Boiuna Moon

The following is an excerpt from a new English translation of the Brazilian modernist epic Macunaíma: The Hero with No Character. It was originally written in Portuguese mixed with Tupi and other languages, published in 1928.

Next day bright and early the hero, aching with longing for Ci, his lover who was unforgettable forevermore, pierced his lower lip and made the muiraquitã into a tembetá. He felt like he was gonna cry. He quickly called for his brothers, bid the Icamiabas farewell and took off.

They went roaming and ranging through all the forests over which Macunaíma now reigned. Everywhere they went he received tributes and was accompanied all the while by a retinue of red macaws and jandaya parakeets. On bitter nights he’d climb atop an açaí palm ripe with fruit as purple as his soul and contemplate the fetching figure of Ci up in the heavens. “My she-devil!” he’d moan…And oh how he suffered, oh! and he’d invoke the benevolent gods, while chanting canticles that went on and on…

Rudá, Rudá!…
Thou who makest the rains run dry,
Send the ocean winds so wild
A-whipping across my land so that
The clouds will rush away and so
My she-devil may shine so bright
Clear and steady in the sky!…
Hush all the waters that run throughout
The rivers in this land o’ mine
So that I may splash around
Playing with my she-devil
In the mirror reflection of the waters!…

Like that. Then he’d climb down and cry his eyes out on Maanape’s shoulder. Sobbing in sympathy, Jiguê would light the bonfire so the hero wouldn’t feel cold. Maanape would choke back his own tears, invoking the Acutipuru the Murucututu the Ducucu, all those lords of sleep in lullabies like this:

Acutipuru,
O lend thy sound sleep
To Macunaíma
Who does nothing but weep!…

He’d pick the hero’s ticks and soothe him rocking gently back and forth. The hero would quiet down quiet down and fall fast asleep. The next day the three ramblers set off once more through those mysterious forests. And Macunaíma was followed all the while by that retinue of red macaws and jandaya parakeets.

Wandering wandering on, one time as the dawn rays were just scattering the dark of night, they heard in the distance the sorrowful lament of a maiden. They went to have a look-see. Walking a league and a half they came upon a waterfall sobbing endlessly. Macunaíma asked the waterfall:

“What’s up?”

“The sky.”

“C’mon, tell me.”

So the waterfall recounted what had befallen her.

“Can’t you see that my name is Naipi and I am the daughter of the tuxaua named Mexô-Mexoitiqui which in my language means Big-Cat-Crouching. I was the prettiest of maidens and all the neighboring tuxauas wished to sleep in my hammock and taste of my body, more languid than the flowering embiroçu. Yet whenever one came, I’d bite and kick, eager to test his strength. And none could withstand it and they’d go away so mournful.

“My tribe was enslaved to Capei, the boiuna water snake who lived deep in a cavern in the company of saúva ants. During the season when the ipê trees along the river bloomed yellow with flowers the boiuna would come to our taba and choose a virgin girl to sleep with in her underground cave full of skeletons.

“When my body began weeping blood pleading for a man’s strength to serve, the suinara owl sang at first light in the jarina palms of my tejupar, Capei came and chose me. The ipês along the riverbank were glimmering with yellow and all their flowers fell upon the sobbing shoulders of the young Titçatê, one of my father’s warriors. A great sadness had come marching into our taba like a line of sacassaia ants and devoured even the silence.

“When the wise old pajé pulled the night back out from its hole, Titçatê gathered all the little flowers nearby and brought them to the hammock on my last night of freedom. And then I bit Titçatê.

“Blood gushed from the young man’s wounded wrist but he made no fuss at all, furiously moaning, making love, filling my mouth with flowers so I couldn’t bite anymore. Titçatê leaped into the hammock and Naipi served Titçatê.

“After we played like crazy mingling streaming blood with the little ipê flowers, my champion carried me on his shoulders, tossed me into his ipeigara moored in a place hidden among the aturiás and sped like an arrow out to the waters of the Raging River, fleeing the boiuna snake.

“The next day when the wise old pajé tucked the night back into its hole, Capei went to fetch me and found the bloody hammock empty. She roared and dashed off to find us. She was coming closer coming closer, we could hear her roaring close by, closer still right up close till finally the waters of the Raging River reared up churning from the boiuna’s body.

