Delicia Dagua, “On the Disappearance of White-lipped Peccaries and a Song to Call them Back.”

Now listen! Elias Andi said to me (he was my uncle). He was a strong person. He said to me “Daughter, If you ever become an orphan, if it happens that you are left all alone, if there is no man to hunt for you in the forest, if wherever you go the animals are absent. If you go here and there and there is nothing. Then sit down when you are all alone. You should sit in your house singing this song in this way to call the wangana,” he said to me. If I sang his song then after two days the wangana would come running. You should learn this, daughter he said to me. When he said this I said yes and I learned it. I used to live with that uncle. Then drinking ayawaska and fanning me he taught it to me. He was a brujo. He said to make it sound like he sang. ⁄⁄ “Uwa uwa" peccary [babies cry] ⁄⁄ (Note:) [As their Apu] comes spilling them out. “Uwa uwa" peccary [babies cry] [As their Apu] come spilling them out. From where the sun rises //He will come carrying// His red trumpet //He will come blowing// //With his red flag hung around him like a necklace.// Carrying his red trumpet Toward where the sun sets He will come running, running He will come running, running //Uwa uwa peccary babies [cry]// //[As their Apu] spills them out.// “Uwa uwa" peccary [babies cry] With his red flag hung around him like a necklace. Toward where the sun sets He will come shaking off the water He will arrive shaking off the water When they learn about this the people will look for the blowguns and go running, running. That is how it is. That is what I learned. It is what I know. My uncle Elias Andi, my mother’s brother taught me this song and left it with me. My mother was an Andi woman, an Andi Tutuy. He left me this song that he taught me. If I sing like that then on the third day the wangana come running. That is how I learned it. My Uncle Elias Andi, my mother’s brother, taught me this song and left it to me. My mother was an Andi woman, Andi Tutuy. He taught me this song and left it to me. If I sing it, on the third day the peccaries come running. Have you actually seen the peccaries come after your uncle sang that? Yes! Listen now. I will tell you. That's how my uncle would sing it and I would just be there listening. That's also how my brother Tomás used to sing when he went into the forest with tobacco in his mouth. Just like I sang it now. He used to walk singing and blowing (tobacco). That is how he would sing in the forest. We went out together once. When we arrived at the Río Ishpingo the two of us sang there together. The peccaries came. The peccaries came and he killed one there. Killed one and brought it back. "That is how they come when you sing sister." From that time we were together it was three months to the day that he died. When he died I went back. After he was buried I arrived in Montalvo to go down river. We went with my husband, my son, and one of my son-in-laws. (When we arrived where my brother had lived there was) silence! We looked here. Nothing appeared. Up there nothing! That's how it was after he had died. I cried a lot. I stood in the forest and cried. I am holding up here now. After we came from walking my husband commented on how there was nothing out there at all. The (animals) were gone. There is another brother who lives there, my brother Lucho. "Sister, it is not just today,” he said, “It's been this way since the day he died.” You walk over here, nothing. You go over to that hill, nothing. You go over there, nothing. No animals at all. Even the toucans were silent, the caracaras too. As we were coming back upriver we stopped in the community and I asked my brother Lucho, "What happened to this forest? Suddenly it has become empty." "Let's see," I thought. "I am going to try it, to see if it is true. He has died but I am alive, "I said. I am going to try singing." They laughed at me. My husband Ruben is a joker, "Quick! Boil some ayawaska and give it to her!" he teased me. "Delicia is a singer!" "No!" I said. "This is not a laughing matter. It is not a joke," I said. “This is a song for calling (the peccaries). So I sang the song like I just did now. After I sang, the next morning, my brother Lucho went to the lake to fish. "I am going sister," he said. And as he was going we heard a shot. "I wonder what he shot?," (I thought). "Maybe he shot a tapir?" Because there was nothing, no game at all. But then he came carrying a big fat peccary And he brought another young one that he had killed. He came and dropped it (by me). "Here! You have this one sister," It was a beautiful afternoon so we smoked the meat, butchered it, made a plantain stew and ate. (That night) I went to sleep. The first to arrive in my dream was my uncle Elias Andi. After that I looked and saw that Ventura had come. He was my compadre. He too had died and since he had died he came in my dream. "Daughter," he said, "Why did you sing that song?" "Why did you do that? You shouldn’t sing that song! They got very mad at me. Next, Ventura came and said, "Comadre,You are not a woman who lives here (any more)," he told me. "You are a strong woman," he said. "People here are angry with you." "Don't stay here," he said. Those people who are angry with your relatives, those people from Puka Yaku, those who are always trying to keep the animals for themselves. Those Aucas are going to kill the peccaries. They are going to kill a lot of them to sell in Montalvo." They are all just interested in money. They are angry at you. Don't go there. "Even though that's how things are you sang!" "Why did you sing?" he said!" "From now on don't sing that!" he said. "I left their faces set toward where the sun sets (journeying out of this world to go inside the western mountains). And now you sang (to bring them back).” "Now the peccary herd will turn back toward where the sun rises. Now they will turn their faces," he said. They had set (the peccary herd's journey) toward the west. They had left them like that so that (their enemies) could not get the game out the (of the mountains). Since they had turned (the peccaries) faces (in that direction) they would not return and there would be no animals. There were no animals there. When I sang that song it (the peccaries) turned back. That's why they got angry at me in the dream. That's why he was mad at me. The next morning they went out and killed just one. With that I returned. I have not sung that song since that time I returned until now. Now since you asked me I sing it here so that you can hear it.