I jumped for joy, and we all went running off. Our village was located just forty-five meters off the Amazon River at that time, and there were rumors that we would be moving soon as loggers were getting closer and closer to us. The Caraicans were private people and while they accepted gifts from my parents of machetes, pots, and medicine, they didn’t want the modern world encroaching on their life.

We were playing in the shallow water, pushing at each other and squealing, when a plant would brush up against our ankles. We knew the dangers of alligators, snakes, and piranhas, so we weren’t too eager to go very deep.

One of the other children gave me a push backward, and I fell on my butt in the water. When I came up spluttering, he looked at me and pointed at my penis. Then he started laughing. The other children ventured forward and started laughing as they looked at that little part of me that made me different from girls.

I didn’t understand what was to laugh at. Sure, it was different from theirs. Their penises had darkened skin that covered their little roots entirely, just the head peeping out sometimes. Mine was completely naked, with no protective covering to hide it. I came to learn a few years later from one of the missionary priests that I had what was called a circumcised penis. He explained that when I was a baby, a piece of skin had been removed at my parents’ request. It was for health and sanitary reasons, but that the Caraicans didn’t practice that custom.

I was laughed at a lot after that, but I secretly snickered to myself. I was cleaner than they were and, when I reached the age where I could take my first woman in the tribe, I realized that they liked my penis a whole lot more than they did the uncircumcised boys. Not only was it clean and beautiful—or so they said—but it was much larger and felt better than the others did.

Finally, I made my way into the village just as the sun was starting to set. We had been in that location for a little over six months, having diligently cleared out a portion of the jungle within which to set up our new home. We moved about every two years, either because the soil was depleted from our crops or because the deforestation was moving closer to us. I didn’t really care for this place because it was so far to the river, where over the years we’d learned to trade goods with other tribes and explorers.

The village was quiet, as I knew the other warriors had gone on a tapir hunt that would last a few days. I didn’t go with them because Paraila wasn’t feeling good, and I didn’t want to venture too far away. Over the years, my skill as a hunter had surpassed most of the other tribe members, and I gradually started to become accepted, even making strong, bonded friendships with some of the men. After I went on my first raid with them at the age of seventeen, and put my life on the line for our tribe, I was then fully accepted as a real member of the Caraicans by everyone, except for S’amair’a, who hated practically every person.

“Paraila… I’m back,” I called out as I approached his hut. There were no walls… just a steepled roof of thick palm to keep out the down-pouring rain. I had a much smaller hut right beside his, so close that I could lay in my hammock while he laid in his, and we could carrying on a conversation.

I didn’t see S’amair’a around, and I assumed she was tending to the crops. Paraila lay in his hammock, his tired eyes smiling at me in welcome.

“What did you bring an old man this day?” he asked me in Portuguese. While the Caraicans had their own language, it was mostly dead, as they had started taking up the Portuguese dialect almost seventy years ago. Some words were still revered and used, and Paraila had taught me many of them, but for the most part, we spoke in Brazil’s native tongue.

“Two small boas… are you hungry? I’ll prepare it.”

“No, my cor’dairo… we’ll let S’amair’a cook our meal. You rest as you have hunted all day.”

My heart warmed over his use of the word ‘cor’dairo’. It was something he had called me since adopting me.

I dropped the palm basket near the dying fire and sat on the dirt next to Paraila’s hammock. He was getting so old that he spent a lot of time there, and it burdened my heart.

Speaking softly in Portuguese, I asked, “How are you feeling today, Father? Can I get you something?”

His hand reached out and patted me on my head. “You make me happy, Zacharias. I need for nothing and you provide for me and S’amair’a well, even if she is too much of a shrew to admit it.”

I laughed softly and he responded in kind, sharing in a private joke at her expense that we would not have dared to voice if she was standing here. S’amair’a tolerated me and grudgingly accepted my food gifts to her, but she made Paraila suffer under her sharp tongue because of his love for me.

“We need to talk man to man,” Paraila said. “Father Gaul should be returning soon, and there is something I need to tell you before he gets here.”

My heart leapt with excitement because Father Gaul was an interesting man. He started coming to our village when I was fourteen… on the verge of becoming a man in the Caraican world. He and Paraila taught me what being a man means—Paraila from the Caraican point of view, and Father Gaul from a modern, religious view.

For example, when I reached fifteen, I would be allowed to take a woman. Paraila taught me all about how this was done within their customs and which women were available to me. Father Gaul taught me about abstinence and unwanted pregnancy, but I scoffed at him. Paraila assured me that the women who were available for sex drank a vile brew of a certain tree bark that would prevent a baby from forming. Father Gaul scoffed at that and told me it was better to abstain.