Chugúperi Cho Dajñare
This is the way the bird-god could be pacified:
I will tell how I blowed on people when we were in the woods long ago to heal them. And it is taboo. It has to do with the Bird God. It could kill people, but we Ayoreos could heal our people who were victims of the Bird God in the woods. This was the way we could pacify the Bird and cause her to rest:
It would happen when we’d rise early to go far into the woods. We’d rise early while it was still dark. We’d file into the jungle while she was still resting. We’d go in chanting: joño, joño, tíngui, tíngui, tíngui. That would keep her calm as we went farther into the woods.
In the same way, she could be pacified when we would wear our jaguar headdresses. We’d put on new headdresses, and long white neck feather adornments. Doing that would cause her to be pacified.
She would be pacified when we would wash our bodies and then blacken them by rubbing them with charcoal.
When we finished doing these things then we would fill round bags with new, clean things. As we put something in them, we would say: “Things will be promised to me! Things will be promised to me.” When we carry the things we ask for, they represent our good deeds. And the Bird is pacified. She is pacified when we have honey and other foods from the jungle that are not hard to recognize. When our crops aren’t hard to recognize, then she will give them to us.
- (It is almost like it is with God. But she gives us crops that are not hard to figure out, only because she has been pacified. And she gives things to the Ayoreos also in the same way that God does. It’s almost the same thing.)
Íquede – Puesto Paz, Bolivia – 1970.
Transcribed by: Tim Wyma.
Translated to English by: Maxine Morarie.
