Macunaíma, page 4
“C’mere, siriri, c’mere!” the head shouted.
The three shot away even faster. They ran for a league and a half and looked back. Capei’s head kept rolling closer ever on the lookout for them. Onward they ran and when they were too worn out to go on they climbed a bacupari tree by the river to see if the head might keep going. But the head stopped under the tree and asked for some bacupari. Macunaíma shook the branches. The head gathered the fruits off the ground, ate them and asked for more. Jiguê shook some bacupari into the river but the head declared no way was she going in. Then Maanape hurled a fruit with all his might far as could be and when the head went to fetch it the brothers scrambled down and snuck away. Running running onward, a league and a half farther they came upon the house where the Bachelor of Cananéia lived. The old coot was sitting by the front door reading profound manuscripts. Macunaíma asked him:
“How goes it, Bachelor?”
“Can’t complain, unknown voyager.”
“Getting some fresh air, huh?”
“C’est vrai, as the French say.”
“Well, so long, Bachelor, I’m kinda in a hurry . . .”
And they shot off like blazes again. They traversed the prehistoric sambaqui shell mounds of Caputera and Morrete in a single breath. Just up ahead was an abandoned shanty. They went in and shut the door tight. And then Macunaíma noticed that he’d lost the tembetá. He was distraught because it was the only memento of Ci that he’d kept. He made to leave in search of the stone but his brothers wouldn’t let him. Wasn’t long before the head showed up. Thwap! it knocked.
“What d’ya want?”
“Open the door and let me in!”
But did the alligator open up? neither did they! so the head couldn’t come in. Macunaíma didn’t know that the head had become his slave and didn’t mean them no harm. The head waited a long time but seeing how they really weren’t gonna open up, she mulled over what she wanted to be. If she became water, others would drink her, if she became an ant they’d squish her, if she became a mosquito they’d zap her, if she became a train she’d get derailed, if she became a river they’d put her on the map . . . She made up her mind: “I’ll go be the Moon.” Then hollered:
“Open up, folks, I want a couple things!”
Macunaíma peered through the crack in the door and warned Jiguê as he was opening it:
“She’s on the loose!”
Jiguê shut the door again. That’s why there’s that expression “On the loose!” for when someone doesn’t act how we want.
When Capei saw that they weren’t opening the door she started feeling awful sorry for herself and asked the birdeater tarantula to help her get up to the sky.
“The Sun melts my thread,” the great big spider replied.
So the head asked the xexéu birds to flock together and dark night fell.
“Nobody can see my thread at night,” the great big spider said.
The head went off to get a calabash bowl of ice-cold from the Andes and said:
“Pour out a drop every league and a half, the thread will turn white with frost. Now we can go.”
“Alright then let’s go.”
The iandu began spinning her web on the ground. At the first breeze the filmy thread rose into the sky. Then the great big spider went up and at the very top poured out a bit of frost. And as the iandu tarantula spun more thread from up top, down below it was turning all white. The head shouted:
“Farewell, my people, I’m off to the sky!”
And there she went eating the thread all the way up to the vast field of the heavens. The brothers opened the door and peered out. Up and away went Capei.
“Are you really going up to the sky, head?”
“Mm-hmm,” she went, not able to open her mouth anymore.
In the wee hours before dawn Capei the boiuna made it to the sky. She was chubby from eating all that spider web and ghostly pale with exertion. All her sweat was falling to the Earth in droplets of fresh dew. That frosty thread is the reason why Capei’s so cold. In olden times Capei used to be the boiuna snake but now she’s that Moon head up there in the vast field of the heavens. And ever since that time tarantulas prefer to spin their webs at-night.
