LOST IN A SEA OF MEMORIES, Akhu studied his reflection in the still water of the pool. Much time had passed since Twanke had appointed him Shaman, yet his mind constantly drew him back to earlier days, remembering the wise teacher’s words. It seemed just yesterday, he was standing in this exact place, questioning all that was to come…
What is it Twanke sees in me that makes me worthy to be the old man’s successor as Shaman of the Yanoako?
A young Akhu looked up and saw a friend, a little older than himself, standing ankle-deep in the water a short distance away. He stood perfectly still, studying the water, his spear at the ready. A slight ripple of tensing muscles in his right shoulder the only hint of movement before he plunged his spear into the water.
Akhu recalled it had been only a few seasons since his friend endured his Marake test and entered manhood. Already he was gaining fame among the other men for his hunting and fishing skills.
Realizing Akhu was watching him, the man grinned and proudly held up a wiggling fish.
Akhu noted the man’s success with a nod, smiling when he remembered the shy glances his friend received from the young women whenever he passed one in the village.
Why choose me as Shaman rather than a man like my friend?
Still pondering the question, he turned and started walking toward the village, sure of only one thing. Whatever Twanke saw in him that made him worthy to be his successor, the pool did not reflect it.
Rustling leaves announced a sudden breeze that brought with it the memory of Twanke’s last words to him yesterday. “Akhu, only you beside me have journeyed into the Stone of Memory and seen the pale-skinned woman and only you has she called by name.”
Akhu was certain Twanke’s words supplied the answer to his nagging question. It wasn’t some physical trait such as his appearance or even a finely honed talent like hunting or fishing that qualified him to succeed Twanke. What the old man saw in him was an inner experience even the clearest, calmest pool could not reflect. Only he and the Shaman had made the terrifying journey and seen the woman and only him had she called by name.
“You must prepare yourself.” Those words spoken by Twanke as they returned from searching out healing plants still haunted Akhu.
As he reached the edge of the village, he could see ahead in the courtyard the yucca press used to make cassava bread. Beside it was a brightly painted canoe to hold the kasil.
Only a few sunrises now until the Garden Festival begins, Akhu realized. With the planting season over and prayers entreating Wanadi’s blessings on their labors offered, the joyous festival of singing, dancing, and feasting could begin.
Akhu felt a sudden chill when he though of the dreaded and mysterious rite proving manhood that would follow, one he knew must bring pain, and one for which Twanke had said he must prepare himself.
In a nearby tree, monkeys chattered angrily. He smiled at their cries of challenge to some intruder. Until now, he had been like one of them, ready to fight even a jaguar, foolishly believing he was ready for anything. Now as the dreaded Marake ritual loomed before him he was not so sure.
As he neared the longhouse, he saw a little girl trying to feed her pet parrot. Tethered by one leg to its perch, the creature pecked disagreeably each time she withdrew her hand to get another piece of banana. Suddenly, the child let out a howl of pain as the ill-tempered bird finally managed to sink its beak into her finger. The child’s mother came running as the parrot, amid a flurry of ruffled feathers and noisy squawks, retreated to the far side of its perch.
Learning can be painful, Akhu thought, remembering Twanke’s words concerning the Marake test.
Even the oldest in the tribe could not remember when the Marake ceremony had begun. They knew only it was the stack pole around which the men built their lives.
He glanced again across the courtyard. Except for the parrot, now asleep on its perch, it was empty. Only days before, women filled it, some busily weaving kunana baskets while others fashioned feather ornaments and prepared the paints the men used to decorate their bodies for the Garden Festival.
Akhu, like the other boys, approached his Marake with mixed feelings. There was joy in knowing that when the rite was over he would earn the right to hunt with the men, adorn his body with the sacred signs, and take part in village ceremonials instead of doing women’s work in the garden. However, fear of what awaited him in the Place of Meeting or that he would disappoint Twanke by proving himself weak, haunted him.
