by Nahum Megged
I continued to walk down the wide footpath. The trees closed their branches around it, and I felt as if I were in a tunnel. A short time later, I exited the tunnel into an open space. It wasn’t a forest that was now before me, but a plain, a savannah, that contradicted all my geographical knowledge, negating everything I knew about the region, contrary to any possible reality. I feared it had been the doing of the white people, who had managed to reach all the way out there in order to rob the treasures of the jungle and had left nothing but scorched earth in their wake, as they always do. It wasn’t possible that such a wide-open plain would be situated so close to the territory of the tribes. The forest people would have discovered it long ago. And besides, I had only been walking for a few hours. Could invaders have wiped out the forest without my knowledge?
A few tall mountaintops appeared in the far distance, mesas, and it seemed to me there were paths hidden in the grass, leading to them. A swishing caught my ear. I knew the source of the sound, and it made me freeze in my tracks. A rattlesnake slithered past to me. It continued on its way and disappeared in the grass. Had it bitten me, I would have remained in the grass forever.
The sun shone from the west. Walking in the jungle at night is not a good idea. I decided to return to the camp instead of continuing to the mesas. It was relatively easy for me to find the tunnel of vegetation that had opened into the plain. The trail wound its way like the coils of a snake inside the forest. I couldn’t locate the remains of the village I had found on my way out, but I did find the remains of other villages like it. This time I didn’t stop to examine the ruins. I had only one objective: to return to the settlement before dark. I could not retrace the trail that I had taken, but just before nightfall I found a familiar trail to the ruined village. It was hard to believe that the edge of that endless forest was so close to the camp, as well as places miraculously unharmed by the storm, while the village that had become my home was now the graveyard of men and hopes.
I was greeted by darkness. The villagers were still busy cleaning the camp and building temporary huts. I looked at the huts intended to give shelter for a few hours, and they reminded me of the remains of the huts I had found on my way. I went to Xnen, who was supervising the work.
“Marikitare,” I said, “what kind of huts are you building?” He looked at me as if deliberating if my question was worthy of an answer.
After a time, he said in a voice turned hoarse, “These are the huts one normally builds while on a pilgrimage to Omauha’s mountain. It is a long road and therefore such villages are erected on the border of the kingdom of Minare, the goddess whose hair is the landscape of trees. In each such village grows a tree that climbs to the skies and crawls on the earth. Through that tree, the dead rise to the heavens and the spirits descend into the ground. It is Minare’s sacred tree.”
“Marikitare,” I said, “today, when I walked out of the village, I saw such a road, leading to Omauha’s mountain…it is very close, and when I walked down it, I passed places that hadn’t been harmed by the storm. We could build the new village in one of those clearings. A camp that would serve as our dwelling place until the gods take mercy on us, speak to us, and command us where to go.”
Xnen looked at me angrily. “The place you visited is not suitable for the tribe to dwell in. It is even forbidden to the animals of the forest. Only the Sekura live there. The pathways you have taken are used only during special times, on the way to the mountain, when the terror of the Sekura is upon us. We will have to wait here until the area we are allowed to be in dries out, then we will think about where we should build our homes.”
“Marikitare,” I dared to ask, “since my arrival, has another man, a Nave such as me, come here? A tall man whose white beard stands out between Minare’s green hairs? I sometimes think he still lives among us, in the village, hidden only from my eyes. It could be that, during his travels, he left the stick that was placed in the round hut and other objects that are being used during rituals. Could it be that this man is living only in my imagination, because of the marake poison?”
Xnen smiled. “You want to know that which you think you already know. There are prohibitions that apply to both you and me: I mustn’t tell, and you mustn’t ask. I believe one day, when we go together to Omauha, the things you ask about will be revealed to us. There are many things that we cannot see, but the gods do, and therefore they exist. There are many voices we do not hear, but those that issue them can hear us and therefore exist. Even the spirits leave footprints, and only under the sway of vihu or yage can we see them. And sometimes the yage gets inside us without having been consumed — maybe that is what has happened to you.
“Omauha has many and mysterious ways, and Minare has her secret ways too. But secret ways aren’t only the privilege of gods and spirits. Every man and animal has his own efakuhe, his own shadow, and the shadow also has a shadow… and when we turn into a shadow we can see the shadow, and sometimes the shadow sees us without our knowledge. You have asked many questions, and I don’t have even a single answer to give, but you will find the answer, because you have already found the question. You have found the roads where the storm does not rage, you have found the forest without a forest. Without any help, you have found the place where Minare’s hair turns yellow… Now go to your hut, a difficult day awaits us tomorrow.”
5
Marina
With the first light of dawn, the preparations for the great fire began. I saw nine bonfires. Unless some of them were symbolic, it meant the number of dead had risen over the past day, and one of every ten of the villagers had died. Yakura sat next to her hut and prepared ropes from the bark of a vine. I thought maybe Xnen had decided to migrate after all, and the villagers needed ropes to tie up their bundles. When I went to her, Yakura raised her eyes but did not smile at me like she normally did. I could see only the sadness of old age in that youthful, tortured face.
“What do you know that I don’t?” I asked.