“Titçatê was so dead tired he could paddle no more, bleeding all the while from the bite on his wrist. That’s why we couldn’t escape. Capei caught me, spun me round, put me to the egg test, it worked and the boiuna saw that I had already served Titçatê.

“She was so full of wrath that she wished to put an end to this world, I don’t know…she turned me into this rock and hurled Titçatê onto the river’s shore, transformed into a plant. It’s that one over there, down there, right there! He’s that ever so lovely floating mururé you can see, waving in the water at me. His purple flowers are the drops of blood from the bite, frozen solid by my cold cold waterfall.

“Capei dwells down below, always checking to see whether that boy really did play around with me. Indeed he did and I’ll go on weeping over this rock till the end of what has no end, aching so from never again serving my warrior T’çatê…”

She stopped. Her tears splashed onto Macunaíma’s knees and he shook with sobs.

“If…if…if that bo-boiuna ever showed up I…why I’d kill her!”

Right then a colossal roar was heard and Capei came surging out the water. And Capei was the boiuna snake. Macunaíma thrust out his torso a-glinting with heroism and charged at the monster. Capei swung her maw wide open and out came a swarm of apiacás. Macunaíma beat them back beat them back defeating those marimbondo wasps. The monster lashed out with her tintinnabulating tail, but right then a tracuá ant bit the hero’s heel. Distracted by the pain he dropped to a crouch and the tail flew past him hitting Capei smack in the face. Then she roared even more and struck at Macunaíma’s thigh. He simply dodged, grabbed a big sharp rock and thwap! knocked that varmint’s head clean off.

Her body went writhing away on the current while the head with those big doe eyes came to kiss the feet of its vanquisher in submission. The hero got scared and hightailed it into the woods with his brothers.

“C’mere, siriri, c’mere!” the head shouted.

The three shot away even faster. They ran for a league and a half and looked back. Capei’s head kept rolling closer ever on the lookout for them. Onward they ran and when they were too worn out to go on they climbed a bacupari tree by the river to see if the head might keep going. But the head stopped under the tree and asked for some bacupari. Macunaíma shook the branches. The head gathered the fruits off the ground, ate them and asked for more. Jiguê shook some bacupari into the river but the head declared no way was she going in. Then Maanape hurled a fruit with all his might far as could be and when the head went to fetch it the brothers scrambled down and snuck away. Running running onward, a league and a half farther they came upon the house where the Bachelor of Cananéia lived. The old coot was sitting by the front door reading profound manuscripts. Macunaíma asked him:

“How goes it, Bachelor?”

“Can’t complain, unknown voyager.”

“Getting some fresh air, huh?”

“C’est vrai, as the French say.”

“Well, so long, Bachelor, I’m kinda in a hurry…”

And they shot off like blazes again. They traversed the pre-historic sambaqui shell mounds of Caputera and Morrete in a single breath. Just up ahead was an abandoned shanty. They went in and shut the door tight. And then Macunaíma noticed that he’d lost the tembetá. He was distraught because it was the only memento of Ci that he’d kept. He made to leave in search of the stone but his brothers wouldn’t let him. Wasn’t long before the head showed up. Thwap! it knocked.

“What d’ya want?”

“Open the door and let me in!”

But did the alligator open up? neither did they! so the head couldn’t come in. Macunaíma didn’t know that the head had become his slave and didn’t mean them no harm. The head waited a long time but seeing how they really weren’t gonna open up, she mulled over what she wanted to be. If she became water, others would drink her, if she became an ant they’d squish her, if she became a mosquito they’d zap her, if she became a train she’d get derailed, if she became a river they’d put her on the map…She made up her mind: “I’ll go be the Moon.” Then hollered:

“Open up, folks, I want a couple things!”

Macunaíma peered through the crack in the door and warned Jiguê as he was opening it:

“She’s on the loose!”

Jiguê shut the door again. That’s why there’s that expression

“On the loose!” for when someone doesn’t act how we want.

When Capei saw that they weren’t opening the door she started feeling awful sorry for herself and asked the birdeater tarantula to help her get up to the sky.

“The Sun melts my thread,” the great big spider replied.

So the head asked the xexéu birds to flock together and dark night fell.

“Nobody can see my thread at night,” the great big spider said.

The head went off to get a calabash bowl of ice-cold from the Andes and said:

“Pour out a drop every league and a half, the thread will turn white with frost. Now we can go.”

