When they belittled Gutódaté, it ended up in a fight:
In those days they would counsel one another long ago, and on one occasion it was Ajópedaté who counseled a fellow woman. She went to the other side of camp. She looked at Gutódaté and saw how she was breathing. She said: “You’re really breathing hard. It’s like the way Gusúdaté breaths.”
And Gutodaté was offended and they started bawling each other out. She was offended by her older sister’s breathing and she began to cry. And they began to fight.
Ajópedái was offended and he began defending his sisters-in-law. He scolded Guiejnanai.
The women sent word to Guejnane that Ajódedé was bawling out his mother:
Guejnane was honey hunting. And they said, the women (their wives) said: “Go to your father.” And tell him: “Ajópedé is bawling out his mother.”
And Guiejnane scolded Ajópedái. And they almost came to blows, but didn’t hit each other. They just fought with words.
Uayé stirred things up:
But we were about ready to leave and go somewhere else. But they followed us and began to hit us. Uayé said: “Ajocha’s stomach hurt and they are probably now ‘laying low.’
But Uayé was lying. She was a liar. We returned because she was lying about the fight going on. And she said: “Ajópedé bawled you guys out, and now they are turning on Ajópedái and about to come to blows.
Duábidácabi had a dream:
Duábidácabi dreamed about them. He said: “I had a dream about Ajópedé that he was a medicine man. And they talked about killing him.”
And they were following behind us. And that is how Ajópedái knew that they were behind us and they would try to kill us the next day. And then he entered the jungle. He went after honey at the camp that he’d made before. He went toward it. And we followed him and he went farther into the jungle. But we went to the camp to get the doridie fruit.
We heard their calls and ran away:
Only the children were in the camp. And we kept getting doridie fruit and then we heard people calling to our grandpa. And they thought we were there. They kept calling loudly to our grandpa. We were off getting doridie. We slept out there. We heard their calls and ran away. We were running and then Dujuráidacóde turned toward them. We returned to the fighters in the camp. *Ajópedatéa and them were there. But we kept running, all of us. Ijnerainatéa, who was an old lady at the time, came with us with Ojo, our little sister. And we kept running from the warriors. Jésedaté, Sigaidaté were with us.
We kept running:
Two returned to the camp. And we went far away. We kept running from the warriors and ran far away.
But Ajópedé entered and came out and we were frightened. We thought he was the warriors! But it was only Ajópedé. But it really frightened us. But they comforted us and said, Ajópedé said: “I’m going back to camp and I’ll tell Guiéjnane and them. For they were the ones that had the altercation with Garáijnai and them yesterday. With Garáijnai and Tocoidé and them. He really bawled them out. I’ll go to them and tell them that they almost caught me and killed me, but that I’m ready to die with my victim, if it comes to that.”
We ran from the warriors and Ajópedái caught up with us. But he was on his way to the camp. But Oguéa and Usigaidatéa counseled him not to go. They said: “Stay here and run away from them.”
Cuyadai threatened to kill them:
But Jnatújnai was about to go with them, and would have gone. Our group the Jnupedógosóde were about to go to their camp. Cuyadai said: “I’m taking off. I’m going to them and I’m going to kill them.”
Bajébiadái lied about killing Jecude:
We ran from them. And as we were returning the way we had come, we ran into the warriors. Bajébiadái and them. Bajébiadái said: “Don’t cry,” he said, “*Jochá, don’t cry. You won’t be killed. No one’s going to kill you,” he said.
But he was lying. But I said: “Didn’t they fight with Jecude and you guys?”
But he said: “They didn’t kill him.” But they had already killed him and they had cut off his head. It was Popi who killed him and cut off his head. He was out there and he had taken his father’s gun. And they killed him. And I cried. I kept thinking about my father and I cried for my father. They almost killed Ajópedé. But they didn’t kill him. They didn’t kill grandma and grandpa either for they were afraid what our father would do to them and so they didn’t kill them.
And Pajéidaté and them stayed in the jungle. Tujnungue and Jusigai and them went into the jungle. They were planning to kill Tujnungue. Her relatives wanted to kill her. They said that they had gotten honey from Ajópedé somewhere else, but they weren’t even there. They stayed in the jungles.
What we saw when we arrived back in camp:
We arrived back in camp. But when we looked around we saw that they had killed Jecude and he was laying over there. They had beheaded him. They had robbed all of our things. They hid my things that they took because they were afraid of our father.
They said: “Take their things but hide them well.”
They took everything we had. Our grandpa said: “I wish I could have been a young man again when they came against me. No one could overcome me when I was a young man.”
They took all of our things and they even took *Usigáidatea’s baby sling. Jusedacode was there carrying her baby in it, but she put it down which was a mistake, and the warriors took it.
Key:
*Ajópedatéa – the final ‘a’ indicates that Ajópedaté is now dead
*Usigáidatéa – the final ‘a’ indicates that Usigáidaté is now dead
*Ijnerainatéa – the final ‘a’ indicates that Ijnerainaté is now dead
*Oguéa – the final ‘a’ indicates that Ogué is now dead
*Jocha – Enuedaté’s name before she had children
Enuedaté – Tobité, Bolivia – 1960
Transcribed and translated to English by: Maxine Morarie.