She nodded as if she had no time for idle talk. I sat quietly some distance from her and looked at the vine bark transformed to ropes in her hands. I was hoping the style and length of the ropes would give me a hint to their purpose. A few moments later, it came to me that they might be intended to tie the bodies of the dead to the wood about to be set on fire.
I could hear voices from afar, and the tribespeople raised their heads like animals sensing danger. They were the voices of human beings, but they sounded like a pack of wild animals on the prowl. What were the attackers hoping to accomplish? The storm had destroyed everything worth taking. Like a rattlesnake sounding its rattles, they announced their arrival because they did not really intend to attack.
Quickly, the warriors began to paint their bodies. From a hiding place under the ruins, the gray vihu powder was brought up. Where had they kept it? Long bamboo reeds flowed with the smoke Xnen would use to get into the nameless worlds to seek assistance and forgiveness. The voices drew nearer, and as they did the cries became clearer and more threatening. The tribe’s warriors had also begun to scream battle cries, to try to intimidate the nameless attackers.
Yakura continued to weave her ropes as if the commotion in the village did not concern her. I looked at her tormented face again and suddenly realized it wasn’t only the troubles of the tribe that drew her further away from me. She was traveling somewhere far, and only her body still resided in the miserable clearing that the flood had strewn with so many dead. When the agonies are too great, sometimes there is no choice but to travel across the horizon.
The first invader to make himself seen was a figure painted from head to toe in black and red, with yellow stripes all across his body. His head was covered by an impressively large mask, with protruding horns and a yellow beard made of threads poking beneath its gaping mouth. I had never seen such a mask in the forest. Behind the leader, who was holding a spear, more masks appeared. There were no women among the inv
aders. They all looked like warriors who had just sniffed the sun seed or smoked ceremonial tobacco.
I watched the first masked man as he began to move toward the warriors surrounding Xnen. He walked with his legs slightly parted, and guttural sounds emerged from his mouth, as if he were possessed by a jungle cat. The camp warriors, whose responsibility it was to repel him, were dumbfounded and cleared a way so he could pass. He stepped between the rows of warriors. From among the trees came the last of the masked men who followed him. I counted about sixty men.
He crossed the circle of warriors and continued to walk toward Yakura’s hut. She sat there, weaving her ropes as if nothing were happening. I sat beside her and looked at her. Next, my eyes moved to the masked strangers then to the villagers, whose behavior was peculiar: Instead of responding to the threat, they stood there motionless, almost paralyzed. And then he was beside us, the stranger, the leader of the masked men. He ignored me as if unaware of my existence and went directly to Yakura. He held her naked shoulder, his eyes behind the mask examining her perfect body. A whispered murmur spread through the villagers. Xnen, as paralyzed as his warriors until then, suddenly emitted a low, almost inaudible sound, barely a whisper.
A few of the other masked men began to move and got closer to the women of the camp. Now the explanation for the invaders’ visit had become clear to me: It was a group of young men who had just completed their initiation ceremony. They must have come from an especially large settlement, since they numbered more than sixty, and now they intended to rape the few tribeswomen or take them to their hiding places. What if they intended to establish a new village in which the captured women would be their slaves and bear their children?
A Yarkiti warrior tried to stop one of the intruders, likely defending his wife or sister. A spear was immediately stuck in his chest, and he was thrown to the ground. He died so quickly that I guessed the invaders’ spears and arrows, and even the machetes they had received from the Nave, were smeared with curare.
I don’t know where I drew the strength for what I did next. It could have been the terror inside me. Or I only found the strength because they threatened to take Yakura away from me. I resolutely stood up, grabbed the leader’s hand and pushed him far from Yakura. The young man stumbled and fell. My intervention seemed to awaken the young woman from her stupor. There was a flurry of angry shouts from the invaders and enthusiastic cries from the villagers. The young man sprang to his feet and looked at me. We faced each other, an empty-handed white man past his prime, and the leader of a gang of young men from an unfamiliar tribe, holding a spear smeared with curare.
The young warrior raised his weapon and directed it at my temple. The paralyzed Xnen was somehow able to utter a clear sound. It may have been a cry for help or the howl of a frightened animal. In my mind’s eye, I could already see my body placed on the fire and my adoptive family members eating banana paste mixed with my ashes. Still, I did not back down. Faced with an angry gaze from behind the mask, I summoned my most severe look. I placed my hand in my pocket and brought out the lighter in the hope that the young warrior had not yet encountered the miracle of fire ignited by itself.
He looked at me calmly. For a moment, I thought the lighter actually amused him, as he seemed to say: We’ve seen such magic already. I reached inside my pocket and felt the bottle of alcohol I used to disinfect the marake bites. I brought out the bottle, poured the liquid on my hand, and brought the lighter’s flame close to it. My hand immediately became a flaming torch. This time, the attacker’s attitude changed. I looked straight at him and moved closer, my flaming hand raised up. Drops of fire fell from my hand, and it seemed as if I were walking inside the blue flames. The warrior recoiled and lowered his spear for a second. I took advantage of that brief pause and touched his mask with my flaming hand. The mask caught fire. The young man hurled the spear with a heavy hand, without aiming at me, and began to slap at his own face to extinguish the flames. Finally, he was able to remove the burning mask, and it fell to the earth.
