by N. A. Nelson
His earlier words echo in my head. The whole thing was a mistake…a misunderstanding. I clutch my head. “She thought you were going to kill me?” I say in disbelief.
My father runs his fingers through his hair. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”
“I did not tell anyone. I was afraid you might find out. If I lost this second chance to pass the test, the spirits would not have given me another. After what happened with my paho, our family would have appeared cursed.”
I look away, knowing we would have been asked to leave the tribe. He had been protecting all of us.
His voice lowers as he continues explaining things to me. “When a Takunami is killed by his tribe, his soul is poisoned, which makes it unable to enter any plants or animals. It floats around forever without a home. Maroma put you in a suwata curara, to let the spirit of the river decide what should happen to you. She hoped that if you were to die, at least your spirit would be saved.
“When she returned to the village, she told everyone that you had been playing in the water and were dragged under by an anaconda. People believed her story because she was so upset, but I remembered the vision I had of you in the suwata curara and confronted her. She admitted the truth.” He looks away. “Three days later we found her…”
No! Like a newly released ball in a pinball machine, the word ricochets against every organ in my body. Bang—my stomach. Bang—my heart. Bang—my brain. By the time it gets to my tongue and I try to spit it out, he’s already started speaking again.
“…floating in the wash area. She had tied her hands and feet and thrown herself from a canoe.”
“But it wasn’t her fault!” I cry. “She didn’t know.”
“She did not know because I did not tell her.” From his eyelids to his knees, my father wears his guilt like a heavy stone cloak.
His words swirl around me as the mystery of my life unravels. Resentment built by my imagination wrestles with reality.
“So all this time, you’ve been waiting for me to turn thirteen so you could be considered a man?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. All this time I’ve been waiting for you to turn thirteen so you could be considered a man.”
“Why?”
“Three people died because of me, Tirio. First Paho because he ingested all the male spirits so I could be born, and then Maroma killed herself because I didn’t tell her the truth, and lastly Karara, after I lied about not finding her that day of my scent test.”
“Karara died?” I ask.
He nods. “For several moons after my father’s funeral, she snuck into the village at night and secretly visited Tukkita. Then one time, after she left his hut, Tukkita heard her scream mixed with the scream of a jaguar. We ran out to help her, but all we found on the trail were her footsteps and then the tracks of the cat.” He shakes his head. “She never visited Tukkita again.”
“I’m sorry,” I say softly.
He leans his elbows on his knees and stares me straight in the eye. “That’s why it’s so important that you’re here. You are the only one who lived, in spite of me. Yes, you needed to pass your soche seche tente before I could become a warrior, but for the past thirteen years, I’ve wanted nothing more than this moment—for you to be sitting in front of me, alive and strong.” He grabs my hands. “And you are strong, Tirio, stronger in ways I will never be.”
For the past seven years, those words ruled my life. I wanted to hear them. I needed to hear them. Now as I look at my father, I realize they’ve ruled his life too.
LUKA
27 Years, 72 Sunrises
The Amazon
The sun and the moon are the only company Tirio and I have as we catch up on forty years of living: thirteen years of his life, plus twenty-seven of mine.
He is a different boy from the one I carried out of the woods this morning. His eyes are clear and he barely stops for a breath as he tells me about soccer, Sara, and his friend Joey. He tears hungrily at the dried meat I give him and he laughs so loud that I jump when he speaks about an elder named Cal who cooks soup. I smile and nod, staring at the person Maroma and I created. My son.
He has stopped talking and I am about to ask how his leg feels when he suddenly asks me a question.
“When I was little, what did you think when you saw me, limping and hobbling around the village? Did you wish that another boy was your son?” He looks down at the ground and whispers, “Were you ashamed?”
I offer him some dried papaya. He takes it.
“I felt a lot of things: sadness that you had to be kept from the other children, anger at the Good Gods for punishing my family again, and helplessness because I couldn’t do anything. But no, Tirio, never, ever did I feel ashamed of you.”
Tirio finishes eating and I scoop some more water out of the barrel and pour it into his cup.
“I was worried at first,” I admit. “Like Maroma, I was nervous about what the tribe might want to do with you.”
“That they might want me dead?”
“Most sick babies are killed soon after they are born.”
“So why wasn’t I?”
“You were born under a lucky moon, Tirio. She was full the night you came into this world. Maroma held on to you long enough to make it so, and I believe the two of them watched over you. Your two mothers—the moon and Maroma—protected you.”
At first Tirio doesn’t say anything, but his face looks sad. I quickly continue.
“When Maroma could do nothing more for you, she passed you on to another female spirit—the river. You should have died, but the river took you in as her child also. She rocked, cradled, and protected you from even the worst of herself. So, really, you have three mothers.”
So many emotions cross Tirio’s face, and I pause to let him sort things through. When he finally speaks, it is almost a whisper: “And when the Amazon couldn’t do anything more, she passed me on to Sara.”
Silently, I nod. “Yes…four mothers.” I think about my own maha living only a few huts away. We have not spoken in many sunrises. “As I said…you are lucky.”
