The Kainamà of the Guyana Highlands

(2,002 words)

I know it’s close to Christmas, but consider this a belated Halloween post.

The Amerindians of the Guyana Highlands near the Brazilian border have in their midst a cult of sorcerers that is in the nastiest bunches I’ve found on any continent, or in any time. “Cult” may be a bit of a stretch, because we don’t know much about any collective rituals or ceremonies, but the sorcerers - known as kainamà - do associate with one another, and engage in collective projects like taking revenge on anyone who harmed one of their number.

So what are these fellas all about?

*reader discretion is advised*

Life in the Guyana Highlands, down near the Brazilian border, is not easy. There are a million ways to die in the jungles of South America. If it’s not jaguars, pit vipers, or piranhas, it’s communist cults from San Francisco committing mass suicide on your doorstep. To call the climate oppressive is an understatement akin to saying Hitler had doubts about certain passages from the Book of Deuteronomy. The ground sucks for growing most things, and there is precious little pasture on which to raise stock animals. As a result, life was still at a primitive level when Europeans arrived, and not much has changed. Most of the Guyanese population hugs the coast for dear life, fighting for space to catch a gust of the sea breeze. The inland areas, and especially the highlands, are mostly only populated by Amerindians and transients engaged in mining, logging, or some other form of resource extraction. So it’s not a surprise that such an environment failed to produce a cosmology full of unicorns, rainbows, and merciful gods. All the evidence available to the denizens of the Guyana Highlands indicates that the gods are mean sons of bitches. So if you want to get on the gods’ good side, and maybe spare yourself their capricious wrath, the way to do it is to join in their war against humankind.