At last, his head reeling from searching, blind with rage, Kachiborérine returned to his hut. He grabbed a bamboo cane, pounded one end, smeared it thickly with resin from the ojeé tree, and lighted it. When the flame leaped up, he grabbed the cane by the other end and shoved it up his anus, a good way up. Leaping about and roaring, he looked at the ground, looked at the forest. At last, choking with anger, pointing at the sky, he cried: “Where can I go, then, that’s not this cursed world? I’ll go up there above; I’ll be better off there, perhaps.” He’d already changed into a devil and he started rising, higher and higher. Since then, that’s where he’s been, up there. Since then, that’s who we see, now and again, in Inkite, Kachiborérine, the comet. You don’t see his face. You don’t see his body. Only the flaming cane he carries around in his anus. He’ll go on his way in a fury forever, maybe.
“Lucky for you that you didn’t meet him when you were flying up there clutching the stork,” Tasurinchi the seripigari said to me mockingly. “You’d have gotten burned by his tail.” According to him, Kachiborérine comes down to earth every so often to collect Machiguenga corpses from the riverbanks. He slings them over his shoulder and carries them up yonder. He changes them into secret stars, they say.
That, anyway, is what I have learned.
We sat chatting there in that country where there are so many fireflies. Night had come on as I talked with Tasurinchi, the seripigari. The forest lighted up here, fell dark there, lighted up farther on. It seemed to be winking at us. “I don’t know how you can live in this place, Tasurinchi. I wouldn’t live here. Going from one place to another, I’ve seen all sorts of things among the men who walk. But nowhere have I seen so many fireflies, I swear. All the trees have begun to give off sparks. Isn’t that a sign of some misfortune to come? I tremble every time I come to visit you, thinking of those fireflies. It’s as though they’re looking at us, listening to what I tell you.”
“Of course they’re looking at us,” the seripigari assured me. “Of course they listen carefully to what you say. Just as I do, they look forward to your coming. They’re happy seeing you come, happy listening to your stories. They have a good memory, unlike what’s happening to me. I’m losing my wisdom along with my strength. They stay young, it seems. Once you’ve gone, they entertain me, reminding me of what they heard you telling.”
“Are you making fun of me, Tasurinchi? I’ve visited many seripigaris and I’ve heard something extraordinary from each one. But I never knew before that any of them could talk with fireflies.”
“Well, you’re seeing one right here who can,” Tasurinchi said to me, laughing at my surprise. “If you want to hear, you have to know how to listen. I’ve learned how. If I hadn’t, I’d have given up walking some time ago. I used to have a family, remember. They all went, killed by the evil, the river, lightning, a jaguar. How do you think I was able to bear so many misfortunes? By listening, storyteller. Nobody ever comes here to this part of the forest. Once in a great while, some Machiguenga from the river valleys farther down, seeking help. He comes, he goes, and I’m alone again. Nobody’s going to come kill me here; no Viracocha, Mashco, Punaruna, or devil is going to climb all the way up here to this forest. But the life of a man so completely alone soon ends.
“What could I do? Rage? Despair? Go to the riverbank and stick a chambira thorn into myself? I started thinking and remembered the fireflies. They more or less preyed on my mind, just as they do you. Why were there so many of them? Why didn’t they congregate in any other part of the forest the way they did here? In one of my trances, I learned why. I asked the spirit of a saankarite, back in the roof of my house. ‘Isn’t it on your account?’ he answered. ‘Couldn’t they have come to keep you company? A man needs his family, if he’s going to walk.’ That made me think. And that was when I first spoke to them. I felt odd, talking to some little lights that kept going on and off without answering me. ‘I’ve learned you’re here to keep me company. The little god explained it to me. It was stupid of me not to have guessed before. Thank you for coming, for being everywhere around me.’ One night went by, then another and another. Each time, the forest first darkened and then filled with little lights. I purified myself with water, prepared tobacco and brews, talked to them by singing to them. All night long I sang to them. And even though they didn’t answer, I listened to them. Carefully. Respectfully. Very soon I was certain they heard me. ‘I understand, I understand. You’re testing Tasurinchi’s patience.’ Silent, motionless, serene, my eyes shut, waiting. I listened but heard nothing. At last, one night, after many nights, it happened. Over there, now. Sounds different from the sounds of the forest when night falls. Do you hear them? Murmurs, whispers, laments. A cascade of soft voices. Whirlpools of voices, voices colliding, intermingling, voices you can barely hear. Listen, listen, storyteller. It’s always like that in the beginning. A sort of confusion of voices. Later on, you can understand them. I had earned their trust, perhaps. Very soon, we could converse. And now they’re my kinfolk.”
That’s how it’s come about, it seems. Tasurinchi and the fireflies have gotten used to each other. They now spend their nights talking together. The seripigari tells them about the men who walk and they tell him their eternal story. They, for their part, aren’t happy. Before, yes, they were, it seems. They lost their happiness many moons ago, though they go on glowing nonetheless. Because all the fireflies here are males. That is the misfortune that has befallen them. Their females are the lights in the sky above. That’s right, the stars of Inkite. And what are the females doing in the world up above and the males in this one? That’s the story they keep telling, according to Tasurinchi. Look at them, just look at them. Little lights blinking on and off. The same as words to them, perhaps. Right here, right now, all around us, they’re telling each other how they lost their women. They never tire of talking about it, he says. They spend their lives remembering their misfortune and cursing Kashiri, the moon.
This is the story of the fireflies.
That was before.
In that time, they were all one family. The males had their females and the females their males. There was peace and food, and those who went came back, breathed out by Tasurinchi.
We Machiguengas had not yet started walking. The moon lived among us, married to a Machiguenga. He was insatiable; all he wanted was to be on top of her. He got her pregnant and the sun was born. Kashiri kept mounting her more and more often. The seripigari warned him: “Some evil will happen, in this world and in the ones above, if you go on like this. Let your wife alone, don’t be so greedy.” Kashiri paid no attention, but the Machiguengas were alarmed. The sun might lose its light. The earth would be in darkness, cold; life would slowly disappear, perhaps. And that was what happened. There were sudden terrible upheavals. The world shook, the rivers overflowed, monstrous beings emerged from the Gran Pongo and devastated the countryside. The men who walked, dismayed, ill-counseled, lived by night, fleeing the day, to please Kashiri. Because the moon was jealous of his child and hated the sun. Were we all going to die? So it seemed. Then Tasurinchi breathed out. He blew once again. He went on blowing. He didn’t kill Kashiri, but he nearly snuffed him out, leaving him only the dim light he now has. And he sent him back to Inkite, back to where he’d been before he came down seeking a wife. That’s how after must have started.