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again, not realizing he’d given himself away. A stream of green snot ran out his nostrils. He went on talking as though nothing had happened—the way I’m talking right now. He was surprised, no doubt, to see Tasurinchi running away, leaving him standing there with his words in his mouth. Those who had been men and were standing close by tried to stop Tasurinchi. “Don’t be scared, nothing’s going to happen to you,” they said, trying to deceive him. “He’s sneezing, that’s all. It doesn’t kill them. They’ve got their own medicine.” Tasurinchi got into his canoe, pretending: “Yes, all right. I’ve got to go home, but I’ll be back, wait for me.” His teeth were still chattering, it seems. They’re devils, he thought. I’m going to die today, perhaps.
    As soon as he reached the other side of the river, he gathered the women and children together: “Evil has come. We are surrounded by kamagarinis,” he told them. “We must go far away. Let us go. It may not be too late. We may still be able to walk.” That’s what they did, and now they are living in this gorge, deep in the forest, a long way from the Yavero. According to him the Viracochas won’t come that far. Nor the Mashcos either; even they couldn’t get used to a place like this. “Only we men who walk can live in places like this,” he said with pride. He was pleased to see me. “I was afraid you’d never come this far to visit me,” he said. The women, picking about in each other’s hair, kept saying: “We’re lucky we escaped. What would have become of our souls otherwise?” They, too, seemed pleased to see me. We ate and drank and talked for many moons. They didn’t want me to leave. “How can you go?” said Tasurinchi. “You’re not through talking yet. Keep on talking. You’ve a lot to tell me still.” If he’d had his way, I’d be there in the Yavero forest still, talking.
    He’s not finished building his house yet. But he’s already cleared the land, cut the poles and the palm fronds, and gathered bundles of straw for the roof. He had to fetch all this from farther down because where he is there aren’t any palm trees or straw. A young man who wants to marry one of his daughters is living nearby and helping Tasurinchi find a plot of ground higher up where he can plant cassava. It’s full of scorpions and they’re getting rid of them by blowing smoke down the holes of their hiding places. There are also many bats at night. They’ve already bitten one of the children who left the fireside in his sleep. He says that up there the bats go out to look for food even when it’s raining, something that’s never been seen anywhere else. The Yavero is country where the animals have different habits. “I’m still getting to know them,” Tasurinchi told me. “Life gets difficult when a person goes to live somewhere else,” I said. “So it does,” he said. “Luckily we know how to walk. Luckily we’ve been walking for such a long time. Luckily we’re always moving from one place to another. What would have become of us if we were the sort of people who never move! We’d have disappeared who knows where. That’s what happened to many in the days of the tree-bleeding. There are no words to express how fortunate we are.”
    â€œNext time you visit Tasurinchi, remind him that it’s the man who goes achoo! who’s a devil and not the woman who gives birth to dead children or wears many bright-colored necklaces,” Tasurinchi mocked, making the women laugh. And he told me this story that I’m going to tell you. It happened many moons ago, when the first White Fathers started turning up on this side of the Gran Pongo. They were already settled on the other side, farther up. They had houses in Koribeni and