The threat fell away along with the mask. A fifteen-year-old boy now stood in front of me with a pleading expression on his face. The rest of the foreign warriors retreated behind the trees and soon their quiet retreat turned into a panicked flight. I touched the dry leaf clothes of the youth, and his body quickly became a walking bonfire. He rolled on the ground, yelling. I struck my hand against the moist earth and extinguished the living torch. Only a few burn marks could be seen on my hand. The battle was over. We had suffered one death in our camp, and we now held a captive child from the enemy’s camp. Was he the leader of the group or had the real leader yet to reveal himself?
Yakura emerged from the world in which she had earlier been lost. She came to me and held my hand to examine the marks the fire had left on it.
“If I had hair on the palm of my hand,” I told her, “then I would have caught on fire, and things would have turned out differently.”
The youth immediately accepted his new position as a captive and a slave and lowered his head as if waiting to be flogged. Xnen came to me and asked if they could continue with the burning ceremony that had been interrupted by the invasion. I realized, following his temporary paralysis and my unexpected action, the rules in the village had changed and I had become a temporary leader. I nodded and added that a tenth bonfire must be prepared because there was no end to the tribe’s torments.
While everyone was busy drying wood with the help of the fire that had already been lit, I sat next to Xnen. He knew I hadn’t acted with a magician’s power. It was safe to assume he had seen such tricks more than once and wasn’t especially impressed by them. The invaders had been afraid because they were young and inexperienced. They still had a long way to go and a lot to learn.
“Are you sad, Marikitare?” I asked in a whisper.
“Yes, I’m sad. The ways of the gods are mysterious, and lately I’m able to understand them less and less. The great knowledge has been taken away from me.” He took a deep breath and added, “I saw what you did. It reminded me of a story about another Nave, who pulled all his teeth out, then placed them back in his mouth. Everyone shouted that great magic had been performed, and the Nave laughed. There are many things the Nave know how to do, but I know their power does not come from the gods.
“But you saw what happened today. This is the Yarkiti’s migration area. No other tribe has ever dared to trespass here, certainly not to attack us. Yet today, an entire company of youths from downriver, belonging to the Mashko tribe, invaded our territory and threatened to steal our women. This has never happened before. The Yarkiti warrior has always had the reputation of being fearless. Everyone knows we are fierce warriors. And you—” Xnen took another deep breath “—you saw what panic had overtaken our camp. In other circumstances, we would go after the stragglers and not allow them to go back to their village, especially after they had killed one of us! What will they tell their tribespeople now? They will tell everyone that the Yarkiti are afraid, that the Yarkiti were saved only by an etuko, a sorcerer, an evil shaman, who is a Nave just like all the other sons of darkness. They will tell them the Yarkiti must not be attacked only so long as the etuko is with them, but there is nothing to fear from them on their own!”
“Why do you think your warriors were so afraid?” I asked. “And why were you silent, Marikitare, as if you disbelieved your eyes and were lost in other worlds?”
“I do not know what happened to me. I was shocked by the disaster of the flood, and then there were the bonfires and the many dead and dying. I thought those were spirits that had suddenly taken human form. And I felt Omauha had forsaken us. When the warriors appeared, wearing masks I had never seen, I thought, without vihu or yage I rise to see what the gods have sent us, and they are sending evil spirits, and what can I possibly do against the gods? I saw the masked man going to Yakura, as if the evil spirit knew Yakura to be the virgin of the god that no man other than Oma
uha must come to, because she is a manifestation of Minare. He coveted our living goddess. By joining with her, he could have been transformed into Omauha, the great and invincible god! I didn’t know he was so young. When he walked toward Yakura, his clasped hands reminded me of the traces the ancient ones had left in the stone…”
Xnen’s eyes closed. I knew he was seeing a vision, because only the whites of his eyes were visible when he opened them. Without vihu or yage, even without tobacco, something was speaking to him and he listened.
A few moments later, Xnen rushed to the villagers, shouting loudly. The warriors, paralyzed with fear only a few minutes before, now crowded around him. Words flowed from his mouth and his eyes sparkled. Soon, all the spears and arrows placed in a curare pot were taken out. Even the weapons the attackers had left behind were picked up. Everyone painted their faces again. How rewarding was this action compared to the destitution of helplessness!
“We are heading out!” Xnen told me.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Downriver, to the Mashko village. That is where the attackers came from. We will teach them a lesson. Even after being struck by the storm, we still have enough strength remaining in us, and we will attack! We will take their women to be our slaves, and the survivors will tell the youths that dared to attack us what we have done!”
“Xnen,” I pleaded with him, “they have a large settlement. You saw how many young warriors went out to seek their destinies as adult members of their tribe. There are probably many, many more remaining in the camp! You won’t come back. You are going there to d—”
“We will come back!” Xnen interrupted me “You will see, and you will be surprised to discover what we can do after the god had struck us.”
“I will come with you,” I said, though I knew Xnen would refuse my offer.