?" Arasuwe asked.

"I have 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 have heard it so often," I almost shouted. "How could his hekura have taught me? Spirits do not come to women."

"You do not 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 have heard you sing it so many times."

"But I sing very softly," Iramamowe argued. "If you really know my song, why do you not 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 is why I did not get angry at you yesterday, why I did not blow into your eyes and ears, and why I did not 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 Imawaami. 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 have 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' 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 did not 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 o£ 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. "Do you not 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 have never seen such a round stone."

"I have 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. ©1982 by Florinda Donner.

Part 4 - 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 do not 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 Imawaami 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 Imawaami was a real person or a being that belonged to a mythological epoch. All the shapori was willing to say was that Imawaami 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 wood-like 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. "Do you not 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 hekurasongs 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 is 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 did not 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 do not know why, because men as well as shapori enjoy it. I believe it is 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 would rather have a good hunter and warrior than a good shapori for a husband," she confessed. "Shapori do not 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 is 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 have 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 new-found knowledge and experience were more enduring than the memory of his past. Silently Puriwariwe led him into the forest.

Shabono. ©1982 by Florinda Donner.

Part 4 - 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 am 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 not 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 will 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 have 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 will not 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 have 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 could not carry more," Milagros said cheerfully. "Do not 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 do not need to do the work a man does."

"Do not give it to him," Tutemi said. "It is 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 do not 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 am 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 am 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."

"Do not open the other sardine cans," Milagros said in Spanish. "The Iticoteri will not like them. I will eat them myself."

"Are you not 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 do not 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 am lying." No matter how much he had exaggerated, I never contradicted him.

Shabono. ©1982 by Florinda Donner.

Part 4 - 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, and said, "I am also afraid."

Gently Ritimi probed the girl's stomach, first on the sides, then the front. "The baby is kicking hard. It is 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 is 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 am 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 does not want to leave the womb."

"I do not think it means that at all." I was unable to disguise the argumentative tone of my voice. "It is normal for the first child to be difficult," I affirmed, as if I really knew. "White women have pains with almost every child."

"It is not normal," Hayama affirmed. "Maybe white babies do not 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 does not want to come."

"Let us go farther into the forest," Tutemi begged. "I do not 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. ©1982 by Florinda Donner.

Part 4 - 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 have seen the size of the young turtles. I have 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 spiraling 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.

"Do not 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 is 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 have lived, it would reach all the way to the moon," Kamosiwe murmured. "That is 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 is broken," old Hayama said.

"It is 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.

Tutemi 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 does not 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 is 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 will continue massaging your leg until you can walk as you did before."

The rains brought with them a sense of tranquility, 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, disk-like 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." Xotomi giggled uncontrollably. "You did not 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 is well made."

"I made it for your eldest wife," I said. "I will make you one if you teach me how to make arrows."

"It is not 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 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 palm-wood points," he said, handing me a sharp piece of wood. "It is made from splinters. The ringlike grooves cut into the point are smeared with mamucori. They break inside the animal's body. It is 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 is cooked properly," old Hayama warned the children, whenever one poked at the tightly wrapped bundles. "You will get sick if you eat meat that is not 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 did you not 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 Imawaami, 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, Kamosiwe 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.