“I used to think you could only have one,” my son says softly. “I didn’t want to replace Maha.”
“She would have been happy to know someone was taking care of you,” I tell him.
He lifts his leg up carefully and leans back in my hammock. “When I was out in the jungle, I heard a woman singing. I was hoping it was her,” he admits.
I bow my head. “I’m sorry, Tirio. Only shaman spirits can be heard by the living.”
“Then who was it? It was the first afternoon, and she kept singing ‘Come this way. Do not be afraid. Open your eyes and come this way.’”
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head.
“And then later the female jaguar seemed to be singing the same song.”
I freeze as the pieces click into place: the story I told Sulali about Karara and the Punhana, my sister with her head thrown back wailing at Paho’s funeral, the jaguar helping Tirio.
I put down my cup and rise to my feet. “I have to go.”
My son’s eyes flicker nervously around the hut.
“You will be safe,” I assure him. “I won’t be long.”
As I race to the garden, I know she will be there. Just as she was the night before I was supposed to take my soche seche tente. I go to the spot where Maha and I left her crying on the ground.
“Karara?” I speak in the darkness.
The night animals quiet and we wait for her response together.
She is here. I can feel her.
“I am sorry.” My words slice the night air.
She is behind me, but I do not face her. Not yet.
“It was my fault,” I add.
Hearing the rustling of leaves, I turn. She steps into the glow of the moonlight and, even though she is my sister, I dare not get closer. Her neck is bleeding and her eyes are tired.
“He made it,” I tell her.
I can almost see her smile.
“Thank you, Karara.”
She blinks.
“Thank you for bringing the boy home.”
Neither of us moves. We stare at each other in silence.
Finally she looks past me toward the village. Go to him, the look says. Go.
I nod and start toward the path. When I glance back, the moonlight illuminates an empty clearing.
The jaguar is gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TIRIO
13 Years, 1 Sunrise
The Amazon
I fell sound asleep as soon as my father left. The last thing I remember is swinging my uninjured leg out of the hammock and listening to the hushed sounds of the village getting ready for bed. An anaconda could have slithered into the hut and swallowed me whole and I wouldn’t have realized until I woke up in its belly the next morning.
“Drink,” Paho says when I finally open my eyes. He helps me into a sitting position and hands me some tea. “For your leg.”
I take a sip and cringe at the bitterness. My father hands me some honey. “You can escape from a hungry jaguar yet you cannot drink tea without honey?” he teases.
I hear the clanging of pots outside and two women talking. I think of Sara and my heart sinks. I’m sure she’s still looking for me. She won’t stop until they find me…or my body. “How long did I sleep?”
“The sun is now midsky.”
I do the math in my head. I’ve been gone three and a half days. She must be crazy with worry.
Glancing down at my leg, I see it’s been bandaged with a po-no leaf and crisscrossed with vines. I look like I’m wearing Roman gladiator boots.
“Sulali covered it while you were asleep. To keep the flies off,” my father explains. He nods behind me. “She figured you might try to walk today.”
Leaning up on my elbow, I turn around. A wide-eyed young woman, not much older than me, steps hesitantly into view. Gliding over, she kisses me on the forehead, a traditional greeting for nonmarried family members. A single long braid of hair falls over her shoulder as she leans down. She pulls it carefully out of the way. “Congratulations on becoming a warrior,” she says in a soft voice.
“I don’t feel like much of a warrior right now,” I laugh. “But shu-u-we. Thank you. And thank you for what you did.” I motion to my injury. “My father told me that you’re really good with helping sick people.”
The reed door is pushed open roughly and we all jump in surprise. I stare at the serious-looking man who stomps into the room. His eyelids are rimmed in red and his fists clench and unclench at his sides until he hides them behind his back. I look to my father, but he doesn’t seem worried, so I relax.
“It is good to have you back,” the man says. He looks familiar. Why?
“Tirio, this is our shaman, Kiwano,” Paho says. “He took over after Tukkita died.”
Kiwano! The name registers in my head. That’s why I recognize him. He was the only other Takunami boy who did not climb trees besides me, when I was younger. Maha had whispered that it was because he had seen the Punhana when he was in a tree, and after that he refused to ever go up a tree again.
I stare at him now, shocked at how old he looks. Older than my father, yet I know he is much younger.
He shifts his gaze away from my surprised face and speaks to the wall. “The tribe has been told of your journey,” he explains, “and they would like to hold a celebration in your honor—and Luka’s as well. A double soche seche tente celebration.”
I grin, and so does my paho. When we look at each other we both start laughing.
Kiwano shakes his head and strides toward the door. “Tonight, the feast of the warriors. We will welcome you into the tribe as the men you have proven yourselves to be.” He grunts and leaves.
We immediately start preparing. Sulali brings us some gi-gi berries, and my father and I paint each other’s faces red. I have dreamed of wearing this mask many times, and now it is finally happening. My smiling face does not match that of a ferocious warrior, but I don’t care. I couldn’t hide my excitement with the dye from a million gi-gi berries.
