THE SECRET OF THE SIRIPIA FRUITS

THE SECRET OF THE SIRIPIA FRUITS

According to Siekopai tradition, a school of especially large and delicious fish dwelt in the river Nea'ocoyá, which is located deep within the Amazon jungle. Fish started to appear when it started to rain, then they swam away as the water level dropped again.

The riverside communities enjoyed the sporadic abundance and yearned for more. They pursued them upriver, far into the woods, to a lagoon where fish flapping thundered. The entire village set up camp by the lagoon and brought barbasco, a toxin they would use to shock fish, with them.

Their young shaman went for a stroll in the interim. He had the impression that he wasn't really alone. He eventually arrived at a monse tree that was humming so loudly that he could hear it above the thunder of the fish. He knew for sure after that: spirits existed here.

He warned his companions back at camp that he would find the owner of these fish because they had an owner. No one was to fish until he got back. He walked to the humming tree, which had a large hollow inside that was occupied by weaving workers. They were weaving baskets to collect the ripening luscious small siripia fruits, their chief said as he invited him inside.

The shaman understood they were juri, or air goblins, with the ability to fly and control the winds, despite the fact that they seemed and behaved like people.They instructed him in weaving. The goblin chief gave the shaman some cryptic instructions in his ear before he went.

Then he instructed him to place a pineapple sprout outside a hollow wood and spend the night inside. The locals were cooking, eating, and fishing with barbacoa poison when they returned to camp. Only the small sister of the shaman resisted.

Everyone else awoke abruptly from a deep sleep. They were shaken and yelled at by the shaman and his sister, but they remained asleep. The shaman and his sister fastened the pineapple sprout to the exterior of the hollow log as it began to become dark, and then they crept inside.

The air goblins' mark was raised by a powerful wind that toppled trees and destroyed branches. As the water started to rise and the fish floated off the drying racks and swam away, caymans, boas, and jaguars yelled.

The pineapple sprout transformed into a dog, which howled nonstop throughout the night to keep jungle animals away from the downed tree. The flood subsided as day broke. Due to the creatures of the jungle devouring the fish, most of the people had also perished. Only the shaman's kin persisted.

When his family turned to face him, the shaman understood what the goblins had meant when they stated the fruits were ripening: they were actually gathering human eyes rather than siripia fruits. He was summoned by the shaman's elder sister, who was reaching out to touch his face with her long, jagged claws.

As he withdrew, he scattered palm seeds at her face in remembrance of the goblin chief's orders.

The entire village of the shaman and his sister was gone.

They moved in with another village where he passed on the basket-weaving skills he had learned from the air goblins, but he was unable to forget the last of the goblin chief's advice, which described how to exact retribution.

As the air goblins watched through their peepholes, he returned bearing chili peppers wrapped in leaves. The shaman built a fire and placed the chili peppers on it. The tree started to burn due to the fire.

The goblins who had consumed human eyes perished, but those that hadn't were able to fly away. As a result, both humans and goblins paid a high price.But like the shaman, they were able to survive and recount the story.

Even death is an opportunity for rejuvenation in the Siekopai mythology, where the spirit and human worlds collide.