Story of ancient South America, one soul made into two souls

The massacre of a village and one man survives.


- a story by Maria Arrigo from Prophetic Tales





From the Mountain of Origins, ah, to the Mountain of Destinations, yes, I tear open the blanket of time. I peel back a thousand layers, a thousand years.

Here is the forest. Here is the jaguar.


Here are the camps of the People.

In darkness, by starlight. In silence, by heartbeat. Here let the story begin.

His feet had eyes when he reaches our camp, or how did he travel these trails alone? Does Wide River desist from swallowing men? Is the Lose-Your-Arm snake asleep on the branch? Has Jaguar indeed lost his taste for human meat?

Yes, surely his feet had eyes. And his eyes were fists. And his hands were like mists to which all things are palpable. And we waited, and we fed his hunger, and we gave him rest. And he unsewed his mouth at last.

Ah, his story begins with a woman. Or isn’t he a man? His story begins with a woman, of course. He knew where to find her, all alone, on the night her constellation reached its zenith in the sky. Oh, Yes! They were far from the sleeping people. The Mother in the Sky saluted as they walked from camp. The flight of the owl marked their path. Her vine grew up around his tree, oh, yes!

On the same night, raiders came from an enemy tribe. They killed his people in their tents, every person. Every person! They tore apart even the infants. For they were crazed with the Dragonfly Drug.

They killed every person. They did not consider that their elders would demand? “Where are the children you’ve returned with to populate our camps? Tell us, where are the marriageable girls?” No, they killed every person and cut apart the meat.

And, after all the others were dead, they seized that special woman on the path alone, near to her camp. They raped her. Her body they mutilated.

Now her lover was following on the trail, two owl calls behind. When he looked through the bush, he saw the raiders, discarding her body parts. His spirit was still inside her then. He saw they had annihilated him.

His spirit was inside her still. They had annihilated him.

Then he dropped his weapons in the bush. He stepped out naked among them. He MANIFESTED THE VOID. This is not a metaphor. HE MANIFESTED THE VOID.

They saw. THEY SAW EMPTINESS. They left that place quickly.

In the morning, one of the raiders remained in that place, with the man who had been annihilated and the body parts of the woman. He had sat all night beside the man (the man who brought this story to our camp).

At first light he rose. He cleared a space. He began to dig. He made the woman’s grave in the presence of the annihilated man. He carved out the head shelf carefully. He assembled her body parts and buried them in proper position, kneeling, face-down with her head on the shelf. He gave the sacred burial according to his own tradition.

Then he led the annihilated man to the camp with the broken tents. There were no people there. The meat of the people was cut up and spread about. Ants even crossed from the other side of the creek. He dug a wide grave. He laid the body parts inside, heads in a row, arms, torsos, legs, and feet. They could no longer be assembled into persons. He set in the grave also baskets of meal, the work of the women who were pieces of meat. He brought clear water from upstream to sprinkle in the grave. He staked around it a circle of arrows, the arrows of the hunters who were meat. He covered the grave. It was sundown then. He gave the sacred chant until the sun rose again.

Now the raider who remained said to the annihilated man: “I will stay with you. I know what I have done. There is no home for me now. My spirit will not rest in the womb of any woman. I know what I have done. And I see you.”

The raider who remained, he hunted for the man he had annihilated. He carried wood and water. Like a woman, he built the cooking fire. He cooked. The annihilated man ate and slept. He did not speak. Heart-stone of unbroken boulders was his kin.

They passed the rainy season in wide silence. They were in that place with the broken tents.

Then a new life entered the man who was annihilated. For his watcher brought forth his own soul and grasped it and divided it, into two equal parts, each containing the seeds of the whole. And half of his soul he gave to the man who was annihilated.

This had never ben done before. He did it.

Then the man who had been annihilated, he breathed out emptiness. He breathed in life.

His watcher departed to his own camp, with a fresh heart. He saluted his companions, whose dreams were rotting.

And the man of new life, he vowed to carry his Vision of Friendship to all peoples.

It is said, and it is true. You are summoned to the truth. And I bear witness for this man.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Aho

Metaqiatsun. We are indeed all One.

[Waya]

2. Aho

Mitakuye Oyasin.

[Richard D]

3. Extraordinary

I had a dream nearly identical to this story about 15 years ago. So powerful that I remember every detail to this moment.

4. that is wild

I have had fragments of dreams from another time, but never a whole dream.