Miguel Angel Cabodevilla Miguel Angel Cabodevilla is a Capuchin priest, born in Spain, who spent thirteen years in the rainforest working in education and on the preservation of native cultures. Fernando Payaguaje, the drinker of this narrative’s title, was the last of the shaman-chiefs of the Ecuadorian branch of the Secoya tribe, now known as Siekopai. T his story is from Cabodevilla’s 1998 nonfiction book Oro Creciente. The translation into English, by Nathan Horowitz, appeared in Shaman’s Drum Magazine in Autumn, 2003. I knew I would never see him again, alive or dead. He had yielded me his hammock, with the exquisite courtesy that always characterized him. With a silence so close to grief, I observed all his movements, trying to make of them a photo album in my mind, trying to win over death the illusory victory of memory. The cavernous cough that sounded in his chest was like termites hollowing him out inside. He shuffled across the dirt floor of his...
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