“Alright then let’s go.”

The iandu began spinning her web on the ground. At the first breeze the filmy thread rose into the sky. Then the great big spider went up and at the very top poured out a bit of frost. And as the iandu tarantula spun more thread from up top, down below it was turning all white. The head shouted:

“Farewell, my people, I’m off to the sky!”

And there she went eating the thread all the way up to the vast field of the heavens. The brothers opened the door and peered out. Up and away went Capei.

“Are you really going up to the sky, head?”

“Mm-hmm,” she went, not able to open her mouth anymore.

In the wee hours before dawn Capei the boiuna made it to the sky. She was chubby from eating all that spider web and ghostly pale with exertion. All her sweat was falling to the Earth in droplets of fresh dew. That frosty thread is the reason why Capei’s so cold. In olden times Capei used to be the boiuna snake but now she’s that Moon head up there in the vast field of the heavens. And ever since that time tarantulas prefer to spin their webs at-night.

The next day the brothers went searching all the way to the banks of the river but they went searching searching in vain, not a trace of the muiraquitã. They asked all the creatures, the aperemas saguis mulita-armadillas tejus muçuã mud turtles of the land and trees, the tapiucabas chabós matintapereras peckerwooders and aracuans of the air, they asked the japiim bird and its compadre the marimbondo wasp, the little cockroach looking to get hitched, the bird that cries “Yark!” and its mate that replies “Yeek!,” the gecko who plays hide-and-seek with the rat, the tambaqui tucunaré pirarucu curimatá fish of the river, the pecaí tapicuru and iererê waders of the shore, all those living beings, but nobody had seen a thing, nobody knew a thing. So the brothers hit the road again, roving across the imperial domains. The silence was foul and so was the despair. Once in a while Macunaíma would pause lost in thought over his she-devil…Oh the desire throbbing in him! He’d stop for a spell. And weep for ages. The tears streaming down the hero’s childlike cheeks baptized his hairy chest. Then he sighed shaking his little head:

“Well, brothers! With love number one, you’re forever undone!…”

Onward he wandered. And everywhere he went he received tributes and was followed all the while by that bright-dappled retinue of jandaya parakeets and red macaws.

One time after he lay down in a shady spot waiting for his brothers to get done fishing, the Little Black Herder Boy to whom Macunaíma prayed every single day took pity on the cursed wretch and decided to help him. He sent the little uirapuru bird. All of a sudden the hero heard some frantic flapping and the little uirapuru bird landed on his knee. Macunaíma flailed in annoyance and shooed the little uirapuru. Not a minute passed before he heard the clamor again and the little bird landed on his belly. Macunaíma didn’t make a fuss this time. Then the little uirapuru bird burst into sweet song and the hero understood everything he was singing. And it was that Macunaíma was most unfortunate cause he’d lost the muiraquitã on the river beach back when he was climbing the bacupari tree. But now, went the uirapuru’s lament, Macunaíma would never be a lucky-duck ever again, cause a tracajá had swallowed the muiraquitã and the fisherman who’d caught that turtle had sold the magic green stone to a Peruvian riverboat peddler who went by the name of Venceslau Pietro Pietra. The talisman’s owner had struck it rich and was living it up as a moneybags rancher in São Paulo, that mighty city lapped by the waters of the Igarapé Tietê.

Having thus spoken, the little uirapuru bird made a flourish in the air and vanished. When his brothers got back from fishing Macunaíma said to them: “I was heading down this trail tryna lure a caatinga deer and lo and behold, I felt a chill down my spine. Stuck my hand back there and out came a tame centipede that told me the whole truth.”

Then Macunaíma told them of the muiraquitã’s whereabouts and declared to his brothers that he had a mind to go to São Paulo and track down this Venceslau Pietro Pietra and take back the stolen tembetá.

“…and may the rattlesnake build a nest if I don’t lay my hands on the muiraquitã! If y’all come with me that’s fine and dandy, but if you don’t, well sir, better to go it alone than in poor company! But I’m stubborn as a toad and when I fix on something I hold tight. Go I shall, if only to show up that little uirapuru bird, just kidding! I meant the centipede.”

After his speech Macunaíma howled with laughter imagining what a trick he’d played on that little bird. Maanape and Jiguê decided to go with him, since the hero needed protecting after all.