Embrace of the Serpent Page #2

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Bringing your ancestors, the karipulakenas?

Damn rubber!

What is he saying?

He is asking you to kill him.

You brought a gun?

- Manduca, what are you doing?

- Manduca, stop!

Manduca, you can not do this.

If I do not, they will

torture him to death.

Do not do it, Manduca.

Do not do it!

- Manduca, no.

- No one deserves this hell.

Stop! Manduca stop!

Manduca, no!

Karamakate?

Should we go?

I will not go on.

Why?

You can not trust whites.

Neither can I trust you.

What do we do then?

Is this your knowledge? Guns?

The white man's science only leads violence

and death.

That is not true.

What else are you going to steal? Coca?

Quinine? Rubber?

Do you want to steal the Yakruna?

Turn it into death?

Do not talk to him like that.

He has done more for our people than you.

Ad you! Look at your white man's clothes!

How could you let them transform you so?

You think like them.

Which side are you on? You are a mestizo.

No one is more loyal than Manduca.

He never failed to defend his people.

What did you do?

He you live alone like a crazy

fool, away from the world.

I don't steal.

Look here!

This is my knowledge.

You also try to understand the world.

You also tell stories.

I have to take them to

my wife, to my people.

This is not death, it is life.

This is my music.

What is this?

A drawing I made.

Where did you see that?

A dream.

A caapi dream?

No. They never let me drink caapi.

I saw it in a dream.

I'm not a mestizo.

If these Caucheros are men,

I would rather be a snake.

Is that a fire?

No, it is Peruvians.

Come.

We must talk to the caapi master.

Only he can explain.

What do you mean?

I dreamt of your drawing.

Impossible.

Nothing is impossible for him.

Do you feel ready to drink?

Can I?

Drink without fear.

It has cleansed you inside.

You can drink again.

You need to relax.

Watoma.

I don't want to die.

Why did the caapi master not talk to me?

I do not know. It has

never happened before.

What did you see?

The master showed me a jaguar.

He told me that Watoma turned into

a boa when he touched the ground.

The boa was given a mission.

What mission?

To kill you.

This boa is my disease?

No, it's something else.

If the master caapi did

not want to talk to me,

can the Yakruna still save me?

You don't know how to listen.

I will have to teach you.

Did the jaguar say something about me?

It asked me to protect you.

Last night, at last, I had the opportunity

to understand the vision I had in Germany,

lying beside you, many years ago.

Finally I could understand

why I imagined a jaguar.

But despite my efforts

and my determination,

the effects of the caapi

remained totally foreign to me.

I feel that I have failed, my love.

I will be forced to accept

that my colleagues were right

in criticizing my trip.

I fear that I distanced myself from you

only to die thousands of

kilometers from our home.

I can only hope that this

disease is but the effect of

the nostalgia I feel when I think of you.

I beg you to forgive me

these dark expressions.

But I hope as well, my love...

You find in my honesty

another proof of my affection...

Do you understand what I am saying?

No, but it seems like you're about to cry.

He is writing to his wife.

I am expressing my affection to her.

To a woman? Before or after crying?

You do not understand.

When you return, will express you

express your affection to me too?

What are you doing?

I'll put it away.

But it's me.

No, it is not you. It's an image.

Like a chullachaqui?

A what? A chullachaqui?

A chullachaqui.

We all have one,

it resembles us, but it is empty, hollow.

This is remembrance of a time passed.

A chullachaqui has no memory.

He just wanders around the world,

empty, like a ghost, lost

in a time without time.

Will you show my

Chullachaqui to your people?

Only if you allow me.

The necklace is part of you.

It can not be given.

Okay.

Keep the paddle closer to the boat.

Listen. The river tells you when to paddle.

Like this?

Why did you not look for your people?

The Colombian killed them all.

Did you ever go back and see?

I was a child.

How did you survive?

Another rubber plantation?

No more.

It says here it's a mission.

Let's stop and get food.

No. Let's go on.

I know this place.

Do we have much food left?

None.

We will stop then.

Hi, little brother.

What is your name?

Manhekanalienpe.

That is not your name! We

should not speak that language.

My name is Jeremiah.

Where are the priests?

Go! Go!

We do not have rubber!

We do not want rubber.

What do you want?

My name is Theodore Von Martius.

I am an ethnographer from

the University of Tubingen

and the Museum of Stuttgart, Germany.

These are Manduca and Karamakate,

my traveling companions.

What do you want?

We are on an expedition

and we need food to continue our trip.

Fruits, Cassava, whatever.

I do not care! Go away.

We can negotiate, I have money. I can pay.

Go away!

Let's go.

What did he say?

That demon languages

are not allowed here.

"If you judge me to be

faithful to the Lord,

come to my house and stay."

Calm yourself. We can not

continue without food.

You are a Capuchin, right?

Please help us.

We will respect your rules.

We will only speak Spanish.

We are men of science.

As St. Thomas Aquinas.

"Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing

some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it,"

for by so doing some people

have shown hospitality...

shown hospitality to angels

"without knowing it."

I doubt that you are angels,

but it is not for me to

refuse in the house of God.

Welcome to St. Anthony of

Padua Mission in Vaups.

It is forbidden to eat fish

before the rain comes.

How long have you been here?

I came after the massacre of the Peruvians.

It is almost 10 years now.

Have you been alone all this time?

No.

Brother Marcellin and the

other brothers of the order

went looking for new disciples

two years ago and never returned.

Did you not see them down the river?

Do you only steal men?

We have a sacred mission.

We rescue the war orphans,

we save their souls

and keep them away from

cannibalism and ignorance.

IN TRIBUTE TO THE COURAGE OF

THE COLOMBIAN RUBBER PIONEERS,

THAT BROUGHT CIVILIZATION TO

THIS LAND OF WILD CANNIBALS

AND SHOWED THEM THE WAY OF GOD.

RAFAEL REYES - PRES. COLOMBIA AUGUST 1907

Give me a pan.

I know how it is here.

The whites are crazy.

Come.

Come, have no fear.

Look. This is Chiricaspi (plant).

A gift from the gods to our

ancestors the Karipulakenas.

We received the semen of the

Sun when Yeba, his daughter,

rubbed his penis and planted

the semen in the dust.

We do the same with the

plant before boiling it.

Help me.

This is the best defense we

have against the disease.

It will help you survive.

When the Caucheros razed my village,

the priests took me in as well.

My people did not surrender.

They fought.

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