Macunaíma, page 3
Next day after playing around with the lovely Iriqui first thing, Macunaíma went for a little walk. He crossed the enchanted kingdom of Pedra Bonita in Pernambuco and nearing the city of Santarém happened upon a doe that had just birthed.
“I’m gonna catch her!” said he. And chased after the doe. She slipped away easily but the hero managed to nab her little baby that could hardly even walk yet, hiding behind a carapanaúba tree and poking the fawn to make it bleat. The doe went wild, her eyes bugged out she froze got discombobulated and came closer came closer froze right in front of them wailing with love. Then the hero shot his arrow at the doe that had just birthed. She collapsed flailed her legs and went rigid sprawled on the ground. The hero crowed in victory. He went up to the doe peered close peered closer still and let out a shriek, fainting. It had been a trick of the Anhanga spirit . . . It wasn’t a doe at all, but his very own Tapanhumas mother that Macunaíma had shot with an arrow and who was lying there dead, all scratched up from the spiky titara palms and mandacaru cacti in those woods.
When the hero came to, he went and called his brothers and the three kept vigil all night long sobbing profusely drinking oloniti brew and eating fish with carimã. At sun-up they laid the old woman’s body in a hammock and went to bury her beneath a stone in a place called Father of the Tocandeira. Maanape, who was a Catimbó shaman of the highest order, was the one to inscribe the epitaph. And it looked like this:
They fasted for as long as custom demanded and Macunaíma spent the whole time wailing heroically. The deceased woman’s belly started swelling started swelling and when the rains came to an end she’d turned into a soft mound. Then Macunaíma took Iriqui by the hand, Iriqui took Maanape by the hand, Maanape took Jiguê by the hand, and the four of them set out for this wide world.
Chapter 3. Ci, Mother of the Forest
One time the four were heading down a path in the woods mighty parched with thirst, far from the flooded forests and lakes. There weren’t even any juicy umbu plums in the neighborhood and Vei, the Sun, was slashing through the foliage, constantly whipping at the backs of the wayfarers. Sweating just like in a Pajelança ceremony where everyone slathers their bodies with pequi oil, onward they marched. Suddenly Macunaíma stopped short, scratching that night of silence with a sweeping gesture of alarm. The others froze in their tracks. Not a thing could be heard but Macunaíma whispered:
“Something’s there.”
They left the lovely Iriqui making herself pretty seated on the sprawling roots of a samaúma tree and proceeded cautiously. Vei had got her fill of whipping at the backs of the three brothers when a league and a half farther Macunaíma the scout happened upon a sleeping woman. It was Ci, Mother of the Forest. He knew right away, from her withered right breast, that the maiden was part of that tribe of lone women dwelling on the beaches of Moon Mirror Lagoon, fed by the Rio Nhamundá. The woman was beautiful, her body ravaged by vice and painted with jenipapo.
The hero flung himself on top of her to play around. Ci didn’t want to. She wielded a three-pronged arrow like a spear while Macunaíma drew his bowie knife. It was a tremendous rumble and the roaring of the fierce combatants resounded beneath the forest canopy, making the bodies of the little birds dwindle with fright. The hero was getting clobbered. He’d taken a punch that bloodied his nose and had a deep gouge in his rear from her txara trident. The Icamiaba woman didn’t have the slightest scratch and her every move drew more blood from the body of the hero whose formidable roars made the bodies of the little birds dwindle with fright. Finally realizing he was on the ropes cause he just couldn’t keep up with the Icamiaba woman, the hero made a break for it shouting to his brothers:
“Help or else I’ll kill her! come help or else I’ll kill her!”
The brothers came and grabbed hold of Ci. Maanape tied her arms behind her while Jiguê knocked her coconut around with his murucu spear. And the Icamiaba woman collapsed helplessly among the samambaias on the forest floor. When she lay stock-still, Macunaíma came up and played around with the Mother of the Forest. Then there came flocks of jandayas, flocks of scarlet macaws blue-winged parrotlets conures parakeets, flock after flock of parrots to salute Macunaíma, the new Emperor of the Virgin-Forest.
