Jadia Chedo Ejémi
Jadia Sings about Ejémi:
It was the middle of the night when someone grabbed me. He said: “I’m going to sleep with you.” I awoke and someone grabbed me. I looked and thought it was a stranger but it was a relative. But I said: “Go away. I don’t want you.”
He said: “I know you are my relative but I really want you for a wife.”
But I didn’t want a relative for a husband. (Both Jadia and Ejémi were of the Étacõre Clan.) “Go, get away from me. Your wife is in the village.”
He said: “I’m tired of how bossy Ajota is and so I’ve come to have you as a wife.”
I had said long ago that I wouldn’t be with a relative and I meant it at the time. “He’s probably not your relative,” I said to myself, lying to myself. So I went to Ejémi and he took, me for he really wanted me. I didn’t like it but he went with me.
Jadia – Tobité, Bolivia – 1965.
Transcribed by: Joyce Davis Buchegger.
Translated to English by: Maxine Morarie.
