These are some of the last houses of Macushi territory, in the southern savannahs of Guyana (near Shulinab). At this point, the road curls round the southern side of the Kanuku Mountains.
These are some of the last houses of Macushi territory, in the southern savannahs of Guyana (near Shulinab). At this point, the road curls round the southern side of the Kanuku Mountains.
It's like driving through the gateway of a primordial world. Even the road seemed to fail, wobbling along through marsh and sedge, through slicks of brilliant ooze, grass like green fire, liverish pools, and succulent bogs rimmed with pink. I remember lilies so purple they looked like the work of an imperial hatter. Then the track drops down into a long, thready crack of gallery forest, plunges through a stream, and then scrambles back out, up a bank of black quartz. It can take four hours to cover fifty miles.
This is now Wapisiana territory. Ahead, the horizon is pimpled with ancient cones.
Everything here looks slightly ancient. Once, I spotted a savannah fox skulking through the grass. It was like some prehistoric husky, still millions of years from the human hearth. Even the jabiru storks seem to belong to a long-lost age. They all stand around in their tatty coachman’s livery, stabbing at the frogs and then tossing them back like shots of gin.
Mankind, it seems, has made little impression in this walled-off world. Just occasionally, you'll come across a boulder that's been prised apart by roots, and inhabited by ghosts. Wapisiana ghosts …
