Eulodia Dagua, "Wild Birds I Have Raised."

When you were a little girl, did you still like raising animals? I loved it so much when I was a child. Oh, so much, so much! I raised the bird chikin pishku and also the bird millay kiwa. I also raised birds like the tititas and the chukuki. I loved taking care of them and watching them grow when I was a child. Now that I’m older, I don’t like it as much. I also used to raise dogs; I cared for them since they were very small. The bird that sings “chis zium, chis zium!” I raised that one too. I also raised the pichida bird, and the azun bichi as well. I liked raising all kinds of animals. —And how did you catch them? We found those birds along the paths to the chakra, where they usually lay their eggs. I took the chikin bird with me to raise it. The chikin bird ate everything. When I went to the chakra, it liked to go with me; it stayed there whistling “chis zium, chis zium!” while keeping me company. That’s how the birds I raised used to follow me. I loved raising and seeing all kinds of birds grow when I was a little girl. —How did you catch the birds when you were a child? I liked catching and raising them — parrots, parakeets, and yellow-headed parrots, among others. —How did you manage to catch that macaw? We caught it from an old chonta palm in the places where we lived. We used to walk inside the forest, cutting down the old palms to find them. During the season when the chicks were born, we used to go around cutting old palms. When the chicks were that size, we caught three or sometimes four. We also caught blue macaws and yellow-breasted macaws. —Did you cut down the palms to catch them? —Yes, we even cut down morete palms. We also caught red macaws and shangama birds. I loved keeping and caring for those birds. I loved raising those birds. Even when I was with my husband, I enjoyed having and caring for them. One day, my husband and my father walked far into the forest, and when they reached a lagoon… There they hunted animals and fished pashin fish in the lagoon. They dried them and carried them in a basket, making maytos. They also caught macaws; my husband brought me as many as 25 macaws. —Twenty-five macaws? —Yes. —Were they chicks? —Yes, they were chicks, and they had made a big basket to carry them. We stayed at home, knowing they were about to arrive. My father had caught thirty little chicks. —What did you do with so many birds? At home we cared for some that were still small and others that were already bigger when they caught them. The chicks screamed “gahh!” and almost made us deaf, but when they grew up, they started flying and looked really beautiful. The soldiers used to buy the macaws from me. That’s how I ended up selling the yellow macaws. I raised them big and beautiful. —How did you manage to catch twenty birds? My husband caught twenty-five and my father thirty; that’s what they brought. —My goodness! They said there were many chicks in holes inside the bamboo of that size. They cried “gahh, gahh!” and you could see them sticking their heads out. They didn’t bring too many, only about half of what was in that lagoon, called Guacamayo Lagoon. They cut some logs to make rafts and get there. Let me explain: they split a taraputo tree in half to make a raft that could float and reach the place. We only brought what we could. Yhh! The noise of the macaws in that lagoon was so loud it almost made you deaf. That’s how I used to raise them before. Now I don’t like doing it anymore, though I used to love it. —And later, did you have many children? —Yes, when I started having children, I no longer liked raising small animals. Now I only like having big dogs; the small ones not so much. When I was a girl, I loved having them and raising them since they were newborns.