Several sun risings later dawn brought the mournful sound of wamehiye bark horns announcing the beginning of the Garden Festival. The men of the village marched solemnly down the path from the communal garden singing an invocation to the spirits of the forest.
“Come, oh spirits of river, rocks, and trees, guard the labor of our hands,” they chanted.
Then he and the other boys chosen to experience their rite of passage into manhood watched as, Elders first, then the other men, began the festival by dipping their gourd cups repeatedly into the canoe filled with kasil. Akhu marveled at its power to put songs on their lips and free their bodies to dance.
Twanke explained to him kasil’s true purpose. Drinking the brew not only inspired dancing and singing, but brought forgetfulness. This magic liquid helped the Yanoako forget the outsiders’ broken promises, the devouring of their hunting lands, and the deaths of loved ones at their hands. When they drank it, they forgot for a little while that the outsiders and their greed were destroying their beloved forest and driving them closer and closer to the border of the taboo land.
A sudden breeze stirred the dust in the courtyard into whirling plumes in which Akhu imagined he saw the dancing figures of long-dead Elders.
“I see them too my son,” Twanke joined him and laid a quivering hand on Akhu’s shoulder.
“Soon I will join them,” Twanke reminded him again.
In campfire talks with the boys, Twanke had reflected several times how quickly the seasons of his life were passing. However, today he spoke of his death as being at hand. Though his teacher’s announcement saddened him, there was comfort in the feel of Twanke’s hand on his – confirmation they had just shared a common vision and now were joined at the heart by a bond even death could not break.
The Garden Festival with its dancing and singing soon ended and the villagers became strangely quiet. Women gathered up their little ones and retreated to the long house. Then, as if answering a silent summons, Akhu watched as the men filed into the Place of Meeting.
The Place of Meeting stood apart from the rest of the village, its mysteries unknown to all but the men. All Akhu knew was that it was there the Shaman led the men in the sacred ceremonies. When sickness came to the village, the soil of their garden died, or game became scarce, it was there Wanadi spoke to the Shaman, giving him wisdom and guidance. It was there that Wanadi revealed to him the time had come for the people to collect their families, burn their village, and begin another “time walk,” taking the tribe back to a time the forest was untouched by the outsiders and all was as it was in the beginning.
Though numbed by fear and dread of what awaited inside, Akhu allowed an Elder to lead him into the Place of Meeting for his passage into manhood.
Entering, he saw a small fire in the middle of the hut waging a losing battle against the darkness pressing in about it. From somewhere in the shadows, Twanke started speaking.
“You are here to prove yourself a man,” he said solemnly. “Suffer the pain in silence, my son. Cry out, and you will be fit only for women’s work.”
Akhu could almost taste his fear as an Elder stepped from the darkness and stirred the coals into flame just as another joined him and placed a clay pot at Akhu’s feet.
Twanke stepped into the firelight and approached Akhu carrying a kunana. He had seen a woman weaving one before each Garden Festival, but she was silent about its purpose.
Twanke took the kunana and laid it beside the clay pot as another Elder came with a gourd cup,and after kneeling scooped what looked like dirt from the pot into the bowl-shaped kunana. Twanke then took it and quickly pressed its mouth against Akhu’s chest.
“Remember, do not cry out,” Twanke commanded as he tied it there with narrow strips of hide.
Akhu felt ashamed because he trembled, but in only moments, his shame dissolved under a wave of pure terror.
Ants! Not dirt, but ants had been poured into the kunana. Panic gripped him. Experience in the forest told him they would attack with fury anyone unfortunate enough to stumble into one of their hills. He felt hundreds of the stinging creatures scurry across his naked chest. In a moment, they will impale my flesh with their stingers. The pain will be unbearable.
“Remain silent,” Twanke said, his eyes searching for any hint of fear on Akhu’s face. “Pain will brand the story I tell you on your memory.”
As suddenly as they started, the ants stopped moving. Akhu imagined them poised, their quivering stingers raised to strike.
