It was a clear day which had followed a series of rainy ones. Blue Bird of the Jaguar Clan was fishing in the river from
his canoe, hoping that he would catch enough fish for the village now that the river was flooded. The sun, like a fiery orange in a sea of blue, was burning
at his neck, and insects of a vast variety was biting at his skin. He cought his fourth tunu (foot note 1) and began to break of its spikes with his teeth. As
he spit out its last, he heard some racket coming from the village. The rest of the men were supposed to be working on the plantation, but he was
sure he heard several voices, and started to paddle back to the village.
Blue Bird left the fish in his uncles house, and continued to the shubuã (foot note 2), where several men were gathered outside. Four of his uncles were
there, surrounding one of the villagers, the youth Rotten Trunk of the Jaguar Clan. Rotten Trunk was sitting on the ground heaving for breath. Upon approaching, Blue Bird
noticed he was sweating, his feet were bleeding, body scratched, and eyes bloodshot.
"What is going on?" Blue Bird asked Little Mountain of the Mixed Blood Clan, his oldest present uncle.
"He met a Yaminawa." (foot note 3) His uncled answered quickly and turned back to Rotten Trunk. "Tell him."
Rotten Trunk gathered his breath and began recanting what had happened.
As Rotten Trunk was newly wed, he was yet to finish cleaning the terrain he had planned to make his own plantation. The rain in the previous days had
stalled the work of all the men in the village, so Rotten Trunk had decided to set aside finishing his plantation, and instead hunt and offer meat to the the
other men in exchange for help on his plantation the following day. He had taken his Father's single-shot shotgun and head North; towards the hunting
grounds and the end of the indigenous territory. After walking deep into the jungle he heard rustling behind a bush. He froze. He aimed down his sights,
and fired the moment he saw new movement. The pellets blew through the bush, but missed, and the pray bolted away. He sweftly began to reload the
shotgun while sprinting after what he now saw was an armadillo. He had to be quick, otherwise it would find a hole to hide in and become drastically more
difficult to catch. He fumbled for a moment, but soon enough the shotgun was properly reloaded and he raised it once again toward the armadillo,
just as it disappeared under the giant roots of a Shunu (foot note 4). The armadillo was gone, and it would be somewhat blasphemic (and borderline impossible)
to try to smoke it out when it's hole began under a Shunu. He backed off from the Shunu, and decided to return to the path (there's a path that goes through the middle of the hunting grounds)
and attempt to find other pray. He found it soon enough, but something caught his eye. He stopped and turned towards a banĩ (foot note 5), and noticed a man standing
before it. He knew right away he was not from the village, as he stood there naked, his body painted (like this
NSFW, but with different patterns). Rotten Trunk called out.
The Yaminawa turned, and with but a moments hesitation, picked up a bow and arrow lying by his feet and aimed it towards the youth from the village. Seeing what was happening, Rotten Trunk lifted his own weapon, and proptly shot the Yaminawa square in the chest. The arrow flew by Rotten Trunk's head, and the bow wielding man collapsed limply on the forest floor.
In shock, the shotgun fell from his hands and ran through the jungle towards his village. An hour and a half later, he found himself recanting what had happened.
While Blue Bird was listening, his four uncles had left him and Rotten Trunk. As the story ended, they had returned with machetes, a bow, and a rifle.
They let Rotten Trunk rest a few moments more, and then told him to lead them to where he had encountered the Yaminawa.
Blue Bird joined with them, and the six of them began the march north, but when they arrived it was not as they had expected. The shotgun was indeed there, but no Yaminawa insight, and no blood on the side of the banĩ.
Long story short, our young pal Rotten Trunk had gotten
stoned out of his fucking mind before and during his hunt, and imagined the whole encounter. While an other Yaminawa could have removed the first guy's corpse, they would have brought the shotgun with them, and there would have been blood. Rotten Trunk had then proceeded to panic immensely and fuck himself up while sprinting through the jungle non-stop for maybe 1.5 hours back to the village.
Moral of the story: Don't smoke weed when you're going hunting in a jungle with scorpions, snakes, jaguars, and actual Yaminawa.
Foot notes:
1 - Tunu, called "mandi" in Portuguese. It's a small fish in the catfish family, bit its first top and side fins have a total of three poisonous spikes.
2 - A villages gathering house
3 - "Yami" =wild/untamed, "Nawa" people. Yaminawa is a term used when reffering to aboriginals who have never had any kind of intergration with western civilization.
4 - "Shunu" is the biggest tree that exists in [the western part] of the jungle. In the Shamanism, it is considered somewhat of a "hub" for the spirits of the jungle. It takes part in many shamanistic rituals of old, and it's a tree most of the tribes in the Panoan group stay away from. There's also an old story that mentions that if you stay close to it by yourself, the spirits that reside by it will try to influense you.
5 - An almost black tree. It can splinter, but very hard to snap. Used for making body piercings (like your's truly's), bows, arrowheads, and war clubs.