And the three brothers went on their way with this new gal. They traversed the City of Flowers skirted the River of Affliction passed under Happiness Falls, traipsed down the Highway of Delights and made it to My True Love’s Thicket in the hills of Venezuela. It was from there that Macunaíma reigned over those mysterious forests, while Ci led her women on raids wielding three-pronged txaras.
The hero lived peacefully. He spent his lucky-duck days in his hammock killing taioca ants, slurping on pajuari wine and whenever he’d burst into song accompanied by the twangly strums of his cocho guitar, the forests resounded with sweetness lulling to sleep the snakes the ticks the mosquitoes the ants and the bad gods.
At night Ci would come home wafting with the scent of tree resin, bloodied from battle, and climb into the hammock she’d woven from her very own strands of hair. The two would play around and lie there afterward laughing with each other.
There they’d lie laughing a long while, all cozy together. Ci smelled so good that Macunaíma felt heady with languor.
“Holy smokes! you smell good, honey!”
he’d murmur in ecstasy. And flare his nostrils even more. Such a potent headiness would wash over him that sleep would start dripping from his eyelids. But the Mother of the Forest wouldn’t even be close to satisfied yet, nossir, and with a flick of the hammock entwining them both she’d beckon her guy for another go-round. Near dead asleep, pestered all to hell, Macunaíma would play around just to keep up his reputation, but when Ci wanted to laugh with him in satisfaction:
“Ah! just so lazy! . . .”
the hero would sigh in exasperation. And turning his back to her he’d fall fast asleep. But Ci wanted to play some more . . . She’d ask and ask . . . The hero sleeping like a log. Then the Mother of the Forest would grab her txara and start poking her guy. Macunaíma would bolt awake howling with laughter writhing from all that tickling.
“C’mon don’t do that, you minx!”
“I will too!”
“Let’s go to sleep, yer darling . . .”
“Let’s play.”
“Ah! just so lazy! . . .”
And they’d play around some more.
However on days when much pajuari wine had been imbibed, Ci would find the Emperor of the Virgin-Forest sprawled out three sheets to the wind. They’d start playing around and the hero would trail off in the middle.
“Well, hero!”
“Well what!”
“You’re not gonna keep going?”
“Keep going where!”
“Well, my naughty little pet, here we are playing around and you just up and stop in the middle!”
“Ah! just so lazy . . .”
Macunaíma would be so far gone he could hardly go through the motions. And seeking someplace soft in his lover’s tresses he’d nod off happy as can be.
So then Ci would resort to a sublime strategy to get him going. She’d search the woods for stinging nettles and thrash em around tickle-tickling the hero’s chuí and her own nalachítchi. This would rile-rile Macunaíma into a lion who wanted it bad. The same for Ci. And the two of them would play and play much as can be in a most prodigiously ardent bout of debauchery.
But it was on sleepless nights that their ecstasy was more inventive still. When all the bright burning stars poured down onto Earth a scorching oil so hot that nobody nohow could stand it, a fiery presence shot through the forest. Not even the little birds in their nests could bear it. They’d twist and turn their necks restlessly, flit to the next branch and in the greatest miracle this world has ever seen invent a sudden dark dawn, singsonging on and on without end. The clamor was tremendous the scent overpowering and the heat even stronger.
Macunaíma would shove the hammock so hard that Ci would go flying. She’d wake in a fury and pounce on him. That’s how they’d play. And now wide awake with ecstasy they’d invent new arts of playing around.
No sooner had six months passed than the Mother of the Forest gave birth to a scarlet son. Upon which there came the famous mulattas from Bahia, Recife, Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba, and they gave the Mother of the Forest a ruby-red bow the color of evil, since now she’d be mistress of the scarlet group in all the Christmas pageants. After that they took their leave with pleasure and good cheer, dancing round and round, followed by the soccer pros big shots small fry sweethearts serenaders, that whole pack of golden boys. Macunaíma rested for the customary month but refused to fast. The little squirt had a flat head and Macunaíma flattened it even more by patting it every day and telling the tyke:
“Now grow up fast, junior, so you can go off to São Paulo and make lotsa money.”