As if released by his thought, they did. A single-minded army of the venomous little messengers of pain barbed his flesh on their wicked stingers. His chest exploded. Gasping, he gulped a breath of stagnant air and held it until he felt his lungs would burst.
The pain spread, winding its fiery threads around his body, wrapping him in a cocoon of absolute misery.
Just when he thought the dam holding back his scream would burst, he heard Twanke’s voice again. He felt lifted by his words out of his body of agony when, for the first time, he heard the sacred story of the man and woman and the forbidden land.
In a time long ago, a time when Wanadi still spoke to all his children, a man and woman journeyed into the forest. They walked for many days until they came to a place where the trail turned back toward the great river.
Ahead lay the taboo land, the place Shi, the god above all gods, said no Yanoako could go. But the man was deaf to Shi’s words and said to the woman, “Let us go on. Perhaps in the forbidden country, we will discover the secret of our beginning.”
Soon, the man and woman came to a tree whose branches seemed to reach to heaven. They were tired from their journey, so the man said, “Listen. The tree frogs say night is coming. Let us lie down and sleep beneath this great tree until morning.”
The woman agreed, so they lay down on the soft moss and were soon asleep. When they awoke, it was still dark. Because they had broken the taboo, they feared the sun might never shine again, so they called for Mado to come and lead them back to their village.
When he came, the man said, “Mado, we have entered the forbidden country, and the sun will not shine. In the darkness, we cannot find the trail leading back to our village. We fear the demon Yoluk hides among the trees and waits to steal our souls. Along the trail, the fer-de-lance or bushmaster may lie coiled to strike us as we pass. Please lead us back safely.”
“Why should I?” Mado replied. “It is true you have broken the taboo, but see? Nothing has happened. Now that you are rested, let me lead you on to the place of your beginning.”
The Shaman paused and Akhu shut his eyes for fear they might reveal his pain, but quickly opened them in relief as Twanke untied the kunana. He knelt and scooped more ants into the basket, then retied it, but this time to Akhu’s back.
Again, he felt the tickling of scurrying feet, a pause, then burning pain that forced his attention back to Twanke’s story.
Mado finally agreed to lead them back to their village, but on the way, he reminded them of all they had missed. “Too bad,” he purred as he turned to leave them at the jungle’s edge. “You were so close to finding the answers to your questions. So close…so close…” His voice lingered on a gentle breeze as he melted into the jungle.
The Elders met the man and woman as they came out of the forest. “Where have you been?”
“Why were you gone so long?”
“Were you lost?”
“Have you been hurt?”
“Look at me,” the Shaman finally ordered. At this command, the Elders grew silent.
The man and woman raised their eyes, but quickly dropped them under his piercing stare.
“Children, have you broken the taboo?” he asked.
The fear the Shaman saw written on their faces answered his question.
“Father, we only wanted to visit the land of our beginning,” the man stuttered. “Like you, when you journey into the stone—”
“Mado said he would lead us there,” the woman interrupted.
At the mention Mado offered to lead them, the Elders tried to speak at once. “She blasphemes Wanadi!” they screamed, as they jerked the couple to their feet and pushed them toward the village. “These taboo breakers must die!”
The movement under the kunana tied to Akhu’s back had stopped, the ants quivers of stinging arrows emptied. Only a constant throbbing remained to remind him of their attack on his flesh.
Even though his eyes were closed against the pain, Akhu sensed Twanke had drawn close when he felt his warm breath on his face.
“You have done well, my son,” he whispered. “Your test is almost over. Now listen to the rest of the story.”
Under Yanoako law, the Elders could give only one sentence for breaking this taboo…death. However, there was another law that decreed no Yanoako could shed another’s blood except for revenge or in battle. Therefore, the Elders decreed Wanadi’s Damodedes would receive them for judgment.
The Damodedes or spirit beings live within the fiery coils of the eels in pools of stagnant backwater and are Wanadi’s agents of judgment on those who break his laws.
