Dreams and Superstitions

I am walking along a path up in the hills when suddenly I see a tiger before me. I slowly back up and look behind me and see another winding up the trail towards me. To my left above me, yet another one is prowling along, eyes set on me. I wake up.

Dream Interpretation

As I mentioned previously, dreams are thought to have real-world significance in Ngäbe culture. When I recounted my dream to Juliana, she grew worried.

"Esos son maleantes." She told me.

Just recently during that time in fact, there had been a killing. Apparently in one of the communities near the dam, a man was robbed by knifepoint on the streets. When he refused to hand over his belongings, he was mortally wounded.

Witnesses reported three culprits who supposedly fled into the hills and who were still at large. Rumors had it though that they lived in [Fake Name] Río del Sur, roughly a 40 minute hike from Lado Oeste.

I went into Cubo that day to buy groceries (i.e. I was carrying a good deal of money) and people feared for my safety. They asked me to postpone the food run but, given that I had other obligations planned over the next few days, it couldn't be done.

The day was uneventful, but I was told that the maleantes may have still had their eyes on me and that I was still in danger for at least the next day or two.

Dos Lobos y el Venado Matado

I'm walking through the snow in a winter forest. As I pass a particular tree, I see on my left a dead deer. Over its corpse are two wolves, one white and one black. The white one growls, and I wake up.

Juliana was unable to provide an explanation, and was content to see how the day played out. I had planned to visit a woman by the name of Luzmila in Curva del Río that day. Juliana suggested that perhaps she (and her mother) were the wolves I dreamed about, and that I was the deer :p.

When I had returned, I found Sean "Nidi" was present as he was delivering a note from Tristan "Itoli" about an intercommunity water meeting. Juliana came out with a plate of lunch and whispered to me "Allí es tu lobo". Sean had let it be known he had a twin brother, unaware of the superstitions surrounding twins, as explained later in this post. Because of this cultural meme, it could be assumed that Sean was a threat. However, since this followed one of Sean's bouts with intestinal parasites I would remark "Más como el venado matado."

But combining what is known about twins, in which often one was considered good and the other evil, it may be that the wolves represent this twin duality. The dead deer, of course, is there to identify Sean's spirit. Given that Sean was the one speaking to me that day and that it was the white wolf who growled, perhaps then he would be the good twin. Unless black is supposed to mean good and white bad in which case, it could still make sense. After all, Sean was labelled as a "Disney Villain" by the volunteer cohort during training.

The Woman and the Elephant

Juliana recounted that she had a dream where she saw Magdiel's wife pulling an elephant along with her by a string. She came to believe that the elephant was Magdiel, given his strong and hard-working nature. She had trouble interpreting its meaning, but her best guess was that it was a representation of how his wife just bosses him around and he just puts up with it.

Bad Omen of a Snake Bite

I had walked into the kitchen of Cutilio's and Juliana's kitchen one day to find Cutilio sitting in a corner, looking up pensively. I asked what was wrong.

"Tenía una sueña mala" he told me "de una mujer."

A bad omen indeed. Women are said to represent snakes. If one touches you in a dream, it is thought that your are at great risk of receiving a snake bite. Snakes, particularly the highly venomous Bothrops asper, are not uncommon in the region.

"No recuerdo tanto, pero solamente que ella me estaba mordiendo el brazo con mucha fuerza y no podía sacarlo." He seemed visibly fazed. As a result, he opted not to work the fields that day.

"Sick" Women

There is no word for "pregnant" in Ngäbere. Pregnancy is typically hidden and never discussed, at least not until after the baby is born. Instead, the closest inference someone may come to saying someone is pregnant is to say they are sick (bren). However, since it is well known that bren is a stand-in for pregnant, people instead started referring to symptoms of pregnancy such as ngoto käme (bad/injured feet).

It is believed that bad spirits surround a pregnant mother in an attempt to harm the fetus and so in the process they may cause collateral damage around the mother. As such, when someone is in a compromised state, such as recovering from a snake bite, pregnant women are discouraged from seeing the individual. Juliana once recounted that her uncle was recovering well from a snake-bite until a pregnant woman visited him. His condition deteriorated soon after and he died.

Another example was when an upstanding member of Ladera was bitten by a terciopelo. He did not return to his home to recover given that a member of his household was pregnant. He stayed with a neighbor instead. Add to that, he said one needs to be careful on trails since if a pregnant woman passes over them, it becomes "hot" for a certain period of time.

The Man With a Twin Brother In Río del Sur

Sean had let it be known that he had a twin brother, unaware of the superstitions surrounding twins. There is an old belief that twins have a sort of great spiritual power that makes them powerful healers, but the power can also be used for evil. There's also a belief that of two twins, one is usually good and the other is evil. If one is suspected to be evil they'll refuse it breast milk and give it animal milk instead, so that it doesn't grow strong. Nevertheless, when confronted with a twin, there's no easy way to tell if they're good or bad, so people stay cautious. Sean recalled telling a woman he had a twin brother when asked about his family. She told him she was afraid of twins and then walked away.

Cutilio explained it to me this way: "Vamos decir que Felipe es un gemelo. Y el me pide yuca o algo como asi. Y yo le digo no. Ahorra el va ser enojado y por pensamiente nada mas, él podría causar que me pasará algo mal."

Case in point, Sean said he pointed out to his host family how ugly he thought one of the chicks was because it was bald-headed. One day a raptor came down from the sky and carried the little chicken away.

"Por su culpa!" They told him. "Siempre decías lo feo que era!"

Nevertheless, he was still accepted by most people of the community. For one, people doubt that the power of twins applies to other "races". Add to that, the tradition of identifying and weakening "evil" twins has waned. It is presumed that these evil twins no longer exist due to the word of God.

"Gracias a dios" a twin in Ladera told me "que [mi y mi hermano] nunca tuvimos malos pensamientos."

But above all, they had little reason to suspect Sean was an evil twin. As one member of his community put it: "No estaría aquí apoyándonos si fuera un gemelo malo".