City of the Beasts (18 page)

The village was as unreal as the Indians. Just as the huts were invisible, everything around them also seemed hazy or transparent. Objects, like persons, lost their precise contours, fading to the plane of illusion. Out of thin air, like ghosts, came women and children to welcome the warriors. They were very short, with amber eyes and skin paler than that of the Indians of the valley. They moved with extraordinary lightness, floating, almost as if they were not flesh and bone. Instead of clothing, they wore designs painted on their bodies and sometimes feathers or flowers tied to their arms or threaded through an ear. Frightened by the two strangers, the smallest children began to cry and the women stayed back, afraid, even though their men were there, and armed.

"Take off your clothes, Jaguar," Nadia ordered as she stripped off her shorts, her T-shirt, and even her underwear.

Alex imitated her without thinking about what he was doing. The idea of being naked in public would have horrified him a couple of weeks before, but in this place it was natural. Wearing clothes was indecent when everyone else was naked. He did not feel strange about seeing his friend's body, although he would have blushed at seeing either of his sisters without clothes. The women and children immediately shed their fear and slowly came closer. They had never seen such strange-looking people, especially the young American male, who was so white in places. Alex could tell they were particularly curious about the difference in color between the skin usually covered by his swimsuit and the rest of his suntanned body. They rubbed him with their fingers to see if it was paint, and then laughed real belly laughs.

The warriors set Mokarita's litter on the ground, where it was quickly surrounded by all the people of the village. They were talking in whispers, in melodious tones that imitated the sounds of the forest, the rain, the water running over river rocks… the way Walimai spoke. To his amazement, Alex realized that he could pretty much understand as long as he didn't try, but "listened with his heart." According to Nadia, who had an astounding gift for languages, words are not that important when you recognize intentions.

Iyomi, Mokarita's wife, even more ancient than he, came forward. Everyone stepped aside with respect, and she knelt beside her husband without a tear, murmuring comforting words in his ear as the other women, serious and silent, gathered around them, supporting them with their closeness but not interfering.

Very soon it was night, and the air turned cold. Normally in a
shabono
there was always a ring of bonfires beneath the common roof for cooking and providing heat, but in Tapirawa-teri, fire, like everything else, was not obvious. Small fires were lighted only at night, always inside the huts on stone altars, in order not to attract the attention of possible enemies or bad spirits. Smoke escaped through holes in the roof, dissipating in the air. At first Alex had the impression that the huts were scattered among the trees haphazardly, but soon he realized that they were distributed more or less in a circle, as in a
shabono
, and were connected by tunnels or roofs made of branches, giving unity to the village. The Indians could move about using that network of hidden paths, protected in case of attack and sheltered from the sun and the rain.

The Indians were grouped in families, but the adolescent boys and unwed men lived apart from the others in a common hut provided with mats on the ground and hammocks strung between poles. That was where they put Alex, while Nadia was taken to Mokarita's dwelling. The chief had been wed in his puberty to Iyomi, his life companion, but he also had two young wives and a large number of children and grandchildren. He did not keep track of his offspring; because who the parents were didn't actually matter, the children were all raised together, protected and looked after by the members of the tribe.

Nadia found out that among the People of the Mist it was normal to have several wives or several husbands; no one had to be alone. If a man died, his children and wives were immediately adopted by another man who could protect them and provide for them. That was the case with Tahama, who must have been a good hunter, because he was responsible for several women and a dozen young. A mother whose husband was a bad hunter could choose other spouses to help feed her children. Parents usually promised their girls in marriage at birth, but none was forced to marry or stay with a man against her will. Abuse of women and children was taboo, and anyone who violated that rule lost his family and was condemned to sleep alone; he was also excluded from the hut of the bachelors. The one punishment among the People of the Mist was isolation; nothing was so greatly feared as being ostracized from the community. The concept of reward and punishment did not exist; children learned by imitating the adults, and if they didn't, they were destined to perish. They had to learn to hunt, fish, plant, and harvest, to respect nature and their fellows, to be helpful, and to maintain their position in the village. They learned at their own rhythm and in accordance with their ability. There were times that not enough girls were born in a generation, so the men would go out on long forays looking for wives. The girls of the village, in turn, were allowed to find a husband on the rare times they visited other areas. The Indians also adopted families abandoned following a battle with another tribe, because if a community was too small, it could not survive in the jungle. From time to time, it was necessary to declare war on another
shabono;
that guaranteed strong warriors and new pairings. It was very sad when the young said good-bye to go off and live in another tribe; only rarely would they see their families again. The People of the Mist jealously guarded the secret of their village, a defense against being attacked or acquiring new customs. They had lived the same way for thousands of years and did not want to change.

The huts were very bare inside: hammocks, gourds, stone axes, and knives fashioned from teeth or claws. Assorted domesticated animals that belonged to the community wandered in and out at will. Bows, arrows, blowguns, and darts were kept in the hut shared by the bachelors. Everything had a purpose. There was no art, only what was essential for strict survival; nature provided the rest. Alex did not see a single metal object that indicated contact with the outside world, and he remembered that the People of the Mist had not touched the gifts César Santos had strung up to attract them. In that, too, they differed from the other tribes of the region, which succumbed one by one to a greed for steel and other goods brought by the foreigners.

