Free Trail of Feathers by Tahir Shah Page A

mauled matadors swapped tales of their bravery, and tight-fitting shoes danced once again in the plaza’s dust. Then, with the band romping triumphantly through the streets, the bird was dragged to the edge of the village. Twisting its neck back in horror as it glimpsed the crowd, the condor thrust its mighty wings and soared up into the steel-blue sky.
    *
    Another cramped long distance bus whirred west towards Arequipa. Up on the roof a herd of sheep were balancing alongside the bags, their feet trussed, their faces rapt with alarm. They bleated, but no one was listening. Below, in the cabin, a demonic figure with gritted teeth crooned over the controls. Like a schoolboy piloting a make-believe Zero fighter, he mimicked the clatter of gunfire. The bus swerved left, then right and left again, the driver spinning the wheel recklessly through his muscular hands.
    In the belly of the bus a little girl had spewed orange jelly down the aisle. The man beside me, a clone of Manolo, slapped his knee. Was he angry at the pools of amber vomit? With the glint of a gold tooth, he laughed at my question. A child is
el fruto de la inocencia
, the fruit of innocence, he said.
    As we jerked about, I found myself thinking about
Yawar Fiesta
. If the root of the festival was a love for the great bird, why expose it to such torture? The only parallel I could think of was
lomante
, the Ainu Bear Festival. The Ainu, the original people of Japan, loved bears beyond all other creatures. They considered them to be mothers of the Earth, venerating them just as the Andeans do the condor. In the early spring a male bear cub would be caught in the mountains. It was taken to the village, kept in a small cage, and fed on delicious morsels. If it was too young for solid food, an Ainu woman would suckle it. The little bear was given as much as he could eat, to fatten him up. When mid-winter arrived, and his pelt was thick, he was taken from the cage.
    The villagers declared their love for the little bear, praising him as a god. They placed him beside their altar and worshipped him. Then, one at a time, they would shoot blunt arrows at him with their bows, wounding him. Death was agonising and slow to come. Once dead, the bear cub was the focus of a midnight ceremony. Its brain, tongue and eyeballs were hacked from the skull and adorned with flowers. And, as they celebrated the bear’s beauty, the Ainu feasted on its meat.
    Back on the bus, the driving was getting worse. We veered to the left, round a hairpin. I joked to the man beside me that the driver must have been a
kamikaze
pilot in a former life. Another retch of jelly came and went. Then, as we strained to sit upright, the driver aimed the vehicle at an upcoming slope and banged in the clutch. Never before have I experienced such propulsion. On the roof the sheep must have been fumbling to escape. Inside, the rows of passengers blurred together. I snapped for air, my diaphragm distending, my cheeks pushed back by gravitational force.
    A drop of three thousand feet sheered away to the right. We might have sailed over the edge, but the road and the bus swerved left in the nick of time. Gradually, the bus came to a halt and the driver stood up. Removing his Fedora, he passed it back, mumbling. The starched hat was handed from one to the next. As it made its way round the bus, even the poorest passengers tossed something in. I was unsure what the levy was for, but even so I threw in a few
céntimos
. It was given back to the driver. He climbed down from the cab. Facing the precipice, he crossed himself, kissed his knuckle, and hurled the contents of his Fedora over the cliff.
    Unfamiliar with the tradition, I quizzed the man beside me.
    ‘Es para los martires
, it’s for the martyrs,’ he said.
    *
    The White City, as Arequipa is known, nestles at the foot of the snow-capped volcano, El Misti. The peak reminded me more than a little of Mount Fuji, and a year I spent starving on the streets of the