"Oh, thought it was a nightmare.
Though it come so true.
They told me don't go walking slow,
The devil's on the loose.
Better run through the jungle.
Better run through the jungle.
Better run through the jungle.
Don't look back to see."
--Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Run Through The Jungle"
"If you need me, let me know, gonna be around. If you've got no place to go, if you're feeling down, if you're all alone when the pretty birds have flown?"
The deafening sound of ABBA suddenly silenced plunged the surrounding jungle into a quiescent stillness for the span of ten heart-beats. Then the cicadas began their buzzing song and were soon joined in their chorus by the peeps and deep booming baritones of tree frogs, the almost-human cries of the macaws and parrots, and the ear-splitting din of a troop of howler monkeys. Braulio much preferred the symphony of the jungle to human music, especially disco. He snorted softly and shook his head, before glancing aside at the curandero who was sitting aft in their little peque-peque as it motored slowly up the Ucayali River. "I cannot believe you listen to that garbage, old man," he said to him in his native tongue, Iquito.
The curandero, an elder of the Pintuyacu tribe, native to this area of the Peruvian Amazon, who made his living ferrying scientists up and down the river and on occasion leading them on Ayahuasca tours of the jungle, merely chuckled softly at the young ethnobotanist?s words. "It is part of the world?s culture, miisi icuani," he said, shifting to Spanish, though still calling Braulio a hunting cat in Iquito. "Do you Spanish not want me to learn of the world's culture?"
"I would far prefer you kept your old ways, Jaime," Braulio responded, not rising to the bait of being called Spanish. Braulio's ancestors had been in Peru since shortly after the first Spanish explorers had discovered the area and had married natives, mixing the bloodlines and forming the foundation of much of Peru's population. Still, to the Pintuyacu, Braulio was Spanish and Jaime would never let him forget it. "Besides, disco is one part of the world culture that is better left forgotten."
"It is happy music. All about dancing and making love. These are good things, miisi icuani. Things you should do more of. You will never find a wife if you spend all of your time alone in the jungle studying plants. My niece is home from the University. She is a pretty girl. I will introduce you tomorrow."
Braulio groaned and closed his eyes. Jaime?s niece would be a short, wide girl with a hooked Roman nose and beady eyes who smelled of cheap perfume and snored at night. All of Jaime?s nieces, grand-daughters, and great grand-daughters looked like this. "Thank you, Jaime," he dutifully responded nonetheless. He could not risk offending the man as it was his knowledge of the rain forest's flora life and their medicinal uses that made up the lion's share of Braulio's work.
Soon the small motorized boat reached the tiny dock at the edge of the triangularly-shaped Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve. Braulio hopped out and tied the craft up to the dock before helping Jaime out. "Today we will find the ayahuma and study its medicine," Jaime said as he and Braulio ambled up the dock and into the trees. "Do you remember what I said of it?"
Braulio nodded. "Yes, its spirit is a headless giant," he said slowly, working to recall the spiritual and magical properties the curandero had recited the last time they were in the jungle together. "It's used in the ayahuasca ritual to heal susto, to protect one's soul from spiritual trauma." Ayahuma, or the Cannonball tree as it was known in Western countries, was an evergreen tree closely related to the Brazil nut. It was sacred to the Hindus, who planted it around temples to Shiva in India and Bangladesh, and was one of many different ingredients added to the ayahuasca psychotropic tea used by Amazonian shamen and curandero to induce vivid visual and auditory hallucinations that were used for religious purposes. Braulio was interested in it for its medicinal properties, namely its antibiotic, antifungal, antiseptic and analgesic qualities. Jamie had also made claims that he'd used it to treat cases of malaria. Learning the various plants and their spiritual properties was the last step before Braulio became a dietero, or apprentice ayahuasca shaman, and spent a year living alone in the jungle with only weekly interactions with Jaime.
"It will be in fruit now. We'll be able to smell it a quarter-mile away," Jaime said. And indeed, the deeper they walked into the jungle, the stronger the stench of decaying vegetable matter became. However, that smell shifted subtly, becoming more like the miasma that surrounded a slaughter house and less the familiar and somewhat comforting scent of a healthy jungle environment.
"That can't be the ayahuma, can it?" Braulio asked Jaime. "That smells like a carrion flower or maybe a jaguar kill."
Jaime shook his head, a deep, worried frown pulling down at the corners of his mouth. "No, Gato, that is not ayahuma. What does your nose tell you?"
Braulio stopped and closed his eyes, shutting off the overwhelming visual stimuli of the surrounding jungle. He took a deep breath and curled his lips in the flehmen position of a felid, opening his mouth just a touch to allow the air he inhaled to brush past the vomeronasal, or Jacobson's, organ that had developed in the roof of his mouth shortly after he made the Shift from human to Lycanthrope. "Whatever it is, it's long dead. And there's a lot of it, too. Many dead things." He opened his eyes and cast a worried look to the old man. "Stay here. I'll be right back." Braulio reached out and laid his hand on Jaime?s stick-thin arm to give it a gentle, hopefully reassuring squeeze, before he shrugged off his pack and laid it at the curandero's feet. He turned and headed into the jungle, moving just as silently as the jaguar he became when the full moon rode the skies above.
