Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Payaguaje Fernando
Title : The yage drinker
Year : 2006

Link download : Payaguaje_Fernando_-_The_yage_drinker.zip

Afterword. In February, 1994, Fernando Payaguaje died in San Pablo de Cantesiayá, Ecuador. Shortly before, he affirmed to his family the beliefs that were his life. He assured them that they should not fear his power after his death.While the death of a great Secoya yage drinker usually produces strong localized seismic tremors and similar natural phenomena, he recommended that they remain calmly in the village. Nor would he cause harm to anyone directly, not even to his enemies. He was resolved to be, until the end and beyond, a wise follower of the good spirits. His closest relatives follow the dictates of the Evangelical faith, but they obeyed the dying man’s requests and gave him the burial he asked for. They did not imprison him in a wooden box; they did not pile earth upon his body as if it were a rottenness that had to be hidden. Fernando was placed in his hammock, anointed with nuní, and hung in a deep, empty grave, atop which was placed a roof of split palm wood, leaving him ready to get to his feet in the middle of the night and walk confidently along the path he had taken on so many journeys with yage. At the end of the path: the sky; heaven; his ancestors; real life. Nothing other than life itself was indicating to him that it was time to move on. Will his words retain their power, translated and betrayed into writing? Will they still be able to summon us to a primordial world full of spirits and significances? I recall now the old Saxon, the witness to whom Borges bids farewell with such nostalgia. Likewise, after the death of the drinker, the world will be a poorer place. Miguel Angel Cabodevilla. Quito, July, 1994. ...