On the night the man and woman were judged by Wanadi’s Damodedes, the Shaman, driven by a burning need to understand, questioned them one last time. “I ask you and you must answer,” he said. “If you speak the truth, perhaps Wanadi will forgive you and protect you on your journey to the world of spirits. What did you see at the border of the forbidden land?”
The firelight washed over the Shaman’s face as he leaned closer to hear the condemned man’s words.
“We saw a great tree reaching to heaven,” the man said, looking directly at the Shaman. “We were tired, so we lay down and slept under its branches.”
“And?” The Shaman leaned still closer.
“I…we…dreamed,” the man stammered.
“What did you dream, my children?” He turned from the man and for a moment looked at the woman, who was staring with dead eyes into the fire.
“We both dreamed the same dream,” the condemned man finally said. “Night had fallen, and we stood on a trail beside what I thought was another great tree. Only it wasn’t a tree at all, but a finger of stone, taller than the tallest tree, and across the trail from it, we saw its twin.
“Beyond the stones, a treeless land stretched to the horizon that glowed with hidden fire. I looked at the stone and in the dim light saw strange markings cut into its side.”
The man paused in the telling of his story, as one might before leaping into a dark river.
“Mado was in our dream,” he said, his voice quivering. “He told us we should follow him beyond the horizon.”
“It is time to enter the taboo land,” Mado said. “Wanadi wills it.”
“And did you follow?” The Shaman leaned closer to the man and again looked into his eyes as if searching for the truth behind his words.
“No, Father,” the man replied, “the woman would not let us.”
“Woman? What woman?” The Shaman could not hide his surprise. He reached out and touched the head of the man’s companion lightly. “Do you mean this woman?”
“No, Father, it was another—a beautiful woman with skin white like the clouds of the dry season. It was she who spoke to us.”
“And what did she say?” The Shaman’s voice shook with excitement.
“She said we must go no farther until she comes, that the god above all gods would someday send her to us with his message.”
“And?”
“And after we heard his message, she promised to go with us into the land of our beginning.”
After his Marake test, Akhu went to the longhouse and waited, as the other boys who had endured it entered. The angry red welts on their bodies testified to their ordeal. Like him, Akhu knew they would never forget the story of the woman and the forbidden country.
Now proven a man, Akhu searched out Twanke the next morning to ask a question about a part of the story he did not understand. “What caused the Elders’ outburst of anger when the woman said Mado told them they could enter the taboo land?” he asked.
“The woman blasphemed by daring to say Wanadi’s servant Mado tempted them to break Shi’s taboo. Shi has spoken only once to the Yanoako people and that was long ago before the first flood time. He decreed none must ever go into the taboo country until he speaks again and tells them it is time. After he gave this command, he created a lesser god, Wanadi, and his servant, Mado, to help us until He sent someone to lead us to the forbidden land. I believe that someone is the woman of our vision.”
That night, for just a moment, Akhu dreamed he looked into Mado’s fiery eyes. The next day he told Twanke of his dream and the old man smiled knowingly.
“Mado has confirmed my words,” he said. “You will be the voice of Wanadi to our people. Mado, his messenger, will come at your bidding often as you sleep to guide you to healing plants and to show you where the enemy hides. Most of all, he will protect you from Odosha, master of the underworld, and the evil souls who serve him.
Akhu had thought often since his Marake test about the woman’s claim that it was Mado who tempted them to go into the taboo land. After Twanke’s explanation, however, he understood the Elders’ anger at the pair. If Wanadi was Shi’s messenger and always did his will, it would be sacrilege to say Wanadi’s servant Mado tempted them to disobey the supreme god’s command.
But, what if the woman spoke the truth? What if Wanadi’s servant Mado did tempt them to break Shi’s law? Until now, such an idea was unthinkable so he tried desperately to resist it, but, like a dreaded fever, it continued to plague him.