Though it come so true.
They told me don't go walking slow,
The devil's on the loose.
Better run through the jungle.
Better run through the jungle.
Better run through the jungle.
Don't look back to see."
--Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Run Through The Jungle"
"If you need me, let me know, gonna be around. If you've got no place to go, if you're feeling down, if you're all alone when the pretty birds have flown?"
The deafening sound of ABBA suddenly silenced plunged the surrounding jungle into a quiescent stillness for the span of ten heart-beats. Then the cicadas began their buzzing song and were soon joined in their chorus by the peeps and deep booming baritones of tree frogs, the almost-human cries of the macaws and parrots, and the ear-splitting din of a troop of howler monkeys. Braulio much preferred the symphony of the jungle to human music, especially disco. He snorted softly and shook his head, before glancing aside at the curandero who was sitting aft in their little peque-peque as it motored slowly up the Ucayali River. "I cannot believe you listen to that garbage, old man," he said to him in his native tongue, Iquito.
The curandero, an elder of the Pintuyacu tribe, native to this area of the Peruvian Amazon, who made his living ferrying scientists up and down the river and on occasion leading them on Ayahuasca tours of the jungle, merely chuckled softly at the young ethnobotanist?s words. "It is part of the world?s culture, miisi icuani," he said, shifting to Spanish, though still calling Braulio a hunting cat in Iquito. "Do you Spanish not want me to learn of the world's culture?"
"I would far prefer you kept your old ways, Jaime," Braulio responded, not rising to the bait of being called Spanish. Braulio's ancestors had been in Peru since shortly after the first Spanish explorers had discovered the area and had married natives, mixing the bloodlines and forming the foundation of much of Peru's population. Still, to the Pintuyacu, Braulio was Spanish and Jaime would never let him forget it. "Besides, disco is one part of the world culture that is better left forgotten."
"It is happy music. All about dancing and making love. These are good things, miisi icuani. Things you should do more of. You will never find a wife if you spend all of your time alone in the jungle studying plants. My niece is home from the University. She is a pretty girl. I will introduce you tomorrow."
Braulio groaned and closed his eyes. Jaime?s niece would be a short, wide girl with a hooked Roman nose and beady eyes who smelled of cheap perfume and snored at night. All of Jaime?s nieces, grand-daughters, and great grand-daughters looked like this. "Thank you, Jaime," he dutifully responded nonetheless. He could not risk offending the man as it was his knowledge of the rain forest's flora life and their medicinal uses that made up the lion's share of Braulio's work.
Soon the small motorized boat reached the tiny dock at the edge of the triangularly-shaped Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve. Braulio hopped out and tied the craft up to the dock before helping Jaime out. "Today we will find the ayahuma and study its medicine," Jaime said as he and Braulio ambled up the dock and into the trees. "Do you remember what I said of it?"
Braulio nodded. "Yes, its spirit is a headless giant," he said slowly, working to recall the spiritual and magical properties the curandero had recited the last time they were in the jungle together. "It's used in the ayahuasca ritual to heal susto, to protect one's soul from spiritual trauma." Ayahuma, or the Cannonball tree as it was known in Western countries, was an evergreen tree closely related to the Brazil nut. It was sacred to the Hindus, who planted it around temples to Shiva in India and Bangladesh, and was one of many different ingredients added to the ayahuasca psychotropic tea used by Amazonian shamen and curandero to induce vivid visual and auditory hallucinations that were used for religious purposes. Braulio was interested in it for its medicinal properties, namely its antibiotic, antifungal, antiseptic and analgesic qualities. Jamie had also made claims that he'd used it to treat cases of malaria. Learning the various plants and their spiritual properties was the last step before Braulio became a dietero, or apprentice ayahuasca shaman, and spent a year living alone in the jungle with only weekly interactions with Jaime.
"It will be in fruit now. We'll be able to smell it a quarter-mile away," Jaime said. And indeed, the deeper they walked into the jungle, the stronger the stench of decaying vegetable matter became. However, that smell shifted subtly, becoming more like the miasma that surrounded a slaughter house and less the familiar and somewhat comforting scent of a healthy jungle environment.
"That can't be the ayahuma, can it?" Braulio asked Jaime. "That smells like a carrion flower or maybe a jaguar kill."
Jaime shook his head, a deep, worried frown pulling down at the corners of his mouth. "No, Gato, that is not ayahuma. What does your nose tell you?"
Braulio stopped and closed his eyes, shutting off the overwhelming visual stimuli of the surrounding jungle. He took a deep breath and curled his lips in the flehmen position of a felid, opening his mouth just a touch to allow the air he inhaled to brush past the vomeronasal, or Jacobson's, organ that had developed in the roof of his mouth shortly after he made the Shift from human to Lycanthrope. "Whatever it is, it's long dead. And there's a lot of it, too. Many dead things." He opened his eyes and cast a worried look to the old man. "Stay here. I'll be right back." Braulio reached out and laid his hand on Jaime?s stick-thin arm to give it a gentle, hopefully reassuring squeeze, before he shrugged off his pack and laid it at the curandero's feet. He turned and headed into the jungle, moving just as silently as the jaguar he became when the full moon rode the skies above.