strength enough to sit up. Ants crawled over my body and I didnât brush them off. When one came close to my mouth I swallowed it, and that was my only food. Between dreams I heard the little parrot calling me: âTasurinchi! Tasurinchi!â Half asleep, half awake, and always cold, so cold. I felt great sadness perhaps.
Then some men appeared. I saw their faces above me, leaning over to look at me. One pushed me with his foot and I couldnât speak to him. They werenât men who walk. They werenât Mashcos either, happily. Ashaninkas, I think they were, because I could understand some of what they said. They stood there looking at me, asking me questions I didnât have the strength to answer, even though I heard them, far away. They seemed to be having an argument as to whether I was a kamagarini or not. And also about what it was best to do if you met up with a little devil in the forest. They argued and argued. One said it would bring evil on them to have seen someone like me on their path and the prudent thing to do was to kill me. They couldnât agree. They talked it over and thought for a long time. Luckily for me, they finally decided to treat me well. They left me some cassavas, and seeing I hadnât strength enough to pick them up, one of them put a bit in my mouth. It wasnât poison; it was cassava. They put the rest in a plantain leaf and placed it in this hand. Maybe I dreamed it all. I donât know. But later, when I felt better and my strength came back, there were the cassavas. I ate them, and the little parrot ate, too. Now I could continue my journey. I walked slowly, stopping every so often to rest.
When I arrived at the place by the river Cashiriari where Tasurinchi, the blind one, lives, I told him what had happened to me. He breathed smoke on me and prepared a tobacco brew. âWhat happened to you was that your soul divided itself into many souls,â he explained to me. âThe evil entered your body because some machikanari sent it or because, quite by accident, you crossed its path. The body is merely the soulâs cushma. Its wrapping, like a wormâs. Once the evil had gotten inside, your soul tried to defend itself. It ceased to be one and became many so as to confuse the evil, which stole the ones it could. One, two, several. It canât have taken many or youâd have gone altogether. It was a good thing to bathe in tohé water and breathe its steam, but you should have done something more cunning. Rubbed the top of your head with annatto dye till it was red all over. Then the evil couldnât have gotten out of your body with its load of souls. Thatâs where it gets out, thatâs its door. The annatto blocks its path. Feeling itself a prisoner inside, it loses its strength and dies. Itâs the same with bodies as with houses. Donât devils who enter houses steal souls by escaping through the crown of the roof? Why do we weave the slats in the top of the roof so carefully? So the devil canât escape, taking the souls of those who are asleep along with him. Itâs the same with the body. You felt weak because of the souls youâd lost. But theyâve already come back to you and thatâs why youâre here. They must have escaped from Kientibakori, taking advantage of his kamagarinisâ carelessness, and come back looking for youâarenât you their home?âand found you there in the same place, gasping, dying. They entered your body and you were born again. Now, inside of you, all the souls are back together again. Now theyâre just one soul again.â
That, anyway, is what I have learned.
Tasurinchi, the blind one, the one who lives by the Cashiriari, is well. Though he can see almost nothing most of the time, he can still work his fields. Heâs walking. He says he sees more in his trance now than before he went blind. What happened to him was a good thing, perhaps. He thinks so.
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