Ajoté Chedo Carayoi
Ajoté sings about Carayoi
I am going to sing about Carayoi’s fear of my mother when we were together. All of the young men I was ever with feared her. I cooked for Carayoi but he didn’t want to eat it. He was going to hit me. He was cutting a stick from a tree. I remembered my father and I bawled Carayoi out.
I said: “Carayoi, who hits me, hits my father. Don’t hit me at all for you do fear my father. Carayoi, I’m going to leave you. I won’t miss you at all. Who I miss is Iagábidé. I watch for him all day long but he doesn’t arrive. He’s lost in the jungle. He’s with another wife. They’re out there alone.”
I left, and I was hungry on the road. I kept thinking about my mother and that I would be eating their food. So I went to the town of Bella Vista. I sat down by my mother’s clan possession, the honey called cute ajidi piminingane, and young men wanted me. (Young men were always looking at her whereever she went.)
Ajoté – Tobité, Bolivia – 1965
Transcribed by: Joyce Davis Buchegger
Translated to English by: Maxine Morarie