All the Icamiabas cherished the little scarlet boy and at his first bath they placed all the tribe’s jewels on him so the little one would be rich forevermore. They sent someone off to Bolivia for a pair of scissors and left em open under his pillow or else Tutu Marambá would come and suck at the tot’s belly button and Ci’s big toe. Tutu Marambá came, saw the scissors and got fooled: he sucked at its rings and went off satisfied. All anybody ever did now was think about the little squirt. They sent someone off to São Paulo for those famous woolen booties knit by Dona Ana Francisca de Almeida Leite Morais and to Pernambuco for that special lace in the “Rose of the Alps,” “Guabiroba Flower” and “Pining for You” patterns handmade by Dona Joaquina Leitão, better known by the name of Quinquina Cacunda. They strained the best tamarind from the Louro Vieira sisters of Óbidos, so the boy could gulp down the juice mixed with a little remedy for roundworm. O happy days, life was good! . . . Another time a jucurutu owl landed on the Emperor’s maloca and hooted ill tidings. Macunaíma trembled with fear shooed away the mosquitoes and fell upon his pajuari wine to see if he might shoo away his fear as well. He drank and slept the whole night through. Then the Black Snake came and sucked so much at Ci’s only working breast there wasn’t a single drop left. And since Jiguê hadn’t managed to deflower any of the Icamiabas, the tiny tot had no wet nurse and sucked at his mother’s breast the next day, sucked some more, let out a poisoned sigh and died.
They put the little angel in an igaçaba burial urn carved with the form of a jabuti tortoise and so the boitatá fire snakes wouldn’t devour the eyes of the deceased they buried him right in the center of their taba with lotsa singing lotsa dancing and lotsa pajuari wine.
Now that her purpose had ended, Macunaíma’s gal, all done up still, took from her necklace a famous muiraquitã amulet, gave it to her guy and climbed a vine up to the sky. That’s where Ci lives now roaming around in high style, free from the ants, all done up still, all done up with light, turned into a star. She’s Beta Centauri.
The next day when Macunaíma went to visit his son’s grave he saw that a little plant had sprouted from his body. They tended it with utmost care and it was guaraná. Using the pounded seeds of this plant folks can cure many diseases and cool off during heat waves from Vei, the Sun.
Chapter 4. Boiuna Moon
Next day bright and early the hero, aching with longing for Ci, his lover who was unforgettable forevermore, pierced his lower lip and made the muiraquitã into a tembetá. He felt like he was gonna cry. He quickly called for his brothers, bid the Icamiabas farewell and took off.
They went roaming and ranging through all the forests over which Macunaíma now reigned. Everywhere they went he received tributes and was accompanied all the while by a retinue of red macaws and jandaya parakeets. On bitter nights he’d climb atop an açaí palm ripe with fruit as purple as his soul and contemplate the fetching figure of Ci up in the heavens. “My she-devil!” he’d moan . . . And oh how he suffered, oh! and he’d invoke the benevolent gods, while chanting canticles that went on and on . . .
Rudá, Rudá! . . .
Thou who makest the rains run dry,
Send the ocean winds so wild
A-whipping across my land so that
The clouds will rush away and so
My she-devil may shine so bright
Clear and steady in the sky! . . .
Hush all the waters that run throughout
The rivers in this land o’ mine
So that I may splash around
Playing with my she-devil
In the mirror reflection of the waters! . . .
Like that. Then he’d climb down and cry his eyes out on Maanape’s shoulder. Sobbing in sympathy, Jiguê would light the bonfire so the hero wouldn’t feel cold. Maanape would choke back his own tears, invoking the Acutipuru the Murucututu the Ducucu, all those lords of sleep in lullabies like this:
Acutipuru,
O lend thy sound sleep
To Macunaíma
Who does nothing but weep! . . .
He’d pick the hero’s ticks and soothe him rocking gently back and forth. The hero would quiet down quiet down and fall fast asleep.
The next day the three ramblers set off once more through those mysterious forests. And Macunaíma was followed all the while by that retinue of red macaws and jandaya parakeets.
