One day when he’d gone out to hunt, after fasting and painting his face in the proper way, he felt the leaves moving not far from where he was. He sensed a shape and halted, saying: A big animal! He approached slowly, heedlessly. Not taking the time to make sure what it was, he boldly shot his arrow. He ran to see. There it was, lying on the ground, dead. What had fallen? A deer. He was very frightened, of course. Some evil would befall him now. What happens to someone who kills a forbidden animal? There was no seripigari close by to put that question to. Would his body be covered with blisters? Would he be racked by horrible pains? Would the kamagarinis snatch one of his souls and carry it off to the top of a tree for the buzzards to peck at? Many moons passed and nothing happened. Then Tasurinchi swelled with pride. “That story about not killing deer is all humbug,” his family heard him say. “Just coward’s talk.” “How dare you say that!” they scolded him, looking about in all directions, and above and below, in fright. “I killed one and I feel quite peaceful and happy,” he answered.
That’s what Tasurinchi kept saying, and finally all the saying led to doing. He started hunting deer. He followed their trail to the collpa where they went to lick the salty earth. He followed them to the pool where they gathered to drink. He sought out the caves where the females went to give birth. He lay in wait in a hiding place, and when he saw the deer he shot his arrows at them. They lay there dying, looking at him with their big eyes. Sorrowful, as though asking: What have you done to me? He slung them across his back. He was pleased, perhaps. He didn’t mind being stained with the blood of what he had hunted. Nothing mattered to him now. He wasn’t afraid of anything, it seems. He brought the kill to his hut. “Cook it. Like sachavaca, the very same way,” he ordered his wife. She obeyed, trembling with fear. Sometimes she tried to warn him. “This food is going to bring evil upon us,” she whimpered. “Upon you and me and everybody, perhaps. It’s as though you ate your children or your mothers, Tasurinchi. We’re not Chonchoites, are we? When have Machiguengas ever eaten human flesh?” Chewing and choking on great mouthfuls of meat, he would say: “If deer are people who have turned into something else, the Chonchoites are quite right. It’s food, and it’s delicious. Look what a feast I’m having; look how I’m enjoying this food.” And he farted and farted. In the forest Kientibakori drank masato, dancing and feasting. His farts were like thunder; his belches like the jaguar’s roar.
And it was true; despite the deer he shot and ate, nothing happened to Tasurinchi. Some families took fright; others, persuaded by his example, started eating forbidden flesh. The world was thrown into confusion, then.
One day, Tasurinchi found tracks in the forest. That made him very happy. The trail was wide and easy to follow and his experience told him it was a herd of deer. He followed it for many moons, full of hope, his heart pounding. How many shall I kill? he dreamed. If I’m lucky, as many as I have arrows. I’ll drag them home one at a time, cut them up, salt them, and we’ll have food for a long time.
The trail came to an end in the dark waters of a small lake; in one corner was a waterfall, half hidden by the branches and leaves of the trees. The vegetation muffled the sound of the water and the place did not seem to be this world but Inkite. Just as peaceful, perhaps. Here the herd came to drink. Here the deer gathered to chew the cud. Here they slept, keeping each other warm. Excited by his discovery, Tasurinchi looked all around. There it was; that was the best tree. He would have a clear view from there; from there he could shoot off his arrows. He climbed up, made his hiding place with branches and leaves. Quietly, quietly, as though his souls had leaked away and his body were an empty skin, he waited.
Not for long. Soon his sharp hunter’s ears caught the sound, troc, troc, far away, the drumbeat of deer hoofs in the forest: troc, troc, troc. Suddenly he saw it: a stag, tall and proud, with the sad look of one who has been a man. Tasurinchi’s eyes shone. His mouth watered perhaps. Thinking: How tender, how tasty! He aimed and shot. But the arrow whistled past the stag, as though curving so as to miss it, and flew on, lost in the depths of the forest. How many times can a man die? Many times, it seems. This stag did not die. Nor was it frightened. What was happening? Instead of fleeing, it began drinking. Stretching its neck from the shore of the lake, plunging its muzzle into the water, lifting it out, clacking its tongue, it drank, shh, shh. Shh, shh, content. As though unaware of danger. Calm. Could it be deaf? Could it be a deer with no sense of smell? Tasurinchi now had a second arrow ready. Troc, troc. Then he saw another stag arriving, pushing through the branches, making the leaves rustle. It took its place next to the first one and began drinking. They seemed content, both of them, drinking water. Shh, shh, shh. Tasurinchi loosed his arrow. It missed this time, too. What was happening? The two stags went on drinking, not taking fright, not fleeing. What’s happening to you, Tasurinchi? Is your hand trembling? Have you lost your eyesight? Can you no longer judge distance? What was he going to do? He was utterly bewildered; he couldn’t believe it. His world had gone dark. And there he was, shooting. He shot all his arrows. Troc, troc. Troc, troc. The deer kept on coming. More and more, so many, so very many. The drumbeat of their hoofs echoed and reechoed in Tasurinchi’s ears. Troc, troc. They didn’t seem to be coming from this world, but from the one below or above. Troc, troc. He understood then. Perhaps. Was it you or they who’d fallen into the trap, Tasurinchi?
There were the deer, calm, not angry. Drinking, eating, moving about, mating. Twining their necks together, butting each other. As though nothing had happened, as though nothing were going to happen. But Tasurinchi knew that they knew that he was there. Could they be avenging their dead in this way? By making him endure this painfully long wait? No, this was only the beginning. What had to happen would not happen while the sun was in Inkite, but later, when Kashiri rose. Kashiri the resentful, the stained one. Darkness fell. The sky filled with stars. Kashiri sent his pale light. Tasurinchi could see the eyes of the deer, glistening with regret at no longer being men, with sadness at not walking. Then suddenly, as though at a command, the animals started moving. All at the same time, it seems. They all came to Tasurinchi’s tree. There they were, at his feet. A great many of them. A forest of deer, you might say. One after another, in an orderly way, not hurrying, not getting in each other’s way, they butted the tree. Playfully at first, then harder. Harder still. He was sad. Saying: “I’m going to fall.” He never would have believed that before going he’d be like a shimbillo monkey, clinging to a branch, trying not to drown in that dark mass of deer. But he held out the whole night. Sweating and moaning, he resisted, hoping his arms and legs would not give out. At dawn, his strength gone, he let himself fall. Saying: “I must accept my fate.”
Now he, too, is a deer, like the others. There he is, I hear, wandering up and down the forest, troc, troc. Fleeing the jaguar, frightened of the snake. Troc, troc. Hiding from the puma and from the arrows of the hunter who, through ignorance or wickedness, kills and eats his brothers.
When I come upon a deer, I remember the story the seripigari of the Kompiroshiato told me. What if this one were Tasurinchi the hunter? Who can tell? I for my part have no way of telling whether a deer was or wasn’t a man who walks, before. I just step back a little way and look at it. Perhaps it recognizes me; perhaps when it sees me it thinks: I was like him. Who knows?
In a bad trance a machikanari of the rainbow river, the Yoguieto, turned into a jaguar. How did he know? Because of the terrible urge he felt to kill deer and eat them. “I grew blind with rage,” he said. And roaring with hunger, he began running through the forest, tracking them. Until he came upon one and killed it. When he changed back into a machikanari, he had shreds of flesh between his teeth and his nails were bloody from all the ripping and tearing he’d done. “Kientibakori must have been pleased,” he said. He may well have been.