I ask for another po-no leaf and attempt to decorate my right leg so that it matches my left. After watching my struggles, Sulali sighs and pushes me gently aside. She rolls her braid up into a bun and skillfully mimics the look exactly, then does the same for my father when he asks.
“I like it,” he says, strutting around the hut.
I give him the thumbs-up and then have to explain what it means.
He hands me some white feathers from the ikulu bird and we use rioba sap to attach them to our hair. This tradition is a show of respect for the Good Gods, thanking them for allowing us make it to this point in our journey of life. It’s also a request for continued protection in our new roles as warriors. The white feathers are the most important decoration of all and I add extra, hoping to show that I realize how much the Good Gods helped me.
Takunami males are born three times: once out of their mahas’ bodies into the world, once out of their boyhood bodies into manhood, and once out of their physical bodies into the spirit world. We enter each phase as we entered the first one—naked. As I strip down now to my skin, I truly feel as though I’m shedding everything from my past and starting new.
Bam, bam, bam, bam. Pause. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Pause. Bam.
The beating of the drums calls us out. Trying not to lean too heavily against my paho, I limp down the path and into the circle of women and children. A young boy touches the back of my leg and I jump. His mother slaps his hand and hisses a warning. I grit my teeth in pain but manage a smile, and they both quickly lower their eyes.
Kiwano waits for us by the fire, and after we take our seats on two carved stools in the center, I scan the circle of brown eyes staring at me. The women look at me with respect and the children with awe. I lift my chin and clench my jaw. For the first time, I see myself as everyone else does—as a Takunami man. Kiwano pounds his staff and lets out a long, low wail. The women begin yipping and yapping and the men sneak in on tiptoes from the shadows. In twos they run toward us. As soon as their feet enter the circle, they begin dancing as if their souls are on fire and the only way to stamp it out is through their feet. Although I am able to maintain the stern face of the warrior, inside a little part of me is yipping, yapping, screaming, singing, and dancing too.
While Kiwano is placing the strings of black warrior beads around our necks, I see a woman in the circle duck her head and peer over her shoulder toward the forest. She is the only one not transfixed by what is going on in front of her.
A feast is served, and Paho and I are honored with the best of everything. The most tender parts of the peccary, the coveted eggs of the torucha turtle, and the rare boquri fruit are all piled high on large, flat pieces of manioc bread and served to us by Vaku, the latest boy who became a warrior. It will be our responsibility to serve the next warrior.
I eat like a person who’s been out in the jungle for two days, shoving way too much food in my mouth and only stopping to blurt out shu-u-we to the line of people laying gifts of arrows, dye, and spears in front of us. The whole time, I continue to watch the woman closely.
After Vaku brings me my second helping, I pause and turn toward my father. “What is she looking for?” I ask him, nodding in the woman’s direction.
He puts down the bone he is gnawing on and motions toward the blackness of the forest.
“Her eldest son is out there.”
“He’s taking his soche seche tente right now?”
My father nods.
I stare at the woman. She hasn’t touched her food, yet every time she looks away, the old woman sitting next to her reaches out a gnarled hand and picks at it. I want to assure her that her son will be fine, that he will return alive. I want her to enjoy the ceremony, so I can too.
After the food, there is more celebrating and everyone is dancing: the women, the children, even the pet parrots bob
their heads to the drumbeats. I keep thinking about Sara.
I tap my father on the arm.
“I have to go,” I say.
LUKA
27 Years, 73–74 Sunrises
The Amazon
I am not ready to lose Tirio again so quickly.
“What about your leg?” I ask, motioning to his wound. “You cannot walk like that.”
“Can I take one of your canoes?” he asks. “Just to get me back to my boat?”
I remember the night Tukkita and I consulted the Good Gods, the night I saw the vision of a six-year-old Tirio alone in a suwata curara being pulled away from me by the river. It is not something I want to experience again.
“One man cannot make it paddling against the current. I will go with you.”
He grabs my arm. “No, Paho. The Takunami are a secret and they must remain that way,” he says. “I just need you to help me get to my boat. It has a motor.”
Motor? I do not know the word.
He shakes his head and laughs. “It’s not important. But just know I’ll be fine.”
A group of children circle us and start singing a song.
“Shu-u-we.” Tirio smiles and claps when they finish. Giggling and pushing, they scatter away.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t want to leave all this. There is still so much I need to do: go hunting and fishing with you, move into the men’s rohacas together…” He turns toward the worried mother still staring out into the darkness. “I want to stay and see her son stumble into the village, exhausted but successful in a couple of days and be the one to serve him his celebratory meal.” He pauses. “But I can’t.”
His eyes look into mine, and I can see by the crease between them that he’s not asking for approval. He’s asking for understanding.
I nod, and with my next words I hope I give him both. “You are a man now,” I say. “You must take care of your family.”
The lines on his face relax. “Shu-u-we, Paho.”
“We can leave with the sunrise.” I hand him a cup of fustitu. “Now let’s return to celebrating your success.”