When the temperature went down that night, Alex put his clothes back on, but he shivered all the same. He observed that his roommates slept two to a hammock or huddled together on the ground to keep warm, but he came from a culture in which physical contact among men was not tolerated, where most men touched only in fits of violence or in the roughest sports. He lay alone in a corner feeling insignificant, less than a flea. That small group of humans in a tiny village in the jungle was invisible in the immensity of astral space. His lifetime was less than a fraction of a second in infinity. Or maybe he did not even exist; maybe human beings, the planets, everything in Creation were a dream… an illusion. He smiled with humility when he remembered that a few days before he had thought he was the center of the universe. He was cold and hungry; he had the feeling it was going to be a very long night, but in less than five minutes he was sleeping as if he had been anesthetized.

When he woke, he was curled up on a straw mat between two husky warriors who were snoring and snorting in his ear the way his dog, Poncho, always did. He untangled himself, with difficulty, from the arms of the Indians and quietly got up, but he didn't go very far because a thick snake more than six feet long was stretched across the doorway. He stood there rooted like stone, not daring to take a step even though the serpent gave no sign of life; it was either dead or sleeping. Almost immediately, the Indians began to stir and go about their activities with absolute calm, stepping over the snake as if it weren't there. It was a domesticated boa constrictor whose mission was to rid the place of mice, bats, and scorpions, and to frighten away poisonous snakes. The People of the Mist had many pets: monkeys that were raised with the children, little dogs the women nursed along with their own offspring, toucans, parrots, iguanas, and even a decrepit old yellow jaguar, meek and lame in one foot. The boas, well fed and generally lethargic, allowed the children to play with them. Alex thought how happy his sister Nicole would be in the midst of that exotic domestic zoo.

A good part of the day was spent preparing the celebration for the return of the warriors and the visit of the two "white souls," as they called Nadia and Alex. Everyone participated, with the exception of one man who sat at the far edge of the village, apart from the others. That Indian was performing the
unokaimú
—rite of purification—required after killing another human. Alex learned that
unokaimú
consisted of a total fasting, silence, and immobility that lasted for several days; if that was done, the spirit of the dead person, which escaped through the nostrils of the corpse and attached itself to the breastbone of the killer, would gradually let go. If the person who had killed ate anything, the ghost of his victim grew fat and its weight would eventually crush him. In front of the motionless warrior fulfilling
unokaimú
was a large bamboo blowgun decorated with strange symbols identical to those on the poison dart that had pierced the heart of the soldier as the expedition had traveled upriver.

Some of the men left to hunt and fish, led by Tahama; several women went to bring maize and plantains from the small gardens hidden in the forest and others were responsible for grinding cassava. The smallest children hunted for ants and other insects to roast; teen-agers collected nuts and fruits and some, with amazing agility, swarmed up trees to take honey from a honeycomb, the jungle's only source of sugar. As soon as a boy child could stand alone, he learned to climb. These people were capable of running across the highest tree branches without losing their balance. Just seeing them up so high, like monkeys, made Nadia feel dizzy.

Alex was handed a basket, taught how to bear its weight by placing its long strap across his forehead, then with signs directed to follow the other young males his age. They walked some distance into the rain forest, crossed the river by holding on to branches and lianas, and finally came to a group of slender palm trees whose trunks were covered with long, sharp spines. Beneath the leaves, more than forty feet overhead, shone clusters of a yellow fruit that looked a little like peaches. The Indians bound poles together to make two strong crosses, then pushed the fork of one cross tight against the tree trunk and did the same with the other, but higher up the trunk. One of the boys stepped onto the first cross, climbed from it to the second, reached down and pulled the lower cross out and placed it farther up, and, using this technique, and with the agility of an acrobat, quickly climbed to the top. Alex had heard about the feat, but until he saw it done had not understood how anyone could climb without wounding himself on the thorns. The climber tossed down fruit that the others caught in baskets. Later the women of the village ground them and mixed them with plantain to make a soup that was highly treasured among the People of the Mist.

Even though everyone was busy with preparations, the atmosphere was relaxed and festive. No one hurried, and there was more than enough time to play for a couple of pleasant hours in the river. As he was paddling with the other young people, Alex thought the world had never seemed so beautiful, and felt he would never again be so free. After the long bath, the girls of Tapirawa-teri mixed vegetal paints of various colors and decorated all the members of the tribe, including babies, with intricate designs. In the meantime, the older males ground and mixed leaves and bark from different trees to obtain
yopo
, the magic powder used in their ceremonies.

CHAPTER TWELVE
Rites of Passage

THE CELEBRATION STARTED in the afternoon and lasted through the night. The Indians, painted from head to foot, sang, danced, and stuffed themselves with food. It was considered discourteous for a guest to refuse an offering of food or drink, so Alex and Nadia, imitating the others, filled their bellies until they had to throw up, which was thought to be evidence of very good manners. The village children ran around with large butterflies and phosphorescent beetles tied to their fingers with long hairs. The women, adorned with fireflies and orchids, and with feathers in their ears and long picks through their lips, began the festivities by dividing into two facing groups to engage in a friendly singing competition. Then they invited the men to join in a dance inspired by the displays animals made at mating time, during the rainy season. Finally the men took the forefront, first dancing in a circle, imitating monkeys, jaguars, and caimans, then offering a demonstration of strength and skill, shaking their weapons and making flamboyant leaps. Nadia's and Alex's heads were whirling; they were dizzied by the spectacle—the
tam-tam
of the drums, the songs, the cries, and the noises of the jungle around them.