The next day the brothers went searching all the way to the banks of the river but they went searching searching in vain, not a trace of the muiraquitã. They asked all the creatures, the aperemas saguis mulita-armadillas tejus muçuã mud turtles of the land and trees, the tapiucabas chabós matintapereras peckerwooders and aracuans of the air, they asked the japiim bird and its compadre the marimbondo wasp, the little cockroach looking to get hitched, the bird that cries “Yark!” and its mate that replies “Yeek!,” the gecko who plays hide-and-seek with the rat, the tambaqui tucunaré pirarucu curimatá fish of the river, the pecaí tapicuru and iererê waders of the shore, all those living beings, but nobody had seen a thing, nobody knew a thing. So the brothers hit the road again, roving across the imperial domains. The silence was foul and so was the despair. Once in a while Macunaíma would pause lost in thought over his she-devil . . . Oh the desire throbbing in him! He’d stop for a spell. And weep for ages. The tears streaming down the hero’s childlike cheeks baptized his hairy chest. Then he sighed shaking his little head:
“Well, brothers! With love number one, you’re forever undone! . . .”
Onward he wandered. And everywhere he went he received tributes and was followed all the while by that bright-dappled retinue of jandaya parakeets and red macaws.
One time after he lay down in a shady spot waiting for his brothers to get done fishing, the Little Black Herder Boy to whom Macunaíma prayed every single day took pity on the cursed wretch and decided to help him. He sent the little uirapuru bird. All of a sudden the hero heard some frantic flapping and the little uirapuru bird landed on his knee. Macunaíma flailed in annoyance and shooed the little uirapuru. Not a minute passed before he heard the clamor again and the little bird landed on his belly. Macunaíma didn’t make a fuss this time. Then the little uirapuru bird burst into sweet song and the hero understood everything he was singing. And it was that Macunaíma was most unfortunate cause he’d lost the muiraquitã on the river beach back when he was climbing the bacupari tree. But now, went the uirapuru’s lament, Macunaíma would never be a lucky-duck ever again, cause a tracajá had swallowed the muiraquitã and the fisherman who’d caught that turtle had sold the magic green stone to a Peruvian riverboat peddler who went by the name of Venceslau Pietro Pietra. The talisman’s owner had struck it rich and was living it up as a moneybags rancher in São Paulo, that mighty city lapped by the waters of the Igarapé Tietê.
Having thus spoken, the little uirapuru bird made a flourish in the air and vanished. When his brothers got back from fishing Macunaíma said to them:
“I was heading down this trail tryna lure a caatinga deer and lo and behold, I felt a chill down my spine. Stuck my hand back there and out came a tame centipede that told me the whole truth.”
Then Macunaíma told them of the muiraquitã’s whereabouts and declared to his brothers that he had a mind to go to São Paulo and track down this Venceslau Pietro Pietra and take back the stolen tembetá.
“. . . and may the rattlesnake build a nest if I don’t lay my hands on the muiraquitã! If y’all come with me that’s fine and dandy, but if you don’t, well sir, better to go it alone than in poor company! But I’m stubborn as a toad and when I fix on something I hold tight. Go I shall, if only to show up that little uirapuru bird, just kidding! I meant the centipede.”
After his speech Macunaíma howled with laughter imagining what a trick he’d played on that little bird. Maanape and Jiguê decided to go with him, since the hero needed protecting after all.
Chapter 5. Piaimã
Early the next day Macunaíma hopped in his ubá and paddled over to the mouth of the Rio Negro so he could leave his conscience on the Isle of Marapatá. He left it on the tippity top of a thirty-foot mandacaru cactus, so it wouldn’t get eaten by saúva ants. He went back to where his brothers were waiting and at the day’s peak the three made their way along the left bank of the Sun.
Untold adventures transpired on that journey through caatinga scrublands riverruns uplands, creek after creek, tabatinga clay corridors virgin-forests and miracles of the sertão. Macunaíma and his brothers were coming to São Paulo. The Rio Araguaia eased their travels. In the course of so many conquests and so many feats, the hero hadn’t saved a cent but all that treasure inherited from the Icamiaba star was hidden deep in mining caverns way up in Roraima. For the journey Macunaíma set aside from this loot no less than forty times forty million cacao beans, the traditional currency. He figured they needed a whole flood of vessels to bring it all. And it was ever so lovely that massive fleet of igaras making its way up the Araguaia, two hundred lashed together one by one like an arrow skimming the river’s surface. At the head stood Macunaíma glowering, scanning the horizon for the city. He was ruminating ruminating gnawing at his fingers now covered in warts from always pointing at Ci the star. His brothers went on paddling shooing the mosquitoes and each jerk of the paddles went reverberating down the two hundred tethered igaras, spilling boatloads of beans along the river’s surface, leaving a wake of chocolate where all the camuatá pirapitinga dourado piracanjuba uarú-uará and bacu fish feasted to their delight.
