Observations placeholder
Reichel-Dolmatoff – Amazonian Cosmos - The cock-of-the-rock
Identifier
011618
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff – Amazonian Cosmos
The cracks, caverns, and tunnels are the entrances to the interior of the hills, to the great malocas of the animals. There, within their dark interior, the gigantic prototypes of each species exist, and thousands of animals are kept-deer, tapirs, peccaries, monkeys, rodents, and many more, in a great community similar to that of human beings.
At the foot of the hills, right in the forest, lie open clearings where the inhabitants of the hill sometimes gather to amuse themselves by feasting and dancing.
The deer are the ones in charge of keeping these "playgrounds" clean. At times, after a dance of the animals, a straying hunter can see there the tracks of the crowd and may even find some ornament or perhaps a flute that had been forgotten or lost by the participants in the dance.
The hills and their playing grounds have their special guardian: the cock-of-the-rock (Ehtateono; Rupicola sp.) that lives in the dark crevices and with its screeching voice warns of danger. When the cock-of-the-rock is seen, people know that soon there will be a dance.