A few years ago, I was visiting the shaman and his wife, Lukela, in their village. Lukela seemed unusually sad during this visit, her eyes dimming with a hint of grief as she told me that she might be not be in the village when I next came to visit.  She was the elder of the village and literally gave birth to the village through her many children and grandchildren.  She had no teeth and the nine children she gave birth to over the years had twisted her body.  She was caring for abandoned children from families who had had crises so there were many children running around in their tambo. 

In previous visits Lukela had said that she might not be in the village when I returned.  Usually she said this because she was upset about some interactions in the village that were not to her liking, changes she was seeing.  She would not speak directly about these matters, it was the way of her people. Consequently, I did not take her ”leaving” too seriously and she began to feel better through our laughing together. We joked about men and raising children. Making jokes, as the village people do, is a form of medicine.  She seemed in good humor when I left. 

But this time it was serious.  About 9 months later I learned that she had died from a snakebite. This was very unusual to happen to such an ancient woman of the jungle.

When she told me that she would no longer be in the village, she asked me to take care of her children. (Her "children" were essentially the whole village).  I did not know what ” take care of her children” meant  until I returned. When I did return the whole village was grieving.  People were crying, one daughter was very ill, another could hardly speak as she, only twenty one years old, was the one who held her mother in her arms as she died, everyone was despondent and aimless. 

The Shaman himself was devastated because he could not save her.  His son had tried to get into town to get western medicine, but could not get gas for a motor-equipped canoe as he had no money.  So he paddled by canoe for two days straight downriver to the Amazon River and finally to the town with no food or water.  While he was in town trying to find someone to help, someone from a neighboring village who was visiting a relative told him his mother had died. As in many cultures, a woman is not noticed until she is gone. We cried, we mourned, we held each other in sorrow and in her memory. 

This was a healing time and I listened to many stories: the daughter who held her as she died; another daughter who was in a town down river and could not get back in time to be with her mother; the son who could not bring the medicine in time, and perhaps the saddest story of all, from her husband, the Shaman, who could not save her.  We all told stories of her passing and of her life. I was with everyone and we were all crying.  I brought with me on this particular return trip people who had been to the village before and knew several of the villagers intimately, they were healers in their own right. 

We stayed together and talked and nurtured each other until laughter returned.