Pejnócode chedo dajnusiétigade ome dacotedie
Pejnócode sings about his wives:
I will sing a bit. I will sing about my sorrow.
I’m going to the mountain I left behind in Tobité because of my sorrow. Today I’m heading back. I’ll go back to my younger brothers. I really miss my younger brothers. While I was in Santa Cruz, all I could think about was my brothers. One day I got on the train. I was mourning, because of my sorrow. I got to the station as soon as it was light and waited for the train.
I’m singing, but I’m teaching myself as I sing. It’s as though I’m teaching someone else, but I’m really teaching myself. I was lonely, but I stopped being lonely when I started flirting. I was still lonely, but not as lonely. I was playing around, but soon got tired of it. So I’m leaving.
When I get there, back to Tobité, will I find that Dapuré has another husband?
I have arrived, but we aren’t back together. She probably thinks I haven’t missed her. I did miss her, but I’m single now and fooling around again, singing as though I don’t miss her. Different girls come to me, but I don’t go with any of them. I just miss one, the one that was a prostitute, a pet of the white people. The others just make me sad. I don’t want anyone else, I only want one, one I can stay with for a long time.
I played around when I was with the white people. I think about working somewhere else on earth, but then I remember I don’t have a wife, so it’s just a thought. What I’d really like to do is to make my own farm, and I would if I only had a companion. If I could only be with that one again that used to be a prostitute, a pet of the white people.
Pejnócode – Tobité, Bolivia – 1965.
Transcribed by: Joyce Davis Buchegger.
Translated to English by: Maxine Morarie.
