Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
C O N C L U S I O N
Behold the Black Caiman
Everyone that saw Him Fled! They fled at His horrible Form: they hid in caves
and dens, they looked on one another and became what they beheld.
W i l l i a m
B l a k e
So where do these tracks lead, here at the end?
For me, they opened up into empty hands and away: out
of synch like coming back from a war that only I had fought
or maybe just dreamed. I did not escape unscathed from
the Black Caiman—no one does—but those are stories for
another time and even so I was not able to stay away.
I've been back every year since 2009, never for long
enough to stay close. But often enough to know that some
things have changed and others have not. Many of the
people I knew have died: Jnupi, Ore Jno, Agá, Chicode,
Simijáné, Codé, Ujñari, Emi, Ebedai'date, Juan, Dalila,
Bajebia'date, Puasaquenejnamia, Aasi. Many new children
have been born.
To be sure, there are other stories I could tell, other im-
ages I could conjure. More people are involved in political
activism around cultural rights. Ayoreo have been elected to
public office in Morales's Bolivia. Several young people are
going to college.
I could evoke a scene from the 2008 Carnival procession
in Santa Cruz, which featured a group of Ayoreo partici-
pants for the first time. Expected to perform their traditions
in a public space, Ayoreo instead invented new costumes,
donning fake
ayode
headdresses and painstakingly stitching
Western-style bikini tops from
garabata
thread.