Wandering wandering on, one time as the dawn rays were just scattering the dark of night, they heard in the distance the sorrowful lament of a maiden. They went to have a look-see. Walking a league and a half they came upon a waterfall sobbing endlessly. Macunaíma asked the waterfall:
“What’s up?”
“The sky.”
“C’mon, tell me.”
So the waterfall recounted what had befallen her.
“Can’t you see that my name is Naipi and I am the daughter of the tuxaua named Mexô-Mexoitiqui which in my language means Big-Cat-Crouching. I was the prettiest of maidens and all the neighboring tuxauas wished to sleep in my hammock and taste of my body, more languid than the flowering embiroçu. Yet whenever one came, I’d bite and kick, eager to test his strength. And none could withstand it and they’d go away so mournful.
“My tribe was enslaved to Capei, the boiuna water snake who lived deep in a cavern in the company of saúva ants. During the season when the ipê trees along the river bloomed yellow with flowers the boiuna would come to our taba and choose a virgin girl to sleep with in her underground cave full of skeletons.
“When my body began weeping blood pleading for a man’s strength to serve, the suinara owl sang at first light in the jarina palms of my tejupar, Capei came and chose me. The ipês along the riverbank were glimmering with yellow and all their flowers fell upon the sobbing shoulders of the young Titçatê, one of my father’s warriors. A great sadness had come marching into our taba like a line of sacassaia ants and devoured even the silence.
“When the wise old pajé pulled the night back out from its hole, Titçatê gathered all the little flowers nearby and brought them to the hammock on my last night of freedom. And then I bit Titçatê.
“Blood gushed from the young man’s wounded wrist but he made no fuss at all, furiously moaning, making love, filling my mouth with flowers so I couldn’t bite anymore. Titçatê leaped into the hammock and Naipi served Titçatê.
“After we played like crazy mingling streaming blood with the little ipê flowers, my champion carried me on his shoulders, tossed me into his ipeigara moored in a place hidden among the aturiás and sped like an arrow out to the waters of the Raging River, fleeing the boiuna snake.
“The next day when the wise old pajé tucked the night back into its hole, Capei went to fetch me and found the bloody hammock empty. She roared and dashed off to find us. She was coming closer coming closer, we could hear her roaring close by, closer still right up close till finally the waters of the Raging River reared up churning from the boiuna’s body.
“Titçatê was so dead tired he could paddle no more, bleeding all the while from the bite on his wrist. That’s why we couldn’t escape. Capei caught me, spun me round, put me to the egg test, it worked and the boiuna saw that I had already served Titçatê.
“She was so full of wrath that she wished to put an end to this world, I don’t know . . . she turned me into this rock and hurled Titçatê onto the river’s shore, transformed into a plant. It’s that one over there, down there, right there! He’s that ever so lovely floating mururé you can see, waving in the water at me. His purple flowers are the drops of blood from the bite, frozen solid by my cold cold waterfall.
“Capei dwells down below, always checking to see whether that boy really did play around with me. Indeed he did and I’ll go on weeping over this rock till the end of what has no end, aching so from never again serving my warrior T’çatê . . .”
She stopped. Her tears splashed onto Macunaíma’s knees and he shook with sobs.
“If . . . if . . . if that bo-boiuna ever showed up I . . . why I’d kill her!”
Right then a colossal roar was heard and Capei came surging out the water. And Capei was the boiuna snake. Macunaíma thrust out his torso a-glinting with heroism and charged at the monster. Capei swung her maw wide open and out came a swarm of apiacás. Macunaíma beat them back beat them back defeating those marimbondo wasps. The monster lashed out with her tintinnabulating tail, but right then a tracuá ant bit the hero’s heel. Distracted by the pain he dropped to a crouch and the tail flew past him hitting Capei smack in the face. Then she roared even more and struck at Macunaíma’s thigh. He simply dodged, grabbed a big sharp rock and thwap! knocked that varmint’s head clean off.
Her body went writhing away on the current while the head with those big doe eyes came to kiss the feet of its vanquisher in submission. The hero got scared and hightailed it into the woods with his brothers.