One time the Sun covered the three brothers in a slick layer of sweat and Macunaíma remembered to bathe. However this was impossible in that river on account of the exceedingly voracious piranhas that every now and then would leap in clusters more’n three feet out the water while fighting to snatch a morsel of a dismembered sibling. Then Macunaíma spotted a hollow full of water in a big rock slab smack dab in the middle of the river. And the hollow looked just like a giant’s footprint. They landed. After hooting and hollering on account of the cold water the hero got in and washed himself all over. But the water was enchanted cause that hole in the rock was the humongous footprint of Sumé, from way back when he went around preaching the gospel of Jesus to the Brazilian Indians. When the hero got out he was white, blond with the bluest eyes, the water had washed away all his blackness. And not a soul would recognize him anymore as a son of the jet-black tribe of the Tapanhumas.
No sooner did Jiguê witness the miracle than he threw himself into Sumé’s humongous footprint. However the water was already so dirty from the hero’s darkness that much as Jiguê rubbed himself like a madman splashing water everywhere he only managed to turn the color of new bronze. Macunaíma felt sorry and consoled him:
“Look here, brother Jiguê, you didn’t turn white, but the black went away so look on the bright side: better to have a nasal voice than no nose at all.”
Then Maanape went to wash himself off, but Jiguê had sloshed all the enchanted water out the hollow. There was only a splish left at the very bottom and Maanape managed to wet just his soles and palms. That’s why he remained a black son of the Tapanhumas tribe through and through. Except his palms and soles got ruddy from being scrubbed with that holy water. Macunaíma felt sorry and consoled him:
“Now don’t be peeved, brother Maanape, don’t be peeved, nossir, our Uncle Judas had it a whole lot worse!”
And it was the loveliest sight under the Sun on that rock the three brothers one blond one red another black, standing up tall and naked. All the creatures of the forest gaped in awe. The black alligator the little white-bellied alligator the great big alligator the ururau alligator with the big yellow snout, all them gators poked their craggy eyes out the water. In the branches of the ingas the aningas the mamoranas the embaúbas the catauaris growing along the riverbank the capuchin monkey the squirrel monkey the guariba howler the bugio howler the spider monkey the woolly monkey the bearded saki the tufted cairara, all the forty monkeys of Brazil, all of em, gaped drooling with envy. And the sabiá song thrushes, the sabiacica the sabiapoca the sabiaúna the sabiá-piranga the sabia-gongá that never shares its food, the ravine-sabiá the miner-sabiá the orangetree-sabiá the gumtree-sabiá, all were wonderstruck and forgot to finish their warbling, eloquently clamoring clamoring on. Macunaíma was furious. He put his hands on his hips and hollered at nature:
“Ain’t nothing to see here!”
And so the natural creatures scattered back to living and the three brothers went on their way once more.
However they were entering the lands of the Igarapé Tietê where bourbon coffee reigned and the traditional currency was no longer cacao, but instead was called coin contos clackers bits tokens shillings two-pence ten-cents, fifty bucks, ninety clams, and cash coppers pennies loot greenbacks gravy marbles moolah dough vouchers peanuts frogs smackeroos, and the like, where you couldn’t even get a pair of sock garters for two thousand cacao beans. Macunaíma was very upset. He’d have to bust his tail, him, the hero! . . . He murmured despondently:
“Ah! just so lazy! . . .”
He decided to abandon the whole enterprise, heading back to his native lands where he was Emperor. But Maanape piped up:
“Quit being a dope, brother! The whole swamp doesn’t go into mourning just cause one crab kicks the bucket, dammit! don’t lose heart, I’ll handle it!”
When they got to São Paulo, they bagged up some of their treasure to eat and after trading the rest on the Exchange made out with nearly eighty contos de réis. Maanape was a sorcerer. Eighty contos wasn’t all that much but the hero thought on it and told his brothers:
“Chin up. We’ll get by on this. He who holds out for a flawless horse ends up walking . . .”
On this pocket change Macunaíma survived.
