In the Shaman's Tent

Astringent smoke not wholly unpleasant, like a sweetish tobacco, stung my eyes and throat and made me choke and cough upon entering the shaman's tent.  The rain pattered down producing inside the tent what sounded like a rhythmic drumming, the air was electric, and the little hairs on my arms and neck stood up instantly dry in the charged atmosphere. I feared lightening would strike us. 

The shaman himself was reclining near a small fire that had a gray mass of leaves smoldering on it. The smoke filtering up through a chimney hole at the top of the tent but not before filling the tent. I could only see him through the thick haze of the smoke that permeated the lungs and a fit of coughing commenced once more. "Dear Sir, I GAC-KAW! aah, sorry, Dear Sire, my maps." I spluttered to the figure beyond the haze. A young assistant of his appeared at my side holding a gourd cup. I was shocked by him at first for the tent didn't look able to hold three people, I was having a hard time determining the dimensions and lost site of the tent walls.  The shaman motioned for me to drink and I imbibed along with him the drink that was much like my own only more sour and strong. 

He was a slight man, and frail from what I could see of him. He spoke in his dialect and I responded. "I no more speak your language than you speak mine, I'm afraid." He motioned to his assistant to fetch the Monsignor who served as our translator. I didn't want to get that man involved so tried my best before he arrived. Not wanting to accuse one of his people of theft although their feelings on that vice are quite different than our own I was still a frighted of offending the old man (if nothing else my nanny Briselda raised me with manners). "I...you...I am...I have... You see... I have mislaid my maps." He was stoic and simply took a drink, which I did as well. I had an idea perhaps a pictorial representation would bridge our dumbness and drew in the dry ground with my cigarette holder a facsimile of one of my key maps that had been "mislaid". "Map" I said placing the cigarette holder back in my mouth and a mouthful of dirt as well.

     "MAP." he said shaking his steel gray hair and leaned closer across the smoldering fire.  The fire lit his face, I was able to more thoroughly examine the man.  Indeed an ancient specimen he was but his movement belied a strange inner vitality, his limbs were strong, and balled with muscle, and though his face was as lined and marked as one of my maps, it shown a vibrant glow, orange in the firelight. He smiled showing me his worn teeth still there in his head; (more than I can say for myself, the fault of a certain rather puckish rouge of a burro, but that's a story for another time) he held out a bowl filled with some kind of fungi and made the sign to eat. I took a handful of the mushrooms and he laughed a hooting laugh, his eyes cataracted a mossy green. I was held in his gaze. I saw something moving like the jungle canopy. The rhythmic sound had continued and the pulsating droning and electric feel of the air grew more intense. I started to sweat. He peered at me with his clouded, mossy eyes and with a knobby finger dangling off a muscle jangled arm started to draw a map on the tent floor next too mine. The cacophony inside intensified still, and I felt like the tent was growing larger and folding in on itself simultaneously. I was tense with excitement. The map he was drawing- I recognized it! It was one of my own but with more detail. I grabbed a piece of charcoal from the fire and drew the map directly onto my own body. He clapped and shouted at this and spoke some gibberish. 

     It seemed that the rain had stopped but a new rhythmic sound had taken its place. I wondered if this was an effect of the static electricity of the tropical storm. But as I copied the map I noticed the movement of hundreds of small blue, red, yellow, and green frogs leaping and hopping and all croaking together in a syncopated rhythm  My eyes were wide and I hurriedly finished copying the shaman's map. The boy finally arrived with a much mud bespattered  monsignor, who had mastered the native language on previous visits and spoke to the indians like only one could who wished to convert them and oppress their natural ways; brutal or savage as they were. 

     "About time you got here you fool! Look at you, your filthy man; tell this man I am grateful." I brushed away the map in the dirt with my hands as I made to stand up. The monsignor spoke some native words to the shaman and the shaman spoke back in a lengthy sermon such that I was able to escape the tent before the monsignor had noticed the charcoal markings all over my body.