And one cool evening at sun-down the brothers came upon the mighty city of São Paulo sprawling along the riverbanks of the Igarapé Tietê. First came the shrieks of the imperial parrots bidding the hero farewell. Then off flew the bright-dappled flock back up to the forests of the North.
The brothers entered a savanna full of palm trees, inajás ouricuris ubuçus bacabas mucajás miritis tucumãs, sprouting smoke plumes instead of coconuts and fronds. All the stars had come down from the mist-drenched white sky and drifted brooding through the city. Macunaíma remembered to look for Ci. Ah! never ever could he forget that one, since the bewitched hammock she’d strung up for playing around had been woven from her very own hair and this made the weaver unforgettable. Macunaíma searched and searched but the roads and yards were jam-packed with women so white so very pale, oh! . . . Macunaíma moaned. He rubbed up against the women, murmuring sweetly, “Mani! Mani! little daughters of manioc . . . ,” lost in pleasure amid so much beauty. Finally he chose three. He played around with em in a strange hammock planted in the ground, in a maloca taller than Paranaguara Peak. Afterward, on account of how hard that hammock was, he slept across the women’s bodies. And the night set him back four hunnerd smackeroos.
The hero’s intellect was downright confounded. He awoke to the roaring of beasts in the streets below, zooming between the formidable malocas. And that great big devil of a sagui-açu that had carried him to the top of the towering tapiri in which he’d slept . . . What a world of beasts! what a mess of grunting ogres, demonic mauaris blaring juruparis hopping sacis and fiery boitatás snaking through alleyways down subterranean pits on cables up hillsides gouged by huge grottoes outta which poured crowds cheek by jowl of the whitest of white people, most certainly the sons and daughters of manioc! . . . The hero’s intellect was downright confounded. The women had chuckled as they taught him how that great big sagui-açu wasn’t a monkey at all, it was called an elevator and it was a machine. At day-break they taught him how that whole gaggle of peeps howls war-whoops blasts grunts thundering roars wasn’t any of those at all, but was actually klaxons bells whistles horns and they were all machines. The pumas weren’t pumas, they were called Fords Hupmobiles Chevrolets Dodges Marmons and they were machines. The tamanduás the boitatás the inajás all abloom with smoke plumes were actually trucks trolleys streetcars clocks traffic-lights neon-signs radios motorcycles telephones chisels lampposts chimneys . . . They were machines and the whole city was made of machines! The hero took it in silently. Once in a while he trembled. Then he’d go still again listening conjecturing machinating in an awestruck reverie. He was seized with an envious respect for this truly powerful goddess, the renowned Tupã whom the children of manioc called Machine, who liked to sing even more than the Mother-of-Water, in a bewildering clamor.
So then he figured he’d go play around with the Machine so he’d be emperor of the children of manioc too. But the three women laughed themselves silly declaring all that stuff about gods to be a fat old lie, there wasn’t any god at all and no one can play around with the machine cause it’s deadly. The machine wasn’t a god at all, it didn’t even possess those distinctive feminine parts the hero liked so much. It was made by men. And set in motion by electricity by fire by water by wind by smoke, men taking advantage of the forces of nature. But did the alligator believe it? neither did the hero! He leaped out of bed and in one fell swoop, yessir! all puffed up with disdain, hmmph! thrust his left forearm into the crook of his other arm, jerked his right fist vigorously at the three women and took off. Right then, so they say, he invented that notoriously offensive gesture: the banana.
And off he went to live in a boarding house with his brothers. He got thrush in his mouth from that first night of Paulistano love. He moaned with pain and wasn’t getting any better till Maanape nicked the key to a tabernacle for Macunaíma to suck on. The hero sucked and sucked and got better again. Maanape was a sorcerer.
Macunaíma then went a week without eating or playing just machinating on the no-win battles between the sons of manioc and the Machine. The Machine killed men but it was men who commanded the Machine . . . It dawned on him in amazement that the sons of manioc were masters with no mystery and no power of the machine with no mystery no desire no satiety, incapable of explaining any misfortunes. It made him nostalgic. Till one night, perched on the terrace of a skyscraper with his brothers, Macunaíma concluded:
