J.O. Dickingson

Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro

Book II, chapters 5-8

5. The Ocale

Continuing on to the territory of the Ocale in northern Florida, Nico develops a reputation of a healer, musician, and storyteller and now that of a Spirit Messenger. He discovers the harshness of life for these people constantly struggling for food and at war and who are old by the age of 40. He witnesses the torture of male captives, the rape of females who become concubines, and child slavery. He is introduced to the concepts of two-spirited individuals and shamanism but does not comprehend either. He has his first experience in mutually aggressive sex.

Nicolau Ribeiro (16yo); Healer (40yo), Muqbey (16yo 2-spirited Shaman), Tonochi (7yo)
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The following morning the four teen warriors awoke with much joy, and great weariness as none had slept much the night before having proven their manhood in a rite of manhood common to all peoples and as old as mankind. Now they were men. Now they proudly wore their hair tied up in a knot, proof that they were men. Now they would be able to paint their bodies to signify their deeds as men, speak at ceremonies with the other men, have sex with those of the opposite gender, and marry. Such were the privileges of being men, and in return they accepted the responsibilities, risking their lives hunting the larger game and venturing out into the oceans far from land to fish for food for the village, standing watch and fighting off attacks by their enemies to protect the young, women and elderly, going off to war against other tribes, and making the weapons that were needed for such manly pursuits. That three of the newly proclaimed fifteen and sixteen-year-old men had slept with a young woman the previous night for the first time in their lives was seen as purely natural and expected, just as they regarded the congress between myself and Scalp Lock as normal and acceptable unlike the attitude of sinfulness and shame prevalent among my own people and others, even the heathen Saracens and Mongols who have few scruples. The attitude of these simple peoples toward sex between those of opposite genders and between those of the same I found most refreshing. It was an approach, in my opinion, which more civilized nations could make note of.

The boys of course were very proud, of being men and of the congress they had engaged in the previous night, and they walked about with their chests stuck out and their heads held high, eager to begin their roles as men and bragging about their prowess in hunting, fighting, and fucking, the responsibilities of men. The three girls who had initiated the boys into their manhood were treated with envy and much honor by the other members of the tribe, as was I for if not introducing Scalp Lock to male-male congress, at least ritually welcoming him into manhood also, adding already to my growing reputation as a healer, storyteller and musician in addition to the high repute of one being on a vision quest.

I was so highly received that the cacique urged me to remain with his village and become one with his people, and I knew that I would be eagerly adopted by these people and initiated into any one of several clans. Although men of achievement are recognized and honored back home, I know of no nation that adopts another of a different nation as do these people. I felt much honored by such welcome, and under other circumstances could have lived quite happily among these people, but I was eager to continue on my journey home, particularly encouraged by the assurance that I was not on an island, and no matter how welcome, I greatly missed family and friends and the way of life that I was accustomed to.

While there was much that life with the Tocobaga offered, it was a hard life. Providing for the necessities just to survive took up most of their time, leaving them little time for relaxation or amusement. Death was accepted as natural as was having sex by young and old alike. Men died of injuries as a result of hunting the larger, more ferocious animals or from battles with their neighbors, like the unfortunate hunter who had been the victim of the raid by the new young men. Women often died in childbirth, also common back home but more prevalent here where conditions were much more primitive, and there was a high death rate among their children. So these people grew up fast. By the age of ten boys were considered old enough and mature enough to travel alone in this wild country, something unheard of back home. Girls had congress with men when they were, as these people described it, "barely into their first moss skirt", which I figured was anytime after the age of ten. In fact it was felt that a girl matured faster if she had congress with men, and most girls eager to leave their childhood behind, willingly sought out young men for such experiences.

Though the age a girl should be for her first experience varied from one tribe to another, it could be as young as ten or eleven years of age. Just when a girl's body began to have her monthly discharge appeared to occur early among these people and if it had not begun by the time a girl had reached her fourteenth summer it was considered late and if a girl had not had congress with a man by the age of fifteen winters it was of great concern that men did not find her attractive and did not want her. I was told that a girl of thirteen was considered marriageable and that by the age of twenty-three winters a woman had lost the perfection of her youth. Sun and wind took their toll on their naked bodies, male and female alike, so that they wrinkled and looked older long before their time. I discovered that men, and especially women, live on the average to thirty winters and rarely to forty.

It was known by everyone that I was on a vision quest and eager to return to my own tribe besides, so my anxiousness to continue on my way and my preparations to do so came as no surprise. Over the subsequent days I was presented with a pair of fine, soft leggings to be worn along with my loincloth to protect my legs from the thorny brush growing abundantly in this land. Scalp Lock assisted me in making my own bow, beginning with the selection of the best sapling, stripping it of bark, and molding it in the hot ashes of a fire to give it a curved shape, and preparing a bowstring from the tough sinew from the legs of a deer. Although I had my dagger, he also showed me how to make a stone blade knife with a wooden handle.

I also learned from the boys which of the smaller animals were good to eat and which were not and how to identify their tracks, and which of the berries presently growing in abundance and those which would be appearing in the moons to come were edible and which would make me sick. I learned how to begin a fire using a fire stick, a straight stick of hard wood which was twirled in a hole in another piece of hard wood with dry tinder, and how to make and carry fire from a punk pot in times of rain. The healer took special interest in me and I spent many days with him enriching my knowledge of herbs and other healing plants and the rituals used to cast out evil spirits and strengthen the good ones.

Finally a week after the manhood ceremony the time came for my departure. The night before I was to leave there was a great feast with music and dancing to commemorate the occasion. These people, and others I have so far encountered in these strange lands, take every opportunity they can to hold feasts and dances. My boots had disintegrated long ago with the heat and humidity of this land, and my feet were slowly becoming toughened to run barefoot, but I noticed some of the men and women among the Tocobaga wore a soft leather slipper often decorated with fine designs from quills and thread trimmed with fur. They called this footwear a moccasin, which they said was a word from a tribe far to the north where it was very cold and the people wore clothing even in the middle of summer. Much to my surprise, I was presented a pair by the mother of the boy whose ankle I had treated. As I have mentioned, these peoples know of no personal property other than their weapons and a few prized possessions, all things being shared. And so I was presented by all members of the tribe with a well-used canoa built to carry a single person made from a hollowed out log. Though it was heavy, I was told there were few waterways where I was headed that would require portage.

That night I joined the healer, the only man to have a separate dwelling, in his hut, the married men living with their wive's parents and other married siblings of his wife, and the unmarried men living in barracks with other unmarried men. He brewed a tea from dried and pulverized leaves commonly used in this area to which he added a few petals of another plant whose name I did not know and which made the drink less bitter and caused my heart to beat faster. He said the flowers were rare and used only in special occasions to enhance one's performance, and he glanced down at my crotch meaningfully.

I have over the years learned there are things a person says or does, a look in the eyes or a suggestive comment, that hints that he is interested in another of his own gender, and when I had set out from Portugal on this journey I had thought that I had developed a good awareness of those hints. Though I had been living with the Tocobaga for almost a month, the Healer had never given any indication that he had such an interest in me, so his comment came as a great surprise. I may have missed the hints, but in my defense, the peoples I have encountered on this voyage are very different from any I have met before and their customs most strange. There was, however, no question what he meant now.

I was not sure what was expected of me, but he being older and being my host, I expected him to take the lead and he did. We embraced and caressed and kissed, using our fingertips and our lips and tongues to arouse and please each other. Over twice my age and half again, he having told me he was ten times four winters, and the years and weather having blotched and wrinkled his skin, he was thin and sinewy but his fingers were still strong and dexterous. He was also very skillful when it came to arousing another, knowing where to touch and how and when, and I found myself becoming aroused despite our age difference and his less than enticing appearance.

It was very different from having sex with Scalp Lock. While Scalp Lock had been filled with youthful excitement and expectation and impatience, the Healer was slow and deliberate and every move was carefully executed unlike anyone I have had congress with before. While Scalp Lock's caresses and kisses had been direct and aggressive, the Healer's were softer and more gentle, more I suppose like those one would expect from a woman though in that matter I have little experience and even less knowledge so it is difficult to say. With the Healer I did not feel the urgency to unite nor did I have the desire to hurry. It was unlike anything I have ever engaged in, all youth I have had congress with either being eager for an orgasm and therefore quick to unite, or being innocent and therefore uncertain what to do, and most men being solely concerned with their own pleasure and not that of their partner.

Accustomed to being the one bringing the other pleasure, I found great difference and great delight in being the recipient of such attention, and I found it most strange that he took that role being the elder. Besides knowing where and how to touch to arouse me, he also knew where not to touch to prolong our arousal so there was no reason for us to pause to allow our passions to subside for he never allowed them to surge out of control, a most amazing and delightful difference. As I lay there delighted by the prolonged pleasure I was feeling and copying his actions, I was reminded of my surprise when the Trader had been visited by the cacique's fat wife. Laying there now with the Healer, I understood Owl's explanation that the Trader was a very important person, and so had been rewarded with a person who was also very important, and the very best. Healers were esteemed individuals among these peoples, and he was extremely good. That he had chosen me to have congress with was an indication of my own worthiness and that gave me a very warm feeling that had nothing to do with his caresses and kisses.

And so this man of forty winters lay on his back on a woven mat of palm leaves and spreading his legs, welcomed me, a youth more than half his age, into his body. He had lubricated his anus and rectum with a pleasant-smelling ointment and neither he nor I was inexperienced so we united with little effort or difficulty. Now at the age of sixteen my member had grown to a hand and a half long and over two fingers thick, which from my experience was a generous size and larger than many men, and I knew from the intake of breath and the subsequent sigh that he had found pleasure in my penetration. For that I was thankful considering the great pleasure he had given me, and I resolved that I would make this copulation the best that I could perform. My motivation was bringing this revered man pleasure, but of course in doing so I was bringing myself great pleasure also.

And so I began to ease my hips to and fro slowly, intending on extending our pleasure as long as I could, and he moved accordingly, evidently having the same idea. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the throbbing of my erect flesh and the pulsation of the hot, moist flesh engulfing my member, the two very different but gradually becoming one so that the throbbing of his rectum and that of my cock were indistinguishable. The rim of my cock burned with that sharp, painful itch that was so addictive, the same itch I knew that he was feeling about the rim of his hole. I concentrated on that pleasure as it slowly grew in intensity and spread over my blood-engorged knob as I knew it was spreading in concentric pulses through his rectum, and I inhaled deeply with the unique pleasure. My head began to spin and I felt myself grow faint as our union seemed to grow in heat and our flesh swelled even greater. I paused to regain my balance and thrilled with the pulsating pleasure between my legs as I knew he was delighting in his and I wished it would never end.

We fucked for the longest time, longer than I ever recall doing without needing to pause, so great was the pleasure and so great our desire to never see it end. I inhaled deeply, sucking in the warm air fragrant with his sweat and mine combined with the raw, natural scent of these naked savages, the scent of the sea and of raw fish. Laying there face to face, our lips met in long, passionate kisses and his hands caressed my perspiring body as I thrust my cock in and out of his rectum. Sweat trickled down my ribs and the inside of my thighs and we both panted with exertion and pleasure as gradually the pressure in our loins increased. I began to thrust faster and more irregularly and he grasped me with greater intensity as that pressure grew and our breathing grew deeper and more ragged. I focused on the beating of my heart, willing it to slow as the pleasure throbbing between my legs caused my head to spin and my thighs to flex and relax faster and faster, driving my numbed cock in and out of his eager, grasping hole in desperation now until at last I felt the twang deep in my groin that announced the release of my seed. It gushed up the core of my benumbed cock and spurted deep up his rectum in rapid, delightful spurts of pleasure, and he grasped me tightly and threw back his head and groaned as his thick cock jerked, slapping my belly as his own seed, thick and hot, spurted out of the opening and splattered my chest and his. We inhaled deeply, sucking in the warm, moist air laden now with the fragrance of our fresh seed, his and mine.

I left early the next morning before the sun rose, escorted by two canoa of men to the Little Big River which marked the boundary between the Tocobaga and the Ocale and other tribes which I had been told formed the Thimogona nation. (1) Reluctantly parting company, for these peoples had become friends and I was fearful of the dangers and the unknowns of the journey ahead of me, I headed up the waterway that fed into the Little Big River, angling north and to the east. Though my destination lay to the west, away from the sun rising on my right, I had to first circle around the closest village where the hunter who had been killed had lived, and besides, I knew that going directly east would bring me to the great body of water the village of Tocobaga sat beside and which, I had been told, would require several moons to cross, far too far for one man. The terrain I crossed was little different from that I had crossed traveling from the Ais village to the Tocobaga and only the location of the sun assured me that I was not retracing my steps.

This is a strange land unlike any I have ever seen but not unlike what one would expect from tales about Cipango. Although I was paddling against the flow of the waterway, it was so sluggish and clogged with vegetation the flow was of no consequence. Trees whose roots were submerged in water lined both sides and often grew directly across my intended path, resulting in a maze of waterways. There are tricks for navigating such confusing waterways, noting the location of the sun and direction of shadows on the water, the pattern of growth of the long, grey-yellow, beard-like moss from the tree branches, and other clues that my teachers, the young boys of the Tocobaga, had taught me that I now put into practice, constantly fearful that I might make a mistake and end up hopelessly lost in the crisscrossing waterways, which I was told often happened to young, inexperienced boys venturing out on their own.

In places the grasses grew so thick they had to be chopped away to make a path, strenuous work, especially in the oppressive heat and humidity of this land. Such grasses were also the home of large snakes, some of them poisonous and others with teeth as sharp as daggers, and large, ferocious four-legged creatures, el lagarto, for which I was on constant watch and avoided for they were as long as a man is tall and just as heavy and could easily capsize my little vessel and swallow me in one gulp. Occasionally I had to cross strips of land, the growth underfoot being spongy and plagued with patches the Indians called quicksand, deceiving patches where if a man were to step he would be sucked down underwater, another fate I was told young boys often met while foraging for food. The heat and humidity were unbearable though it was only March and early spring back home, and there was no end to the tiny flying insects constantly hovering around my head. I had learned to smear my exposed skin with a foul oil made of fish paste which stunk like rotting seaweed washed up on the shores back home but which at least prevented the tiny pests from biting.

My progress was slow but steady and on the third morning I awoke relieved that I had to have passed the Ocale village without detection. Despite my conviction that I had succeeded, as I continued on my way I had an uneasy feeling of being watched. Constantly alert for any signs, my nerves were on end and I began imaging movements in the trees and grasses that were not there. A flock of birds flew up in front of me, a sure sign that something had flushed them and I hoped it was only an el lagarto seeing a morning snack, and that he had succeeded and would not be turning his attention to me. I soon discovered it had been no animal as a canoa of half a dozen warriors appeared to my right, the four in the middle with their arrows aimed at me. I immediately ceased paddling and slowly raised my hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

They looked young, in their late teens or early twenties, all tall and muscular. One of them hailed me, and although their tongue was different, it was similar to that of the Tocobaga, and through common words and gestures I was able to understand them and make myself understood. He asked who I was and where I was going and what my intention was traveling through their land. Though their appearance was similar to that of the Tocobaga, the marks on their bodies and their adornments were different, their cheekbones higher, and their foreheads more sloped. I suspect my own strange accent and my very different appearance and skin color worked to my advantage for I was clearly not a member of their enemies, the Tocobaga or the Calusa, which was their first question and suspicion. Drawing near, they seized my bow and arrows and my sword in its scabbard which they eyed curiously but made no attempt to further examine, and gestured for me to turn over my daggers in their sheaths. I was turned around and escorted to their village, which to my surprise and disappointment was only a short distance away, arriving there at mid-afternoon.

The village was similar in structure and layout to that of the Tocobaga except being inland there were no homes on stilts. The larger and more important homes were built up on mounds in the center of the village and made of the same mud-covered walls and thatch roofs and a short distance from the village were smaller mounds which I guessed were their burial mounds. Not being an honored or known guest, I was not escorted to the top of the most prominent mound, but rather was surrounded by a ring of wary warriors in the center of a large plaza in the center of the village, a feature that appears to be common among all villages of these people of all tribes. There gathered along the edge of the plaza a line of curious men and crouching behind them the more curious and braver children. There were, scattered behind this wall of men and children, a few women, mostly older. Like the Ais and the Tocobaga, the children, male and female, were naked and the adults were all bare chested. The women however wore skirts that appeared to be woven from the grey-green moss that hung abundantly from the branches of the larger, older trees, and the men wore woven fiber breechcloths and brightly colored sashes of the same material. Both sexes wore fine, deerskin moccasins.

Eventually those along the edge of the plaza parted as did the men surrounding me and I saw a most curious sight, a young man being carried toward me on the back of another. From the way the others drew back and bowed their heads, this man being carried was clearly one of power and importance. Not knowing what else to do, I dropped to my knees and raised my arms parallel to the ground, palms upward as the Trader had done upon being greeted by the chief of the Tocobaga. The man got down off the back of the other and approached me but did not lay his hands upon mine, nor did he bide me stand. This was, I soon learned, the chief of this village and one of the sub-chiefs or princes of these people. He, like most of his people, male and female, was exceptionally tall, standing close to eighteen hands in height, a good two hands taller than the tallest Portuguese or Spaniard. Also like most of his people, he was of exceptional build, his chest broad and chiseled and his legs and arms muscular. He was joined by another man, heavily tattooed in blue and black symbols and looking most fierce.

There followed another lengthy interrogation, using pantomime and gestures when words failed us. Again I told them my name was Baracutey, One Who Travels Alone, and assured them I was neither Tocobaga nor Calusa and was not spying on his people, and that I had come from a land far away across the great sea on a large sailing ship and that I was on a vision quest. That I was on a vision quest carried much weight with these people as it had with the Ais and with the Tocobaga for it was seen as a sacred goal, one connected with the spirits, which despite conclusions the Admiral and my shipmates had made earlier that these people have no religion, play a large role in their lives. My much lighter skin and the fact that despite my age, my hair, which having no convenient way of trimming was now well past my shoulders, was still worn long and loose like a woman or a boy rather than in a knot on the top of my head like a man, carried some special significance with these people which at the time I did not understand. My sword and steel dagger were also of great interest, and despite my warning, the chief and the tattooed man beside him, whom I later learned was his brother and the war chief, both cut themselves on the edges when they examined them. When I indicated to them that I had herbs in my canoa that would stem the flow of blood they regarded me with what I could only interpret as respect.

The incident resulted in the summoning of another man, an effeminate but muscular young man, a young man I can only describe as having great beauty, who also wore his thick, black hair long and loose like the women did except he decorated it with the white feathers of an owl. He also wore a deerskin about his loins fashioned more like the women's moss skirts than the loincloth worn by men. I later learned his name was Muqbey and that he was of my age and was, much to my surprise, their Healer and Medicine Person, their old Healer-Priest having recently died. He had evidently been told of their cuts for he had brought with him a salve which he applied to their cuts which were then wrapped in thin fiber. There followed another interrogation, and an inspection of the bundles of herbs fetched from my canoa. This was followed by a lengthy and animated discussion between the young man and the two chiefs that I was unable to follow with many glances at me accompanied by unknown gestures. Their mood at one point seemed to turn to one of apprehension and almost fear, the reason for which I had no comprehension.

At last apparently satisfied with my story but still not trusting me, the circle of men about me dispersed but my weapons were not returned and I was cautioned not to try to leave the village, and I was cautiously watched by three young men wherever I went, even when I went to the trench beside the village to relieve myself. They tried not to be obvious, but were curious if my member was as different from theirs as my appearance was, which of course in color and having no hood it was, a fact which I was sure, to my great embarrassment, was communicated to the rest of the tribe.

That night there was much activity and excitement in the village, and I learned that the men of the village had been planning on striking back at the Tocobaga for the attack on two of their hunters. The one who had survived had been brought to me by the war chief and had questioned me thoroughly about the earlier attack by the four youths, and though I wanted no harm to come to those who had become my friends, I knew it would be dangerous to lie about my knowledge of the raid. My explanation that it was a ceremony of manhood seemed to appease the two somewhat, and that two of the attackers had been seriously injured pleased them greatly. Of course I made no mention of my role in helping them heal. Apparently the one who had survived was a brother of the one who had been scalped and had wanted to lead a war party in revenge immediately, but their Healer had died on the day of their attack and his death had to be honored, and besides it was felt the death of their Healer was an ominous sign and that it would be a risky time to retaliate.

So they decided to delay, and in compensation they planned on something much larger, not a return raid, but a full-out attack on the village, which had to wait until their new healer-priest had a sign the attack would be successful. Apparently he had received such a sign just two days earlier, a vision that a spirit messenger from the sky would appear before them on this very day and extend his magical powers to their warriors. That spirit messenger was evidently deemed to be myself. Whether his vision and my appearance were a coincidence, or if the young man hoping to make a name for himself had invented the vision and used my fortunate appearance to support his claim I do not know.

Now this night before a council of the elders at which I was included, he added to the vision he had had, details he evidently had kept from the others until now which made me greatly suspect the honesty of his words. He informed the elders that the spirt who had appeared before him in his vision had told him that the messenger would be pale-skinned and would descend from the sky, details which came as no surprise to me for such is the appearance and the origin of the spirits of the inhabitants of these lands, and upon our arrival at Guanahari and ever since we had been hailed as such spirits. That this messenger would not arrive in their midst from the sky but instead would come by canoa because he was traveling to them from the land of the Tocobaga where he had put a curse on them was I was sure pure invention by the young Medicine Person, but it conveniently explained my mode of arrival.

His further revelation that this spirit would carry weapons that could cut sharper than any weapon they knew of and that could not be blunted, and whose magical abilities would be transferred to their own weapons was to me the proof that he had made all this up since my arrival. I could not believe the gullibility of the elders, but his incredible tale was readily accepted. Of course the villagers by then had been worked up to a frenzy of bloodlust so their belief in these lies should not have come as a surprise to me having witnessed first hand in the land of the Italies how one man can whip a crowd into such a frenzy they would believe whatever he said.

Following the assembly, the young braves, filled with excitement and bravado, painted their bodies with the symbols and colors of their clans, and they performed the Preparation Dance, demonstrating to all by pantomime their particular skill with weapons and proclaiming their great strength and courage, the clans performing in order from the most prestigious, which in this case was the Deer Clan which the chief and his mother were a member of. A fire had been lit in the center of the plaza and a spiral-striped pole erected beside it. They danced about the fire and pole, striking the pole with fury and vengeance. When the dance was done, they lined up before the young Medicine Person who blessed each of them by wafting a sweet-smelling smoke from a smoldering bundle of grass over them. They retired to a lodge that had been set aside just for the warriors where they would continue the fast they had begun that morning until the next morning. I and Muqbey accompanied them and I assisted him in giving the men what they called the White Water, which I had first encountered when the young Tocobaga braves were preparing for their raid. Watching man after man toss back the foul preparation and then double over and retch was disgusting, and the stench and sounds almost had me joining them without needing to drink the vile concoction. What saved me was imagining Father Francisco's horror when I described to him these savages' concept of purification. In fact imagining the look on his face caused me to chuckle, which the warriors about to go to war found most strange behavior and more than a few took me to be mad.

When the last man was done, I accompanied Muqbey to his lodge, a small and simple dwelling but built on the top of the largest mound in the village where the large and impressive homes of the chief and the war chief were, though set a considerable distance apart from them. Motioning for me to sit and telling me to wait there, he left but quickly returned with a young boy whom he introduced as Tonochi and said was seven winters of age. Like all children of that age, the boy was naked. He stood before Muqbey, who lit a pot of sweet-smelling grass and wafted the smoke over the boy, chanting in a low voice, most of the words foreign to me, and performing intricate gestures which meant nothing to me. He then turned and faced the boy and removed his sash and breechcloth. I could not help noticing that he was either extremely well endowed, or partially aroused. I had no way of knowing which.

He whispered something to the boy and to my surprise he took the boy's right hand and guided it to his privates. As I sat there watching, the boy began to fondle the young Medicine Man's member and testicles, studying them seriously and with great concentration as young boys do when told to perform an important task. If Muqbey had not been aroused before, he certainly became so now. His member quickly began to swell as the boy stroked it and rolled his large stones in their loose skin and the hood of his cock slowly began to slip back over the bulb. Then, even greater to my surprise, the boy dropped to his knees and slipped his lips over the bulb of Muqbey's cock and began to suck on it. Doing so without any instructions and without any hesitation, it was obvious that he had done this sort of thing before. He again concentrated on what he was doing as he bobbed his head, easing his lips up and down the length of the now stiff cock as he sucked on it, his dark eyes again serious and focused on the penis in his mouth and the chore he was performing. He was clearly not averse to what he was doing. Muqbey began to inhale and exhale more deeply and as he closed his eyes he seemed to go into a trance.

I know I certainly would have, having this attractive, naked seven-year-old boy dutifully sucking on my cock. Although they ignored me as though I were not even there, as I have learned parents do with their children when in these crowded quarters the mood to fornicate strikes them, I was embarrassed sitting there watching the two of them engaging in this most private act. I must confess to also having a prurient interest and in that they were clearly unconcerned about me witnessing what they were doing I made no effort to avert my eyes. Needless to say, I found myself becoming aroused watching them, and I found myself wishing, and hoping, that I would be invited to join in. Even in the darkness it was impossible for me to hide what was happening to me given the narrow loincloth I was wearing and it soon bulged out like a little tent, revealing the pole and the stones at its base.

I was surprised not only that Muqbey was having congress with a boy so young, but that he was engaged in having congress at all. My own people, and every group of people I have encountered, even the heathen Saracens, strongly believe in strict abstinence before engaging in any physical activity and especially before war, and it was certainly expected of the young braves we had purified only a short time ago. Not only can a man become inflicted with the woman weakness by doing so, but it is well known that the spilling of one's seed weakens one's body. Surely the healer-priest would be expected to join the braves and other leading men in the battle on the morrow, and no man would knowingly and willingly weaken himself before going into battle. Once again my suspicions regarding the honesty and veracity of this particular healer-priest arose.

He and the boy were inhaling deeply and irregularly by then, and I noticed the young boy himself was sporting a little erection, the boy clearly enjoying what he was doing and having become aroused himself. My thoughts regarding the fakery of this young Medicine Person were interrupted as I felt my lust rising up in my loins and those thoughts were replaced by those of fear and shame as I wondered what I was going to do if I became so aroused that I would not be able to hold back my seed and would spill it in their sight. Most fortunately, at that moment Muqbey reached down and stopped the boy and whispered something to him. Much to my surprise and perplexity, the boy immediately got to his feet and left us. I could understand not consummating the act given what was going to happen on the morrow, but if he was not going to consummate it, why begin it at all? To add to my confusion, Muqbey said that he was sorry but it was the only way he knew to be sure. What he was sorry about and of what he wanted to be sure I had no idea for he did not elaborate. Motioning for me to lie down and go to sleep, he lit a punk pot to which he added a different smelling herb. Bending over it and inhaling the smoke, he began a low chant and to gesture. Perplexed, and exhausted, mentally and physically, I lay down certain I would not fall asleep but moments later I had drifted off to sleep.

The next morning the chief, war chief and other high-status men, including Muqbey, were served what they called the Black Drink, a dark-colored and aromatic drink usually prepared by the women but this morning prepared by Muqbey himself. This drink I knew from discussions with previous healers was to sharpen one's mind, heightening one's awareness and focussing one's thoughts. (2) The warriors, practically all the men of the tribe, lined up and filed past me and as they did so they presented their arrows and spears tipped with bone, snake teeth or flint, their bows, and their stone daggers and hatchets to me to touch, expecting my spiritual powers to make their weapons stronger and unbreakable. That when some of them met the enemy they would miss their target or their weapons would otherwise fail, and that some of those men would die as a result of my false blessing sickened me but I was powerless to do anything about it.

And so they headed off to battle, their cacique, their war chief, and their healer-priest, and I was left behind with the old men, women and children. It was an excellent opportunity for me to make my escape, but I suspected if I did so I would be tracked and killed upon the return of the war party, especially once they had discovered I had no special power to enhance their weapons. I did debate it, but after weighing the pros and cons of such an action and my chances of success, I decided against it. I was largely left alone, whether because I was a spirit and feared or already seen by the elders as a fraud and unworthy of their attention I did not know, but regardless of the reason it was good as I was in no mood for companionship, nor for playing the role of a god. The days slowly dragged by. It was an exceedingly long wait and I was beginning to fear that the entire war party had been killed.

Finally, in the mid afternoon of the fourth day, the warriors returned, five to be buried in the village mound. They also returned with seven captives, three girls between the ages of ten and fourteen, two boys ages five and eight, and two young men in their mid-twenties. The girls, I discovered, had already been claimed and raped, two to become their married rapists' concubines and the third to become her rapist's wife. I stood there stunned by disbelief. What sort of marriage was that where the wife is captured and raped by her future husband? It was, I was to learn, a common occurrence in these lands. Later, when I had time to think on it, I realized it was not unlike the mock capture of the bride on her wedding day by rural folk back home, or what I had witnessed while traveling with the Saracens, but in those cases it had been play acting. It gave me cause to wonder if perhaps sometime in the distant past it had also been real. The boys would become slaves, and in time become adopted by the tribe, which was also a surprise. Had I seen my parents or relatives or their friends killed, I would never willingly join the tribe that had murdered them. These are a most strange and unchristian peoples.

Muqbey had seen to the injuries, himself having multiple cuts to his hands and a flesh wound to the right leg, and I helped him now they were back in the village, after which I assisted him in seeing to their dead, a most gruesome and unpleasant exercise left to him and me alone, these people having a natural and healthy fear of the dead and of spirits. Whether it was a mark of highest trust or a mark of lowest esteem that the chore was entrusted to us I did not know. Although the captives recognized me and they looked familiar, I was glad I did not know any personally. The attack was seen as a great success and the men were joyful, praising their chief and war chief and their new healer-priest. I myself was credited for their success, those whose weapons having failed being accused of hiding secret sins which I had seen through. or of having been doubtful of my power. The married men returned to their families and the single braves to the lodge for single men, some certain to be visited by young maidens during the night.

I had been staying in Muqbey's hut in his absence and he bade me stay. He was in high spirits, having returned from his first battle as the tribe's Medicine Man successful and highly praised, and he lavished praise on me for that success which of course I downplayed but did not outright deny for to do so would mock his belief in me as a visiting spirit. We shared a pipe in friendship and in a ritual farewell to the dead. He then offered himself to me in thanks for lending my spiritual power to the warriors though we were both exhausted and I managed to decline without offense, claiming spiritual exhaustion, which he accepted quite readily as he himself was clearly spent.

The following day the men made sport with their two captives, forcing them to run races barefoot over the middens of broken sea shells and along a path strewn with sharp stones and sharp spines and thorns and along which they hung the scalps they had collected until their captives' legs were so weary they could not stand. They were allowed to rest and then the young braves lined up and had great sport competing with each other who could aim an arrow at their feet without hitting them as they were forced to run again. The two men were stripped and surrounded by the young boys and were spit on and taunted and called derogatory names. They were forced to run again, between two rows of the youngest warriors, all in their teens, and were clubbed, leaving black and blue welts on their arms, legs, and torso and faces.

That evening they were bound to sturdy poles pounded into the ground, their arms raised above their heads and pots of honey were passed beneath their noses and their genitals were fondled to arouse them until they were erect. Thin cords were wrapped about their testicles and about the base of their erect cocks to prevent them from softening, and their swollen cocks, nipples and anuses were coated with honey before dragging them over to a large nest of red ants at the edge of the village and forced to sit upon it. The ants of course swarmed over their naked bodies to feed on the honey. Despite the extreme pain they had to be feeling, they did not cry out. I myself cringed with just the sight of their torment and again I reflected on the thought that there is no end of cruelty one group can inflict on another.

As the sun set, they were dragged back to the center of the plaza, the tender flesh of their nipples, anus and genitals swollen and bleeding from the multitude of jagged bites, and they were strung up on the poles once again. Dry branches were piled at their feet and set on fire, and I was reminded of the torture and punishment I had witnessed at the hands of the Spanish and of the good citizens of Venice against the Moors, Jews and boy lovers in their country as the men stood there stoically while the flames licked at their flesh. All of this was watched by the rest of the village, even the children, and I was thankful when finally Muqbey stepped forward and their throats were cut before the fire consumed them alive. Their heads were removed and they were dismembered, their heads and limbs being carried off to be hung on posts at the entry of the village as a warning to any who might be brave enough to attack. I was sick to my stomach but dared not reveal my nausea and disgust.

There followed much feasting and drinking and dancing, the warriors reenacting their acts of bravery and heaping praise on each other and on their leaders, and new tattoos were engraved on their bodies to boast of their deeds. I sat numbed by the savagery and having purposefully imbibed more heavily than usual to block the horror from my mind. We finally retired for the evening, the men to celebrate with their wives, concubines and available young maidens, Muqbey to celebrate with me. He was excited and filled with energy and of pride, rejoicing in his great success, the praise of the warriors having gone to his head. He again offered himself to me, this gorgeous, long-haired, muscular Medicine Man who was still more boy than man, and I took him, on all fours, in the center of his hut. I fucked him furiously and in anger, anger at him, at this tribe of savages, at all men and all tribes who took such delight in the torture and death of their fellow man. I took my anger over their greed and covetousness and need for revenge out on him, and he responded with wild delight, taking my roughness as a test of his masculinity. Earlier that evening he had confided in me that I too had been tested, at first the witnessing of him and the child to see if I would become aroused and prove myself to indeed be what he called a poranacu, one who is two-spirited, whatever that was, and then being left behind to see if I would stay, or if, being a false prophet, run before the war party returned. So that explained what he had meant earlier that he had to be sure.

I came violently and angrily, and when I was spent, I dropped to my hands and knees and had this young, wild savage take me in the same way, and he did so, raping me as it were, demonstrating his own masculine strength and power, wild, unabandoned, and proud until his ardor was quenched and he emptied his loins and shot his seed deep up my rectum. As we drifted off to sleep that night naked and in each other's arms, the stench of sweat and blood and spent seed and burnt flesh in my nostrils, my stones drained and drawn up tight beneath my member and my rectum filled with another man's seed, I recalled the brutality and rough sex of the Mongol tribesmen, and I wondered if this perhaps was the nature of man everywhere in this world. (3)

Author's notes:
1. The Spanish and present day name for this population is the Timucua. The Spanish is likely from the indigenous name Thimogona or Tymangoua used by other tribes in reference to this group.
2. Black drink (called cassina by the Spanish) was common throughout southern USA. The leaves of the Yaupon holly (also called the passion plant as the flower suggests the crown of thorns and wounds of the crucifixion) are dried, roasted and made into a tea. It is traditionally only prepared by women for council meetings but is prepared and carried into battle by a man, commonly one who is considered two-spirited, as before war men avoid women and abstain from sex. It is a highly caffeinated tea-like drink and emetic drunk both as an everyday drink and as a ceremonial drink in rituals and as a sign of friendship or alliance.
3. Like the previous chapter, much of the information regarding the customs of the Ocale in this chapter comes from the fictional novel "Tatham Mound" by Piers Anthony which is set in the first half of the 1500's in Florida prior to and during the invasion by Hernando De Soto, and again in the absence of written records, we can never know precisely what their culture was like. This story presents one conjecture based on what we know of tribes of this region in the 1490's.

6. Thimogona

Continuing to travel through northern Florida as he seeks a route home, Nico is seen as a Spirit Messenger, a spirit of good fortune in battle, and leads Timucua warriors in wars against their enemies. He and their Shaman celebrate their success with preteen boys and Nico experiences his first hurricane. Like Europeans after him, he mistakes effeminate two-spirited boys as hermaphrodites. Besides Baracutey, Nico takes the name One From Whom the Enemy Runs.

Nicolau Ribeiro (16yo); Shaman Muqbey (16yo), Tonochi (7yo), Tekimme (6yo); unnamed 6yo boy
tt tb bb – cons mast oral anal

I awoke the next morning, exhausted and greatly troubled. The previous night had not been the first time I had engaged in violent, unrestrained sex of course, but it was the first time I had done so as the perpetrator, and that was most worrisome for that is not my nature. I had been at the receiving end of aggressive sex in the past while a bathboy in Istanbul by men who thought their coin entitled them to subject me to whatever abuse they desired, and I witnessed even more violent congress while serving as an aide to Prince Abbas, witnessing his abusive treatment of slaves and whores, male and female, sexually and otherwise, and the sexual assault by his soldiers on their captives, again male and female, but never until last night have I been compelled to copy such unseaming behaviour. I was horrified by my behaviour now in reflection in the calm of the morning, and even more horrified how good it had made me feel. As I lay there in dawn's early light, I prayed to our most compassionate and understanding Father in Heaven for forgiveness for my actions and for my vile passions, and as I knelt there in contrition, I strived to understand the cause of my behaviour.

As I have said, such aggression was contrary to my nature and my upbringing, and after much deliberation on the matter, I could only conclude that my violent behaviour was the result of the five and a half months I have spent living with these strange, naked and half-naked savages in this strange land, over four months of which I have spent as the only white man among these primitive heathens. When I had become separated from my countrymen in Cairo, I had known before hand that the Saracens were cruel, barbaric heathens and so I had expected such behaviour before laying my eyes upon them. What had come as a surprise was that not all of their kind behaved so. I found living among them men and youth who were kind, cultivated and considerate, youth like gentle Rifki who delighted in pleasing others and wearing beautiful women's clothing, or the aspiring poet Ubaydah who composed erotic lyrics of sweet and tender love between men and women and between men and boys. The presence of such cultured individuals had to have tempered my darker side so that I did not fall into their uncivilized ways which abounded in their land.

These inhabitants of the Indies on the other hand were nothing like I had expected, as strange as the land in which they lived, and I must confess, they were a mystery to me. Having been told back home theirs was an ancient civilization, dating back to even before the time of the pharaohs, I had expected an intellectual, cultivated people, a land of philosophers and scholars of profound wisdom and serenity that one would expect from a civilization of such age, and instead had found immoral and illiterate savages bereft of even a written language or a sense of shame. The first peoples we had encountered, the Taino from Guanahari, were the gentlest and kindest of peoples I have ever met, childlike in their innocence and trust and morals, choosing to flee rather than wage war not out of cowardice but out of docility, but quite frankly, a race of little sophistication or imagination whom the Admiral had described, quite correctly, as most suitable to serve as slaves. These people, the Thimogona, on the other hand, were a violent, warlike people who celebrated with great joy and pride the scalping and dismembering of their enemies and who conducted raids on their neighbours on a regular basis for no other reason than to take what they had out of greed and jealousy and to prove their masculinity. Surprisingly, both lived in a land of great beauty and bounty and much wonder such that they did not need to declare war on their neighbours. Still more confusing was that despite the difference in their humours, they otherwise appeared to have a great similarity in their beliefs and in many of their practices.

"What is wrong?" asked Muqbey as he propped himself up on one arm beside me. He was naked, as was I, and his body smelled of sweat and sex. The smell of him and the look of him, his smooth, young body lean and muscular and his face pleasant to look upon, ignited my lust and I am ashamed to admit that I felt a stirring in my loins.

"Nothing," I replied. "I was only thinking." I had been so deep in my thoughts I had not noticed he had awoken nor realized how my troubling thoughts had contorted my expression.

"With such dark looks, of our enemies I hope," he said, not entirely certain.

"Of course," I said with a smile, causing him to relax with relief.

"Then with such dark thoughts, they are in great trouble," he said brightly as he got to his feet. I could not help but glance over at his member, the bulb covered with its loose hood now that it was flaccid, hanging down over his stones in their loose sack, and think about the torrid night we had spent together. "Last night," he said, looking at me now most reverently, "last night was very good, the best I have ever experienced." His comment caught me by surprise given my present feelings of guilt and remorse, but of even greater surprise and much more troubling was that he had just expressed the very same sentiments as I had upon wakening. The memory of what we had done and how I had felt, and the look in his dark eyes, caused my member to stir.

"Ah, yes, very good," I responded hesitantly.

"Your snake agrees," he observed with a grin on his lips and a leer in his eyes as he stood there staring at my rising member, causing it to swell all the more.

Wrapping our loincloths about our waists, we exited his hut and made our way down the mound and over to the nearby river where we broke off the leaves of the milky, lush plants growing there and bruised them between two stones to release the juice contained within which we then rubbed over our bodies and our hands in the belief it strengthened the skin, these peoples having the same peculiar, perverse obsession of bathing as the other peoples I have encountered in these lands. We returned to his hut where our morning meal, a flat bread made from a local root, fresh berries and smoked fish, was brought to us by several young boys, the youngster Tonochi among them, who treated us with great respect and an almost fearful awe. After our morning meal, we met with the cacique and the war chief, who were quite concerned whether I was happy with them, and who asked me my impressions of other nearby tribes and what I knew about them. Their names I had never heard before and of course I knew nothing of them, but I was careful not to reveal my ignorance given their belief that I had come from the heavens and would be privy to information they did not have. While the men of the tribe went about repairing their weapons and the women and children headed out into the surrounding forests to scavenge for food for the remainder of the day, Muqbey and I headed out to collect herbs, most of which I recognized but adding a few new ones to my growing body of knowledge. Muqbey was surprised when I inquired into their nature given my heavenly origin but accepted my explanation that they looked different from where I came from, accepting what all men must accept, that there are things about the gods that are beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.

That night Tonochi joined us in Muqbey's hut after our evening repast, obviously nervous and apprehensive. Muqbey whispered something to him which I did not hear and then looking at me he motioned toward the boy and said something that I can best translate as "enjoy." The boy looked up at me uncertainly and hesitantly with a mixture of fear and awe as Muqbey moved around behind him, and I looked at him with equal uncertainty. "The boy is here for your pleasure," Muqbey said, and when I did not respond, he raised his hands and forming a circle with the thumb and first finger of one hand he thrust his middle finger in and out of the circle, a universal gesture I have found all peoples know regardless of language and beliefs. As I recalled the sexual play between him and the boy several days earlier, the day before we had headed off to war, my member began to respond to the memory and the desire I had felt watching them. Both he and the boy noticed, and knowing that they knew caused my member to swell still faster.

As I have mentioned, these are an immoral people. It is not their custom to engage in acts of intimacy in private as is the practice of decent and civilized folk. It was clear Muqbey was not about to leave his own home so we could be alone, and quite legitimately, nor should he have been expected to. I was, after all, the guest. But by the same token, I was not expected to leave with the boy either. As I have observed before, congress between those of the same gender is practised more openly here in the Indies than in my homeland, including congress between young boys and older boys, and between boys and adults. It appears that this is practised more commonly by their Healers though such behaviour does not appear to be restricted to them nor practised uniformly by all healer-priests.

"You do not wish to do this," I observed, addressing the boy.

His eyes widened and he darted a look at Muqbey and then looked back up at me. "Oh no," he protested, his voice quavering, "I do."

"You are-," I began, but I did not know their word for hesitant, nor anything similar. I finally settled on "timid."

"Yes, oh great Spirit Messenger," he replied. "Your power is great and fearsome, and I am but a mortal, and a boy."

His reply took me aback. It was not the engaging in the act that was causing his hesitancy. It was engaging in it with me. My own God was spoken of as an omniscient and fearful god, and given the fierce battle the men of the village had just engaged in and the credit given to me, I could not begin to imagine the fears this seven-year-old boy had to be feeling regarding me. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be seven and to be expected to have congress with a god!

"Well," I said, smiling at him and untying my loincloth and dropping it to the ground, "you must be a very special mortal boy to have been chosen to bring pleasure to me. Come and see if my flesh does not feel and smell like a mortal's, and respond in a like manner."

He stepped forward most cautiously and reached out hesitantly as if what hung between my legs really was a snake, and would strike him. His hot, slender fingers slipped about my member and he studied it closely and then slowly stroked it.

"Your snake does not have a hood," he observed with the innocence and curiosity of a child.

"No," I said. "It is the custom of my peo-where I come from-to have it cut off while we are still babies."

His eyes widened, as did Muqbey's. "That must hurt."

"It does, but it is our covenant-our sacrifice-to our God, to the One Who created us and the world."

I myself had always found it a strange covenant, and I suspect the boy Tonochi did also, but in the manner of all children, he accepted it as one of the many strange practices of adults and mysterious requirements of gods. He stroked my flaccid cock carefully, particularly interested in my exposed bulb and the flesh below it, and of course my flesh began to swell, the result of his physical contact and the thought I was being stroked by this innocent, attractive child of seven winters. I say innocent for he was only seven, but I also knew from witnessing the play between himself and Muqbey that he was not without experience. He was also a daring child as well as curious, for he squatted down and leaned forward to sniff at my cock and balls to see if they did indeed not smell any different, which I realized belatedly they probably did for these Indians have a distinctive odour being of a different race as I am sure I must have smelled differently to them. Apparently it was not offensive for he then extended his tongue and licked my bulb and my shaft. Satisfied, he slipped his lips about my member and began to gently suck on it. His eyelids half closed as he bobbed his head as he sucked and my member continued to swell between those smooth, olive-brown lips contrasting with the paleness of my shaft until it was hard.

Placing his hands on the backs of my thighs to balance himself, he slipped his lips down to the base of my cock and then drew them back up until they encircled my bulb, further evidence of this child's experience. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed his cock-flavoured saliva and his lips descended back down my shaft. It was delightful and I exhaled with pleasure as stabs of stimulation pierced my knob and the first of the clear nectar that precedes one's seed oozed out of the tip of my swollen cock, which the boy sucked up eagerly as any child sucks up sweet nectar. Muqbey retired to the corner of his room where his sleeping mat was spread out and he sat down and busied himself, leaving Tonochi and me to our pleasure, but he could not totally ignore us and glanced over at us frequently, fearful that the boy would not please me or that I would not be satisfied with the boy, and I suppose curious to see if I responded any differently with the boy than I had with him. One does not often have a god having sex in one's home. At least I assumed one did not.

I could not totally ignore Muqbey's presence either. Although I have had much experience engaging in sex in the presence of others, it was not my custom nor the usual practice of others. Rather than inhibiting, I found his presence stimulating and I could not help recalling the pleasure the two of us had brought each other, and from the look in his eyes and the bulging of his loincloth I had no doubt that he was thinking of the same thing. As I felt the pressure building deep in my loins, I ran my hands over the narrow, slender shoulders of this young boy, massaging them as I inhaled deeply with the pleasure pulsating through my swollen member. And then I felt the twang in my loins that announced the release of my seed and I warned the boy that I was about to release my seed, speaking in my own tongue in my excitement.

He could not have understood my words, but I have found that often is the case that words are not necessary when two people share an experience they are both familiar with, sexual or otherwise. The boy was clearly familiar with what he was doing for as I began to fill his mouth with my seed he began to swallow it without the slightest interruption in the bobbing of his head. I was very much aroused and came copiously, and the seven-year-old child sucking on my throbbing cock eagerly swallowed all I had to offer, still further evidence of his experience and willingness. The thought of my thick seed flowing down this child's throat caused me to arch my body with delight and to throb even more of my seed into his young mouth as I tightly grasped his narrow shoulders. From our groans and sighs and Tonochi's slurping, gulping noises, it had to be clear to Muqbey what was happening, and that knowledge caused my balls to constrict even tighter, causing even more seed to erupt from my body.

So great and so powerful was my ejaculation that I felt dizzy and I had to grasp the boy's shoulders even more firmly to prevent myself from toppling over. I gasped for air and trembled with delight as the boy continued to suck on my swollen, now aching cock, draining me of my seed until he could suck out no more. At last he slipped his lips off my cock and sat back on his heels and looked up at me with glistening, dark black eyes, his lips glistening with a film of my seed, and as I smiled down at him, curving into a smile of pleasure and relief that he had pleased me.

"That was most delightful," I sighed. "Very good." I wished I knew their language better to more adequately express my pleasure, but I suspect the glow of my face and the glistening of my eyes said more than any words would.

We collapsed on the sleeping mat I normally used and the boy snuggled up against me, his little body hot with the lust pulsating through his body. I reached around him and loosening his loincloth, I removed it and sought out his privates. His little cocklet was stiff and I was delighted that the boy had found pleasure in what we had done. I gently stroked his little cocklet, no longer nor thicker than my smallest finger, but which I knew brought him as much delight as a man's full-grown cock. He squirmed and inhaled and exhaled with delight as I stroked him, and soon inhaled sharply and held his breath as he jerked uncontrollably with his own orgasm. We sat there with him cradled in my arms, the two of us thinking of the pleasure of our congress as our breathing and the beating of our hearts ever so gradually returned to normal. After a while I felt his hot little fingers seek out my flaccid cock and slip about it.

"More?" he asked, uncertain but hopeful.

"Yes," I replied, hoping the tone of my voice expressed the eagerness that I did not know the words for as I leaned over and kissed him as I sought out his own little tiddler.

We sat there caressing each other slowly and tenderly, and between his caresses and feeling his little cocklet quickly hardening in my hand I too was soon stiff. Still stroking his little cocklet, I reached around with my other hand and slipped my middle finger up along his ass crack, pausing at his hole to caress it with the tip of my finger. He immediately opened up and pushed back, pushing himself down on my finger. To my surprise, I discovered the boy had already lubricated his hole with grease. Lying on his back and spreading his legs, he raised his buttocks as I knelt down on my sleeping mat and shuffled toward him, my stiff cock preceding me.

In this too the boy was evidently experienced as he shifted into position and wedged himself on the tip of my erection. As I pressed forward, he opened up to me and what with his experience and the grease and my own experience I penetrated him with little effort. I cannot begin to describe the pleasure of sinking one's stiff member up the rectum of a tight, willing, eager boy. His hot, moist flesh enveloped my cock as I penetrated him, sinking my member up to my stones in one slow thrust. His rectum throbbed in time with my cock and as I slowly withdrew he clamped his anal muscle down upon my shaft. As my knob pressed against that tight ring, I stopped and slowly sank my cock back up this delightful seven-year-old boy and he relaxed his anal muscle and allowed me to penetrate him to my fullest. Again as I withdrew, he clamped his anus tightly about my shaft. And so we fucked together, joined as one, his rectum and my cock throbbing in unison. His little cocklet was stiff and it jerked about with excitement as I thrust my member in and out of his young body.

The rim of my knob burned with pleasure, the same pleasure I knew his anus was burning with, and as I felt once again the pressure building up in my loins I knew the same pressure was building up in his. That to me was one of the greatest joys of congress with one of my own gender, knowing exactly how my partner was feeling for we both had the same feelings. Oh, he was still years away from knowing the delight of squirting out one's seed, but the build up of pressure and the uncontrollable spasms of one's body when he achieved orgasm is the same, and knowing this boy of seven winters was about to feel the same ultimate pleasure as I, that having his tender ass fucked was going to bring him to orgasm just as it was going to bring me, was as delightful as the physical pleasure itself.

The boy looked up into my eyes, his own filled with the delight of his approaching orgasm, and then his eyes became dazed and he began to buck, thrusting his hips up to impale himself on my spurting cock and then drawing back as his orgasm ripped through his loins and as I began to fill his rectum with my hot, thick seed. We both thrust and withdrew, pounding our flesh against each other. My cock throbbed and the knob burned with fire as I spurted my seed into him and again I grew dizzy with my orgasm. The two of us gasped and groaned openly with delight and grasped each other as we trembled with our orgasms. There are no words in his language nor mine that can adequately describe the experience.

I finally pulled my cock out of his body and rolled over on my back, my chest heaving with exertion as I sucked in the warm, musky air, heavily scented with sweat and with spent seed, and the boy lay on his back beside me sucking in the same musky air, filling his lungs. As I slowly recovered, I glanced over to the corner of the room where Muqbey was lying. The boy looked over at Muqbey and then at me questioningly and I nodded. He slipped away in the dark to join the Healer and from the muffled sounds and the movement of shadows, that he was pleasing the young Ocale with his fist and that he was being similarly pleasured was evident.

After a bit the boy once again rolled over on his back and Muqbey knelt between his outspread legs. Having watched the two of us, he was highly aroused and despite having spent twice, I felt the lust arising in my loins once again as I thought about the two of them and what they were about to do. I know many would feel the most intense disgust over what I was about to witness, and there are others who would feel jealousy and resentment that the boy was bringing another pleasure after pleasuring them, but to me it was arousing, and it was right and natural that he do so. In my land such pleasure is deemed the right of just a man and his wife, but as I lay there in the dark in this strange land I found myself questioning that. Why should such pleasure be limited to couples of the opposite sex, or enjoyed by just two people? Is the lack of restraint as practised by these peoples a sign of their primitiveness, or is it a sign of enlightenment? Or was that I thought such thoughts a sign of my depravity?

Muqbey and the boy united and Muqbey began that rhythmic push and withdrawal between the boy's outspread legs, slowly working his cock in and out of the boy's body, the two of them oblivious of my presence. It was dark but light enough for me to see what was happening, and even if I had not been able to see I could hear. I was correct that Muqbey had found our congress arousing for he was soon grunting and moaning with his own orgasm, and the boy responding likewise. That Muqbey was adding his seed to mine up the boy's rectum I found most erotic and I felt my own lust, and my member, quickly rising once more much to my despair and my shame. Living with these primitive savages aroused the animal lust in me, a lust found in all men but subdued by Christian faith and a civilized life, and I confess lying there naked on that hot, humid night I felt no resistance. Watching the sixteen-year-old Medicine Man filling the young boy's rectum with his seed had me fully erect and eager to engage the boy again. As they finished and lay there in the flush of post-coital pleasure, I wondered how I could make my desires known.

I did not need to. After perhaps half a candle mark, Muqbey raised himself on one arm and glancing over at me, he motioned for me to join them. I did so quickly and eagerly, unashamed of my erection. I was uncertain what to do, but on that I need not have worried. Tonochi initiated the action, reaching over and stroking my erection and asking if in the spirit world one's member was ever limp, at the same time reaching over and stroking Muqbey's member and causing it to begin to swell also. With Tonochi lying between us, Muqbey and I began to arouse him. As I caressed his smooth chest and fingered his nipples, causing them to become firm, Muqbey caressed his smooth, compact ass and fingered his anus. The room smelled of sex and having this naked boy of seven winters eagerly stroking the two of us while we caressed his body and fondled his tiny dicklet caused the three of us to swell quickly.

Turning over and getting to his hands and knees, Tonochi knelt between Muqbey's outspread legs and lowering his head, he slipped his lips over the young Healer's stiff cock, leaving his exposed buttocks to me. I got to my knees and shuffled around and behind the seven-year-old and placing my hands on his slender hips, I positioned the tip of my erection against his hot little hole. Slimy with seed, both Muqbey's and mine, his hole was easily penetrated and as he began to suck on Muqbey's cock I sank mine up the seven-year-old cocksucker's hot, wet asshole. That my cock was submerged in a mixture of my seed and Muqbey's I found particularly erotic and I shivered with the thought and the feeling of our slime oozing about my knob and shaft.

Sinking my cock up to my hairs, I grasped the boy's hips and began to fuck him as he sucked the young Healer. At the same time I reached around and finding his little cocklet, I began to stroke the stiff little member, causing him to suck all the harder on Muqbey's cock and to eagerly pump his hips to and fro, riding my stiff cock up his rectum. I inhaled and exhaled rapidly and deeply with delight as once again my knob tingled and itched with that unique combination of pleasure and sweet pain. I knew that Muqbey was feeling the same pleasure as his cock was sucked, and young Tonochi at the age of seven was feeling the same lust and tingling pleasure as the two of us were at the age of sixteen.

Having already shot my seed twice, it took me longer to do so a third time, prolonging my pleasure. It took Muqbey much longer also of course. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pleasure between my legs, thankful that I was a male and that I knew the pleasure that one male can bring another. My cock felt unbelievably swollen and it throbbed in time with the flesh encasing it and I closed my eyes in ecstasy. So lost was I in my own pleasure that when Muqbey had begun ejaculating I do not know but gradually I became aware of the gulping, slurping sounds of young Tonochi and the groans of pleasure from Muqbey that could only mean that the young Medicine Man was shooting his seed. As Tonochi eagerly swallowed the Medicine Man's thick sap, I grasped the boy's hips tightly and rammed my cock up his asshole as I began to fill his rectum once again, my seed joining the seed that I had deposited earlier and that of Muqbey up the boy's asshole. I quivered with the delight of my release and inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the musky, moist air laden with fragrance of fresh seed and of sweat. At the same time Tonochi's stiff little cocklet throbbed and the boy bucked with his dry orgasm, a stiff cock rammed deep up his seven-year-old ass and another throbbing its seed down his throat. It was unbelievably delightful.

The three of us awoke together the next morning, and although none of us mentioned the previous night it had to be on all of our minds and I was sure Tonochi and Muqbey had found the night as enjoyable as I had. As we headed down to the stream to bathe, nobody paid us any attention though they all had to know what we had done. I felt most self-conscious but Tonochi and Muqbey did not appear the slightest concerned I could not decide if such casual attitudes toward sex was due to innocence, or wantonness. Is this what it had been like in Eden, or is this what it had been like in Sodom? I did sense an excitement in the village that morning, an unmistakable tenseness which made me wonder what was wrong. I soon found out. When we joined the chief and war chief for their daily morning council, I learned that encouraged by their great success, and by my presence, they were intending on sending out another war party, this one to the east of their village, wishing to do so as soon as possible while word of their last victory spread fear among the other villages.

And so once again that evening the men of the village painted themselves and the Preparation Dance was held in the centre of the plaza about a blazing fire and the spiral-striped war pole, which I learned from Muqbey was seen as a connection between the sacred fire about which they were dancing and the Sun, their prime deity. Again the warriors demonstrated their prowess in fighting, and again they were given the White Drink after which Muqbey and I retired to pray for their success, Muqbey to his god, and unbeknownst to him, me to mine. The next morning, much to my surprise and consternation, I discovered that they were expecting me to join them.

We travelled by canoa, everyone silent and solemn, nearing the enemy that night. Several of the young men had travelled ahead of us and declared war on the village by sticking near the enemy's camp a number of arrows into the ground, feathers up with locks of human hair dangling from the ends. That night as Muqbey chanted and prayed for the success of the tribe, I silently offered my own prayers to my own God for my safety and beseeched Him to get me out of this predicament. I asked His forgiveness for my unrighteous behavior though considering the severity of the sin I had engaged in two nights earlier I held out little hope of succor, and indeed, fully expected on the morrow I would be punished severely for my wicked ways, likely even killed. My God is a vengeful god, as I was reminded every Sunday in church.

At daybreak the next morning with great whooping and fierce cries, we swarmed the village, relying on the element of surprise and fear instilled by our sudden noise, which I was to discover was the general practice of all of these peoples. The two chiefs leading their warriors were armed with clubs, spears, and bows. When we engaged the warriors from the enemy village, the two chiefs placed themselves in the center of the combatants, as did Muqbey and as a result myself. Both sides fought valiantly and impetuously, and the next candle mark was a blur of slashing, plunging and twirling bodies. My sword was an unfamiliar weapon and my method of fighting nothing like they had ever seen before, both to my advantage, and I found myself clearing a path through the enemy with warriors rallying behind and beside me, encouraged by the seemingly undefeatable swipes of my sword, the blade running red with blood before the battle was over.

It seemed to go on forever and my arm grew tired with such unaccustomed use. The stench of blood and death was sickening, but fear and self-survival sustained me and drove me on, blood running down my sword handle and my right arm, my body splattered with the hot blood of my enemy. At last the remaining warriors fled into the marsh surrounding the village with our warriors in hot pursuit, I myself having enough and standing there among the slain and the dying as I gasped for breath. Our warriors put to death all men captured, cut off their arms above the elbow and their legs above the knee, took their scalps, and ran an arrow up their anus, leaving them in this condition on the battlefield.

We returned to our village in great cheer, myself being sickened by the slaughter and butchering I had seen that was even worse than the barbaric slaughter I had witnessed while traveling with the Tamurid Prince Abbas. While the others rowed, I sat there in a stunned stupor, wondering what it was in the human breast that made men such savage beasts, we, the creatures of God who would be angels. My silence and stunned trance they assumed was because I was in communion with the gods and the spirits of the dead and they avoided me in awe. I did not correct their misinterpretation. The scalps of the slain were smoked over a fire to cure them while praises were sung to the sun and to me for the victory that had been obtained. The scalps and those cutoff limbs which had been brought back to the village were then stuck on poles which they connected with garlands around the edge of the plaza as a warning to anyone foolish enough to consider attacking us, and during the Scalp Dance, which lasted three days and nights, even the oldest of their women were compelled in their excitement to join hands and whoop with joy in the maddening dance celebrating our success. Throughout the three days braves would break away from the dancing out of exhaustion and retire to their lodges to sleep, others would collapse along the edge of the plaza in a drunken stupor and lay there oblivious to the others about them, and others would break away to retire to their lodges with their women to engage in obvious and unabashed orgies to be witnessed by their children who would slip away into the jungle to imitate their elders.

The two chiefs and Muqbey were praised for their bravery and their leadership, and I, seen as the reason for their great success, received the greatest praise of all. Being only sixteen and having been their Healer-Priest for just over a month, or a moon as these people measure time, Muqbey was ecstatic with their success and filled with pride with the lavish praise of the warriors, and he credited the esteem with which he was held to my appearance. If the claims of his vision regarding my arrival had been invented, he was now convinced of their reality, and if by some off chance they had occurred, their portent was confirmed by the blood of their enemies. I was most uncomfortable with my role as their Spirit Messenger, but they all appeared to believe I was such and treated me accordingly. For those who were doubtful, and there had to be some, they dare not speak their disbelief in the face of such support. For me to deny the claim would be futile and could only be detrimental to me in the long run. Ironically, as I sat there and listened to their praise, their reverence reminded me of the fanatic Girolamo Savonarola and the frenzy of his followers whom I had encountered in Florence, and I understood finally here in this savage land how a single man could incite a mob to action as he had. (2)

I was presented many gifts, polished stone necklaces, fine leggings, decorative moccasins and loincloths, stone knives and tomahawks, and the choicest cuts of meats and the most succulent fruits. I was also presented the choicest of boys, a youngster by the name of Tekimme, a gorgeous lad with long, silky hair and beautiful eyes and lips, and the most exquisite olive-brown complexion, a boy of six winters, the youngest son of one of the most esteemed elders of the tribe. To refuse any of these gifts would have been an insult and would have caused suspicions of the donor's worth, and great embarrassment to him and his family. As for the boy Tekimme, how could I resist such a gift?

Like Tonochi, he approached me with great fear and apprehension given my supposed spiritual nature, and like Tonochi, he had a great desire to bring me pleasure and a natural disposition to view congress between those of the same gender in a positive light. Unlike Tonochi, he was totally innocent and completely inexperienced. That was a surprise for as I have mentioned among these people great men are honored by being provided skilled and equally important partners, but I soon discovered that this child's innocence made him a far greater gift than the most skilled of partners and I suspect now that the boy's family and those who had to have had a hand in arranging for this particular gift were well aware of that fact.

We began with Tonochi explaining to Tekimme, who sat there wide-eyed with trepidation and intense concentration in his desire to do well, and demonstrating for him how a boy can pleasure himself, and how two boys can pleasure each other with their hands. Watching these two young, naked boys, six and seven years of age, fondling each other's privates had Muqbey and myself aroused quickly. Seeing this, Tonochi turned his attention to Muqbey and Tekimme turned to me to put his new knowledge to practice. The boy's concentration as he stroked my stiff cock, and the obvious pleasure and amazement at the pleasure he was feeling between his legs as I stroked his tiny, erect cocklet was so arousing I had to have him pause frequently to prolong my pleasure or I would have spent my seed within a dozen strokes. Watching Tonochi and Muqbey masturbating each other added to my arousal and I am sure knowing the pleasure they were feeling was the same as he was feeling added to Tekimme's pleasure also.

As he began to fidget uncontrollably, I knew he was approaching his orgasm, the very first in his young life, and as the first waves of his climax struck him his eyes widened with awe and surprise and I thought back tenderly to my first experience, interestingly at the hands of another six-year-old boy, a nigger boy in the jungles of the Kongo. Heartbeats later I began to squirt my seed, and though he had witnessed his father and mother in congress and knew his member was more than a hose with which to urinate, it was the first time he had seen a man spill his seed on the ground and the look on his face as he watched my seed spurting out the tip of my swollen, throbbing cock was one of curiosity and amazement, as was the look on his face as my slime oozed down over his hot, slender fingers still grasping my stiff member. Muqbey came seconds later and we watched as Tonochi milked out his seed.

Tonochi proceeded to explain to the younger boy how two males can pleasure each other using their mouths, and then demonstrated, first performing the act on Tekimme, and then having the six-year-old boy perform the act on him, and then the two performing on each other. Watching the two boys eagerly licking and sucking each other's stiff little member and tiny, hairless stones had Muqbey and I growing stiff once again, and knowing it was the first time Tekimme was tasting cock and having his own sucked caused my member to wag with arousal. Muqbey of course noticed and smiled knowingly, causing me to become even more aroused. As the two naked, young boys began to spasm and groan with their orgasms once again, Muqbey and I were ready for the boys to practice their skills on us.

Now I know in my travels though the lands of the Saracens and the Mongols that most men who prefer boys over girls prefer being the passive partner in this act, but I found sucking the silky-smooth little cocklet of a boy child and bringing him to that ultimate peak of satisfaction just as rewarding as having him do the same to me. I do not know if Muqbey felt the same way, or if this is something that changes as we grow older, but he copied me this night and eagerly sucked on the little dicklet of his young partner. Having my member licked and sucked by this naked, olive-brown cupid was delightful and I paused frequently just to watch him performing the act, his eyes again focused in concentration as he took in all the sensations of performing this act, the smell and taste of my cock and the feel of it in his mouth, and the feeling of my mouth tugging on his stiff, throbbing member. His stiff little cocklet jutting out from his smooth pubes was demanding of my attention, and as delightful as it was watching this six-year-old virgin boy sucking a man's cock for the first time in his life, I tore my eyes away to tend to it, and knowing that the pleasure he was feeling as I sucked on his little cock and slipped my lips up and down the shaft and over his bulb was a pleasure unknown to him prior to this night added to my arousal. I was soon leaking that sweet clear nectar that precedes one's seed and Tekimme savored that delicate offering for the first time in his young life and found my offering to his liking.

I managed to hold back until the boy again began to squirm and pump his hips, driving his little cocklet in and out of my mouth as he experienced his orgasm once again. Unable to hold back any longer, I warned him and relaxed, allowing the pressure to continue building until once again my seed raced up the core of my cock and spurted out of the burning tip, this time in the six-year-old's mouth. Again I came copiously and rapidly, as if I had not released my seed for months, and the boy could not keep up. My slime filled his mouth and oozed out from the corners of his lips and down and around his chin as he swallowed the thick slime as quickly as he could. Again, seconds later Tonochi began gulping and drinking Muqbey's tart slime thirstily and Muqbey tossed his head back and sighed with pleasure.

After a brief respite, Tonochi once again took on the role of teacher and explained still another source of pleasure between two males. He lubricated the six-year-old boy's anus and rectum with grease provided by Muqbey, the fat from a plump bird we had for our supper, smearing it with the tip of his pointer finger, which he slowly and carefully eased into the boy's rectum as far as he could much to the boy's surprise and joy. Greasing up his own little cocklet, he then had his student lay on his back and raise his hips and he knelt behind him and expertly inserted his little cocklet up his rectum. Watching these two lithe, prepubescent boys fucking caused my member to begin to swell once more, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Muqbey was similarly affected.

They had both undoubtedly watched their parents engaged in congress, and other than that this hole was in a slightly different location and of a different function, what they were doing was similar, and certainly brought the one fucking the same pleasure. Having limited experience in congress with the opposite sex myself and having no idea how a woman felt I could not be sure if the woman found pleasure in the act, and according to Father Francisco a moral and decent woman did not. That was another advantage of congress between two members of the same gender. I knew it brought pleasure to both having been both the one being penetrated and the one doing the penetrating, and to me engaging in something that brought both mutual pleasure had to be far better than doing something that brought pleasure to only one.

Watching two boys of such a young age engaging in what was considered taboo and the prerogative of adults was particularly arousing, but then these peoples age much faster than back home, boys of ten being considered old enough to hunt on their own and girls of thirteen to be of age to marry. It was obviously not Tonochi's first time as a bugger and as he thrust his little cocklet in and out of the younger boy with obvious delight and anticipation I wondered when he had first performed this act and with whom he had done it being he was only seven summers old. This was Tekimme's first experience and from his deep sighs and the expression on his face he was obviously enjoying it. It was not long before both boys were quivering and gasping with an orgasm once again.

Although eager to take our turns, Muqbey and I allowed the boys to recover, which I knew would make their time with us more enjoyable. As difficult as it was for us to wait, it also gave us time for our passions to cool. If I had not, I must admit, much to my shame, that I would have spent my seed heartbeats after having penetrated one of the boys I was so aroused. Finally, after generously lubricating our members and their openings with fat considering the tightness of their holes and the size of our members, we penetrated the two boys, Tekimme automatically moving over to me and Tonochi over to Muqbey, making the pairing for us. Tekimme clenched his teeth and tensed but endured the pain, eager to prove himself a man and fearful of not pleasing the Spirit Messenger, and I tried to be as gentle as I could. I paused after my initial penetration to allow him to recover, recalling my own penetration at the age of fourteen and five months by the Berber cutpurse Ahmar which was only two and a half years ago but seemed like a decade and another life now, and then I eased my cock in and out of his hole slowly, knowing that in time pleasure would overcome the pain he was feeling.

I was not the first to penetrate him but I would be the first to deposit my seed in his body, and that knowledge I confess heightened my arousal I had become so hedonistic. Having spent my seed twice already, it took longer for me to reach that point a third time, which prolonged my pleasure and his much to my selfish gratification, and by the time I was filling his rectum with my hot, thick seed he was trembling with still another orgasm while Muqbey and Tonochi were doing likewise. The four of us collapsed in a tangle of naked, sweating limbs, gasping for breath and flushed with the pleasures of the flesh like perverted denizens of Gehenna which I was surely destined to become, but such was my lust I did not care. We sucked in the richly scented air as if our spent seed was the most delightful fragrance known to man, and for me, it was. Sinner that I was, I slept soundly that night in the arms of a naked six-year-old boy child. The villagers believing they were invincible and that they were so because of me were eager to engage in a third attack, this time on a tribe to the north despite my protests and insistence that I was on a vision quest and had to continue on my way. I may be a Spirit Messenger and they treaded carefully in fear and awe of me, but they were a greedy and ambitious people filled with pride and with the glory of success and would have their way regardless of my protests. To defy the wishes of a god was addle-headed and stiff-necked to me, but who was I to condemn when the previous night I dared to commit the most grievous of trespasses against my own God? So we rested for three days and prepared for war again on the night of the third day.

The tribe we were planning on attacking was another day's march, and with my heart in my throat once again and with even greater reluctance, I again accompanied them. Again we were successful, the men of our tribe even bolder and more vicious and the battle even more bloody, and this time we brought back three young women who were claimed and raped by their husbands-to-be the night of our return, and three wide-eyed and fearful boys of four or five years of age who would become slaves and eventually adopted as members of the tribe, and who would loyally follow their adoptive tribe to war and perhaps capture their own boys to act as their slaves, perhaps even boys from their very own former tribe. The perversity of mankind and the atrocities we commit on each other never fail to amaze and baffle me, and it seems the more I travel across this world the more bewildering it is.

We celebrated the night of our return and for the next two days with feasting, dancing and orgies at all times of the day, again with great praise for myself and with each day that passed my resolve to leave this tribe doubled. Thankfully their blood lust was sated, or perhaps they had no more enemies conveniently near, or, most likely, the chief and his brother saw the admiration and worship in the eyes of their braves and feared that I or their young Medicine Man who had forecast my coming and was my constant companion might become more powerful than they. I have seen enough of the world to know the minds and the fears of men in power.

The chiefs and subchiefs of these peoples are chosen by the members of the tribe according to their merit and theirs is not an inherited position, a most strange and unstable practice in mine eyes, though often being the son of a chief gave one the necessary advantage of leadership by having better training and a family reputation to uphold to sway the votes in their favor, not unlike the sons of mayors and high officials often succeeding their fathers back home. These chiefs, I discovered, are actually the head of a council where all members are equal with decisions made by consensus, their power being by influence rather than command, again, to me a most cumbersome and unreliable way to govern rather than having decisions made by one's king. To deny that there exists different classes of men and that some men are superior to others and some born to rule is foolhardy, but then, we must remember that these are a primitive and uncivilized peoples.

Whatever the reason for their decision, much to my relief I was at last allowed to leave. Many gifts of their finest possessions were brought to me in gratitude for my past blessings of safety and success in battle and in the hope that my blessing would continue after I had gone, and because I was a spirit and one did not anger a spirit. Muqbey himself presented me with what he called a medicine bundle, a collection of his most sacred and magical possessions in appreciation for having favored him with my presence, and having shared with him my power and knowledge. So great was his belief that I could not confess to him I was no Spirit Messenger, and in reality, so great was his belief that I very well likely had influenced his life. He was certainly a more confident and a more powerful Healer-Priest than before I arrived as a result of the tribe's success and prosperity, and the tribe's success and prosperity was to a large extent due to me. Two canoa of worshipful warriors and one carrying the chief and his loyal followers accompanied me on a two-day travel along the Much Winding River that marked the boundary of this tribe to a tribe to their north, which was lead by an uncle of the chief. (3)

News of his nephew's triumphs and my presence had preceded us and our group was met by the Uncle, the war chief, and their Medicine Man, all surprisingly old men in comparison to the Ocale. Despite their age, their bodies were well proportioned and they were of tall stature and without any apparent deformities other than scars from old wounds I assume obtained in the hunt or in battle. Many, both men and women, were nude or wore the briefest of skins wrapped about their loins and they all had long fingernails. The majority of the men tattooed their brown-olive skin in very artistic designs, especially their arms and thighs, and the chiefs were tattooed over their whole body, an indication of their high status. Like the others I have met, the men trussed up their long black hair in a bunch resting on the back of their head while the women wore their hair long, reaching down to their hips. In that regard I was the exception, wearing my hair long and loose like Muqbey who had insisted on festooning my forelocks with colorful clay beads and bits of white and blue crystal

We were met with great pomp and celebration, and I noticed, a great display of arms and power. I was immediately reminded of the journey of Prince Abbas to his relatives both as a display of his power and that of his father, and to spy out the intentions of his kin and their covetousness of his and his father's lands, and the unease that tour had caused among his brethren, and I suspected immediately that Uncle was fearful of a takeover by his nephew and had come ready to defend himself and with a show of force to dissuade his nephew of attempting anything foolish. These peoples of the Indies might be simple and primitive, but they are not unlike any civilized population and know the value of developing friendships and allegiances through blood relations and marriages and through trade agreements, and also know the fragility of any alliance when it comes to an individual's greed and conceit and the power of fear.

The nephew was sincere in his intentions however, coming in friendship and kinship, and after traveling for another day to their village where we were welcomed with the Black Drink Ceremony and the smoking of the pipe, he was honored by a night with one of his uncle's wives. Although by now I was familiar with their strange customs, I could not imagine spending the night with one of my aunts, nor my father's brothers nor my mother's brothers offering me their wives, and the mere thought of congress with any of my elderly aunts turned my stomach and caused my member to wilt. I myself was shown to a lodge reserved all to myself and was welcomed by a young boy who said he had seen six winters. Whether I was so welcomed by a boy rather than a member of the opposite sex because Nephew had advised them, if my reputation had preceded me, or if it was their belief that such was the desire of those from the spirit world I do not know and did not inquire.

The boy chosen can only be described as one of great beauty. I could not help thinking of him as the native equivalent of the naked cherubs depicted in paintings and sculptures in Florence and Rome, a cherub with straight black hair instead of tight curls, and of a reddish-brown skin rather than pink, and perhaps not so plump. He did have the same wide, innocent eyes and sensuous lips and look of trust. Despite his innocent look and his young age, he was one of experience as seen in the look in his eyes and in his actions. He approached me, hesitantly, and untied and removed my loincloth, and he massaged and caressed my sore muscles with the tenderness and skill of one four times his age. As we lay on the sleeping mat and his tiny, hot fingers squeezed and palpitated my muscles, I was surprised how tense I had been. Having the naked, hot body of a six-year-old boy pressing against me as he ran his fingers over my body quickly raised my passion.

He was hesitant at first, apprehensive being in the presence of someone rumored to be so great, but with the sight of my swelling cock he became more confident, and the more my cock swelled the more confident he became. Snuggling down he took my cock in his mouth and began to suck, and the sight of that beautiful boy with his lips wrapped about my still swelling cock and his cheeks sunk in, and the feel of the tug of suction on my cock caused my member to swell all the faster. As he sucked, I reached over and fiddled with his limp, little cocklet, and it quickly responded to my touch and began to swell. Both aroused, he picked up the gourd he had brought and poured out a little oil and smeared it over my now rigid cock and wiped his fingers along the cleft of his ass, further evidence of his experience. He then lay on his back and raised his hips and looked up at me with eagerness, though not without a little apprehension. I knelt above him and placing the tip of my stiff cock against his anus, I slowly pushed forward and ever so slowly my knob stretched open his anal muscle until it popped inside.

I slowly pushed forward, sinking my cock up his tight little rectum until his little balls were nestled in my coarse hairs like two little reddish-brown eggs. As I began to ease my cock in and out of his tender body he clenched his anus closed with each withdrawal and tightened the muscle each time I sunk my stiff cock back up his ass, further evidence of the boy's experience. It was delightful feeling my throbbing cock surrounded by his hot, moist, throbbing flesh, and it was even more delightful seeing the faraway look of lust and pleasure in his eyes as I fucked him. He inhaled deeply each time I sank my cock up his rectum and a slight smile curled his lips. I told him he could stroke his little stiff member and he reached down and did so immediately and with evident pleasure, causing my lust to rise still further.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pleasure throbbing through my swollen flesh and the burning along the rim of my bulb and the developing pressure in my loins, and I looked down at his face and at the look of pleasure in his own eyes. Inhaling deeply, I plunged my cock up that tight, moist ass and I shivered with delight as my seed raced up the core of my swollen cock and into the youngster's rectum. He quivered as my hot seed filled his rectum and as the thrill of his own orgasm caused his swollen little member to burn though being in the presence of a Spirit Messenger who lead men to ferocious battle, and some to their death, was not something he could forget, not even in the throes of orgasm.

The next morning my escort returned down the Much Winding River and the chief and war chief informed me of their desire that I lead them against a longtime enemy who had recently conducted a raid on them and whom they had been unable to defeat despite many battles between them. So the night of the following day, which by strange and ominous coincidence or by the mysterious design of Our Lord God of Heaven was the day of my seventeenth birthday, we prepared to go to war, following the custom of the Ocale, and the next morning we headed out. It was only a day and a half to the village of their enemy so we traveled slowly so we arrived at the edge of the village at dusk. Like the Ocale, warriors advanced and warned the village of their eminent death by plunging arrows into the trails leading to the village. Like every other time, I did not sleep that night, and nor did my companions. They had great faith in their gods and in the presence of the strange-looking Spirit Messenger in their midst and their wakefulness was the result of excitement and joyful anticipation of a successful raid and great honor against a tribe they had battled for a long time. Considering my sinful behavior, I had no such faith in divine protection and my wakefulness was in anticipation of a vengeful and violent death.

The next morning we caught the village by surprise, and combined with my appearance and my sword the enemy was defeated in short order and all who were unable to flee were massacred. We began our return to our village that afternoon, gloriously splattered with the blood of our enemies, and arrived in early evening of the following day, the elderly, the women, and the children left behind giving us a raucous welcome. That night the boy who had welcomed me to the village welcomed me home most eagerly, honored to be the one to welcome back and celebrate the success of the Great White Spirit Messenger, as I was now being called, his pride overcoming his previous awe and fear. Relieved to be alive, I plunged my member up his rectum with the same insane lust that I had driven my sword in the chests of young warriors I did not know, and I filled his rectum with my hot seed, baptizing him with my seed as I had been baptized by the hot blood of men I had killed.

Being a powerful tribe and having no other major enemies, and I suspect the elderly chief and war chief having little desire for warfare, following their traditional three-day celebration of their victory their chief arranged for me to be conducted to a tribe two day's travel to the north along the Much Winding River with whom they traded and had a nonaggression agreement, a tribe which to my surprise was lead by a woman. Again I was welcomed in the traditional manner and that night a young boy was provided for my pleasure, my reputation preceding me. Thankfully having no need for my divine service, the next morning I continued on my way with an escort through their territory. At first I thought they, like the Taino, were not a warlike people and that was because they were being lead by a woman, but in the course of conversation with my escort that next day that notion was quickly dispelled. I learned the tribe over which she was a ruler actually had many battles in the past under her leadership, and having proven their prowess in battle, now existed peacefully with their neighbors, mostly out of fear and partly due to trade agreements having been arranged.

A woman, I learned, became a cacique through her mother's brother if he dies without a male heir. That came as a great surprise and I know would be considered absurd back in Portugal where a woman is not expected to lead except by her husband's side. Even in the Spains, Queen Isabella rules not alone but in conjunction with Ferdinand. A woman does not have the strength, courage nor wit required to lead as does a man as even a schoolboy knows, but as I have said repeatedly, these are not a civilized peoples nor one of great intelligence or imagination. Even more disturbing, I discovered that just as having multiple wives is frequently practiced by their chiefs and elders, women chiefs often had multiple husbands. The sacrilegious and obtuse behavior of these peoples is utterly bewildering, and I suspect before I take leave of these Indies I will be confronted by even more atrocities by these savages though I cannot imagine anything worse than what I have experienced.

I was told the next village was two days travel and was lead by a subchief or Prince who paid a tribute of surplus food or cassina leaves to a more powerful Great Chief or Head Chief who reigned to the north. We traveled with much haste for the natives were fearful of the weather, and shortly after our arrival we were hit by a downpour of rain and severe winds the likes of which I have never seen, the wind ripping up and knocking down huge trees, some the width of two men, and the rain flooding the lower areas, turning them into waist-deep lakes. The storm lasted throughout the night and all the next day and night and all we could do was huddle and pray our shelter did not blow down.

It was most fearsome being in the center of such a storm even with shelter and I had cause to wonder if I was not witnessing the commencement of another flood as Our Creator had caused in the time of Noah in anger over the behavior of these peoples of the Indies, but the villagers appeared to have no concern as if the weather was nothing unusual, and upon inquiring I was told that indeed it was typical weather and that we were entering that season where such storms were common. Even more to my amazement, I was told that this storm was considered mild compared to others that rip through the area. They had a special name for the storm, huraca'n, which they said was caused by a god they called Juracán, who actually left the work up to the goddess Guabancex and her two male assistants, the god Guatabá who created the thunder and lightning and the god Coatrisqule who brought the floods. (4)

Unable to proceed in my journey, I took advantage of my confinement to find out more about the area and these peoples, and being confined and unable to do anything also, they were eager to sit and talk. I learned that these people and all the tribes in the area and the areas I have journeyed through stay in these small villages of wattle and daub thatched huts, which they sometimes surround with a palisade if there are enemies nearby. Here the mother and father, their parents and their children, and often their aunts and uncles, all live during spring and summer where they are near plentiful game and where they grow a variety of vegetables, a bean similar to what we grow in Portugal and many vegetables which I have never heard of before and certainly have never tasted, some which they dry and cook in stews and others that they grind into flour to make a flatbread, and of course the plant they call tapaco whose leaves they dry and smoke during their many ceremonies.

They hunt water-dwellers such as the el lagarto, which I have described, sea cows, and small whales, and animals such as rabbit and deer and birds similar to those found back home and with which I am familiar. They cook their meat over an open fire which they call a barbacola, the smoke from the wood giving the food a distinctive and not unpleasant flavor. (5) Meat not immediately consumed is either dried or smoked to keep it from going bad. In the fall and winter they disperse into smaller groups who trade for their food and other necessities and follow the animals to their winter feeding grounds.

I asked them to tell me about the spirits they worship, perhaps a strange question for one from the spirit world to ask but which they took as a test of their faith and their worthiness and so were eager to tell me, and to assure me of their devoutness. They believe the Sun and the Moon are deities which live in the sky and are chief among the gods, and that other deities take the form of the animals around them, beliefs which they claimed to be held by all peoples they are aware of. I found such concepts most strange and it was only because it would be my undoing that I refrained from enlightening them of the only one and true faith. They have many tales regarding these animal gods and their exploits interacting with each other and with mankind.

They engage in a large number of ceremonies and festivals including those held for planting their crops, each crop being represented by its own deity, and later for their harvest, ceremonies for marriages and funerals just as we do, ceremonies for preparing for war and celebrating afterwards which I have already described, others for fishing and hunting expeditions, the building of weirs, and almost every aspect of their lives that one can imagine. Every ceremony has its own special rite, but all involve either fasting or feasting, praying, singing and dancing, all of which they are most fond of. I learned that certain holy acts, those involving supernatural power such as a sacrifice or a prayer, produce what they call a kapemni, which they describe as a person's or an object's holiness expressed as an invisible field of supernatural potency or rays, the more supernaturally powerful the person or object the stronger the kapemni, as occurs in their medicine men or healer-priests, and which I was told they could feel was particularly strong about me. It sounded like an aura which I have heard priests talk about and which I recall Pope Innocent saying he could feel about the Lance of Longinus, but which no priest had ever said he sensed about me. The grotesque "trophies" that they took during their wars they believe are the surviving physical attachments to which the souls of the slain warriors remain fixed, the arm, scalp, and leg for example representing power, spirit, and motion respectively.

When not occupied hunting and collecting or engaging in battles, the Thimogona, I was told, play games. One is a version of the game they called tcchung-kee. In this game a concave shaped disc is rolled and a spear is thrown at it, the point being to throw the spear to the point where they think the disc will stop. Another of the pastimes of their young men is the throwing of balls against a square mat made of bulrush reeds hanging from a pole eight to nine fathoms high. The one who succeeds in making the mat come down is the winner. Foot races are also common. All of their games help perfect those skills they need in hunting and in battle.

During times such as waiting out storms, the women mend what little clothing these people wear or sew together new ones. I also learned that when they became pregnant, the women kept away from their husbands, and during the time when they are unclean they are careful to eat certain plants and animals only. I was told that they drink blood to make their suckling children stronger and healthier, which I believe as it is very much in keeping with the savage nature of these peoples. Their chiefs have one primary wife, whose children alone inherit, and usually one or two concubines. During my confinement I also solved one of the many mysteries about these people. I have mentioned earlier that young maidens selected to have congress with important visitors smelled strongly of honey, and I at last found out why. If the woman does not wish to become heavy with child, she applies a bitter herb mixed with honey to her private parts, the herb preventing her from becoming pregnant and the honey masking the bitterness should the man engage with her orally prior to congress. The honey also serves as a lubricant, and since when one smells it he knows the woman is prepared to have sex, the fragrance of honey also helps to arouse the men.

The villagers of course were even more curious about my sword and about me than I was about them given my strange appearance, and much to my surprise word of my exploits to the south had reached them, greatly exaggerated I am afraid, and my efforts to provide them a more accurate account fell on deaf ears. They wanted to hear stories of bloodshed and glorious victory and I had little choice but to accommodate them for a man not to brag about his bravery and conquests could only be because he was cowardly and weak. The following morning the rain stopped and the storm began to abate but it was still too windy to venture out. Taking advantage of the disruption of the storm and my presence, the chief and war chief, both young, ambitious men and cousins, the sons of two sisters, decided it was an opportune time to strike a rival tribe to the southeast and so that night I found myself once again joining the young men in preparation for battle.

We headed out the next morning, travelling hard and with great difficulty across the waterlogged land, and that night scouts were sent ahead to plant their warning arrows. They returned shortly thereafter with the news that the village we had come to attack was empty, word of our approach and my presence having put everyone in the village to flight much to the anger and disappointment of the warriors but much to my relief. So the next morning we ransacked what little there was of the abandoned village and returned to our own, the men with much bravado and boasts that they were so feared by their enemies. In the celebration of their victory that night, I was bestowed a new name, One From Whom the Enemy Runs.

Being part of a larger tribe ruled by a Great Chief, there were trade agreements with most of the other villages in the area and so after a day's rest to recover from the previous night's celebrations, I was again on my way, leaving the Much Winding River which continued on to the north and striking west through swamp and crisscrossing waterways, my guide assuring me the great ocean sea that had blocked my way west now lay to the south. My escort traveled with me for two days to the boundary of a tribe they called the Abalahci, whom they said were fierce and skilled warriors and whom they took great efforts to avoid and not offend. I was delighted to be heading west at last, but filled with trepidation at this latest information. Given the bloodlust and savagery of the peoples I had encountered so far, these Abalahci could very well mean the end of my effort to make my way back home, if not the end of my life.

Author's notes:
1. Nico is incorrect in his assumption that sex between men was a common practice of Shamans or Healers, but it appears to have been common enough to be noted by Europeans making first contact with North American natives. According to French explorers and traders arriving from the North, the first to invade the area occupied by the Thimogona, pederasty was not unfrequent, and Rene Laudonniere in 1564 and others noted the occurrence of a significant number of "hermaphrodites", whom they reported as very strong in body and used as load carriers, especially on war expeditions. They also reported that the Indians showed a feeling of repugnance toward these individuals. These "hermaphrodites" were most likely men who dressed like women and took on their roles. The Spanish-born Franciscan missionary Francisco Pareja arrived in the area in 1595, just over a hundred years after the events in this story, and reported among the Thimogona both male and female homosexuality, boyish pederasty, males marrying males, and males who dressed and did the work of women, and a much greater acceptance of these practices than had been reported by the French.
2. See Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro, Book One, Chapter 7 Florence. The description of the warfare in this chapter is taken from various accounts by European explorers and later historians describing pre-Columbian warfare by the tribes of Southern USA.
3. The Sunwannee River.
4. These words actually come from the Taino. Speaking a similar dialect, the Thimogona words were likely similar. From huraca'n comes the English hurricane. Juracán was the God of Chaos.
5. Vegetables unique to southern USA and Mexico are maize, pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, and zamina root for flour. Barbacola is the origin of the word barbeque.

7. The Abalahci

Nico learns of sun worship with the warlike than Timucua living in the Florida panhandle and the importance and role of ball games and is believed to be the Lightening God as he is discovered in a fierce storm. He is shocked that brothers share their wives with each other and receives more hints about two-spirit individuals and their roles without understanding their part in native society. He continues developing his skill at healing.

Nicolau Ribeiro (16yo); Hawk Eye, bisexual athlete and hunter (18yo); Many Bears (15yo)
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After spending a sleepless night on the banks of a great swamp with the unease of my escort, said to be members of the most ferocious and warlike peoples in the area, making me even more worried, we parted ways, me continuing west into the swamp alone in my canoa and my escort making a speedy retreat east. The skies were grey and as the day progressed grew darker with the threat of an approaching storm, and memories of the violet storm I had experienced only a week ago caused me to grow even more anxious. I had the feeling that I was being watched and followed, and having now spent by my reckoning close to four and a half months among these primitive savages and living like one of them, I had great faith in my senses. However, try as best I could I could find no evidence that I was not the only human in the vicinity and I found myself doubting my senses and wondering if it was not just imagination and fears of the threatening storm and of the tales I had heard about the inhabitants of these parts.

I found a dry rise with a thicket of trees the end of the day and settled in for the night under the huge branches draped with a grey-green, hairlike growth for protection. My fear of these as of yet unseen natives and the impending storm and the unfamiliar noises of the denizens of the night kept me awake despite my weariness until I finally drifted off into a fitful sleep out of sheer exhaustion. I seemed to have barely fallen asleep when the storm finally hit, not with the ferocity of the previous storm but still with a ferocity unlike anything I have ever seen in my homeland. My canopy of boughs was thick thankfully and protected me from the downpour, and I was exhausted, and despite the wind and the rain soon drifted off to sleep again.

I was not destined to sleep the rest of the night away however as a short time later I awoke to a particularly loud clash of thunder and in the flare of lightning I found myself looking up at six equally-surprised strangers, all young, muscular, and clad only in deerskin loincloths and carrying spears at the ready, their almost naked bodies streaked with rain, their hair in disarray and plastered to their faces. They overcame their surprise first and quickly conferred with each other, and then their leader or at least the one appointed to speak for them addressed me. Although they spoke a slightly different dialect there was enough similarity in their language, and in their gestures, that I understood I was their captive, though I had the impression reluctantly as one who was also both revered and feared. They looked no different from the Thimogona in physical appearance and dress from what I could discern but I assumed these were the much feared Abalahci. (1)

There was another flash of lightening, this one directly overhead and followed instantly by a clap of thunder, causing my captors to leap in fear and raise their spears in defence, which in spite of the circumstances caused me to smile at such ignorance. Their little weapons were powerless before the might of nature's storm. As the rain pelted down with even greater ferocity we were forced to remain there in the copse of strange, grey-barked trees unlike any trees I am familiar with back home, the rain pelting down so hard it stung as if one was bitten by an insect when the droplets penetrated the boughs and hit one's body. Lightning continued to flash about us, illuminating the swamp for a heartbeat and each time causing the warriors surrounding me to jump nervously and eye me suspiciously as if I had something to do with it! The storm ended as abruptly as it had begun shortly before dawn and motioning that I was to come with them once the sun began to rise we headed on our way, the sky remaining a leaden grey. We arrived at their village at noon and from its appearance it had been badly hit by the storm also. It looked otherwise very much like other villages I have seen except it was exceedingly large and beside it was a large field of the plant they call maize, which seems to be the main staple in this area, now flooded with water. The villagers all turned out to watch our procession to the centre of the village, which was a large plaza surrounded by homes raised on mounds rising out of the swamp like any other village I have seen.

Word of our approach had evidently been sent ahead for we had no sooner entered the plaza than a group of men appeared at the top of the highest mound and began to make their way down the spiral ramp to meet us at the bottom. By this time I had learned from demeanor and slight differences in the ornamentation in hair and from paraphernalia each carried to identify and distinguish between the three significant leaders of the community, the chief, war chief and healer-priest. In this case the chief and war chief looked to be in their very early twenties and were strikingly alike in physical appearance suggesting there was a family relationship and it was confirmed later that they were brothers, the chief only a season older. The Medicine Man, which was what many called their healer-priest, was twice their age, wrinkled and with grey-streaked hair. They were accompanied by several others, whom I guessed from past experience were the elders and leaders of the various clans. They all wore their hair piled on the top of their head and held in place with feathers or sharpened sticks.

From the bits of conversation I was able to recognize, I gathered that my captors were a hunting party which despite the abundance of game in the past had been unsuccessful and so had been gone longer than they had expected. On the way back their canoa had run into a submerged log, a rare experience for skilled hunters, and had to be repaired, resulting in them being caught in the storm before being able to reach their village. Coming upon me in the height of the storm was just as surprising and frightening for them as it had been for me. The chief and elders conferred in low voices with many glances at me until the Medicine Man beckoned for me to come forward. I did so with deference but not timidly as I had noted in these lands they expected strangers to show respect and submission to their leaders but had low regard for the cowardly and the weak.

The one I suspected to be their Medicine Man due to the owl feathers in his hair and the bundle he carried asked me why I was in their land. I responded that I was on a vision quest, having come a great distance in the direction from where the sun rose across the great ocean sea and having a great distance yet to travel in the direction where the sun set, to a land with tall stone temples floating on a lake and upon which men dressed in bright feathers cut out the hearts of men and offered them to the gods. It was a more lengthy reply than I am sure he had expected and more than I would normally give, but I sensed that my life depended on being able to impress these warriors.

They apparently had not heard of such a land nor of a people who did such things but were much impressed by the description of such ferocious men, and by my courage that I would travel to the land where such men lived, as I had hoped they would be. In addition, other peoples I have encountered throughout these Indies have held a man on a vision quest with great esteem and as I had suspected these peoples were no different. I was asked my name, and I replied I was known as Baracutey, One Who Travels Alone, and also as One From Whom the Enemy Runs, names which appeared to impress them. They asked the name of my tribe, to which I replied I was Portuguese, and they repeated the name and glanced at each other but shook their heads. They asked where my people lived and I tried to explain again that I had come from a land far away across a great ocean sea, but they had no knowledge of such a large body of water and interpreted my comments as having come from the sky, which they had been predisposed to believe because of their legends and my appearance just as others that I have encountered in these lands have concluded, and I had to wonder if tales of my presence among the Thimogona had preceded me.

One of the elders, so old his voice creaked, stated his opinion that I was a god of lightening come in mortal form to help them, referring to my discovery in the storm, my supposed ability to call down the lightening when upset as related by my captors, and pointing to my beaded forelocks, which I learned was an ornamentation their god of lightning affected. This resulted in an animated discussion in which I discovered there was a game coming up for which this lightning god was the patron. Others were suspicious, and observed that perhaps I was a spy from the opposing village posing as the god of lightening so I could learn which were their strong players so their Medicine Man could place a curse on them. Others thought perhaps I was an evil spirit summoned by the Medicine Man of the opposing team and that I would put this evil spell on their players myself. There were other comments about how I wore my hair long and loose and I was asked if I was poranacu, a term I had heard while with the Ocale but which I did not understand. (2)

From the way the men glanced at each other and then at me whatever the word meant it referred to someone of some import for apprehension and deference was evident in their demeanor and in their eyes. Eager to embrace whatever impressed these savages if it meant my life, I was about to say yes but before I could respond their Medicine Man whispered something to the chief and the hunters were once again summoned and questioned in great detail about all that had happened to them, and of their discovery of me. The sudden lack of game when it had been so abundant was suspicious, as was the accident with their canoa for experienced and skilled hunters and warriors. Clearly, it was argued, this was interference by the gods, delaying the hunters so they would find me.

The Medicine Man studied me throughout this discussion, and then summoning a young man striking in his beauty and effeminate features he whispered something to him. The young man nodded and then approaching me, motioned for me to follow him. We went to one of the long houses which I recognized from its structure as the lodging for the unmarried young men. Taking me over to one of the sleeping mats, which I assumed was his, he dropped his loincloth and stood before me, displaying his attributes, which were most impressive. He was a young man, perhaps a year or two older than I, eighteen or nineteen winters, and like most of the young men in the lands I have travelled, of good stature, his arms and legs solid and muscular, his chest broad and chiselled, and his stomach flat. Like all men of these lands, his face and chest were smooth. He was very well-endowed, his member two fingers thick and as long as a hand is wide, and his stones were large and full, and like all men of these lands, a hood covered his bulb.

Although I have found these peoples to be lascivious and shamelessly unrestrained with regard to congress both between sexes and between members of the same gender, I was surprised at his overture, which was clearly the initiative of the Medicine Man, and that it was being made in the middle of my interrogation. Being that he was a good-looking youth, and that I had no cause to have reservations about having congress with him, and indeed having the feeling that doing so would further my relationship with this tribe, as absurd as that sounds for it would have just the opposite result back in Portugal, I slowly untied my loincloth and let it drop. The koçek of the Caucasian steppes, of whom this boy reminded me, were highly desired, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps they were making a gift of him to me. On the other hand, there was the possibility that the lightening god of these people was similar to the ghilman of the heathen Saracens who rewarded the faithful in heaven and they were expecting me to reward this youth for some deed he had done. Regardless, coming as suddenly as it had, and when it had, it obviously was a test. That was obvious. Which role I was to play and what it was that I was supposed to do was not. (3)

Stepping toward him with shaking knees and with my heart in my throat, I prayed fervently that the role I chose would be the correct one. I was prepared to take whichever position he desired of me, and not just in order to save my life for as I have said, he was a most attractive youth. Thinking back now, I realize how absurd that was, praying to God that I make the right choice regarding my congress with the boy, but I was desperate and honestly feared for my life and was not thinking straight. We embraced and as he reached down and began to caress my buttocks, causing my member to quickly begin to swell, I released my breath with relief. I would simply follow his lead and let him guide me to the choice expected of me.

He bent closer and whispered in my ear. "Tell me, if I penetrate your buttocks, will they rumble like the thunder?"

"They have been known to do so," I replied, assuming he was speaking in jest but honestly not certain given the earlier suggestion I was a god of lightening.

"And when you spurt your seed, does lightening flash across the sky?" he asked, reaching around and cupping my stones.

"So it would seem to some." I tried to recall some of the Persian poems describing male love between immortals, and between mortals and the gods, but my mind drew a blank.

It did not take long for me to become fully erect. He slipped a finger along the crack of my buttocks and when he reached my anus I readily opened for him. He pressed down and slipped the tip of his finger into my hole and I opened wider. He was obviously experienced at this, and hopefully he realized so was I. To my surprise he drew his hand away and stepped back. "Remain here," he said with a huskiness to his voice, and picking up his loincloth and tying it about his waist, he turned and left, ending our flirtation as suddenly as he had initiated it. I stood there in surprise, staring at the door through which he had exited. I waited for a while and then put my breechcloth back on. What had just happened? Had I done something wrong? As time progressed I began to worry more and more and retraced my steps since leaving alone with the boy.

Perhaps I had been expected to be the aggressor, or at least make the first move, being a god, and my passivity had revealed me as a false god. At that very moment they were likely debating what to do with me. From the savagery I had seen, I could think of several alternatives, and none of them pleasant. Perhaps these peoples, like most, held men who lay with men in contempt and the boy had been sent to test my preference. Repulsed by my reaction, he had gone back to report to the chiefs. The boy did not return, and the other males who joined me later pointedly treated me as if I did not exist, lending credence to my latter thought. I slept alone and poorly that night, recalling all that had happened and trying to figure out what I had done wrong to have cooled his ardour so suddenly and worrying that I had misinterpreted the attitude of these people regarding congress between males. I twisted and turned, worrying what was to happen to me on the morrow as a result of my failure and cursing myself for my presumption and my weakness for pleasures of the flesh.

I did not see the young man the following morning and I could detect no change in the attitude of the villagers toward me. I was, in fact, largely ignored. About midmorning, the Medicine Man approached me and I was taken to one of the elders who had taken sick several days earlier. He was complaining of a fever and severe stomach cramps and from his frail condition and rheumy eyes he looked like he was at death's door. Their healer-priest informed me that he had tried bleeding and had tried to bring down his temperature using herbs and cold water, all to no avail. He then looked at me and gestured toward the old man. I in turn looked at the old man and the healer-priest. Was he expecting me to cure the old man, or to take his life? Was either or both one of the roles of their lightening god, and was that why he had turned to me?

In my travels across the lands occupied by the Saracens and in my association with the healers of these lands, I have observed the symptoms of many diseases and have learned what treatment relieves the afflicted although I have no knowledge what causes their ailment. I have learned these things out of my own curiosity and for my own survival, and with an eye toward a future trade of medicines, the result of being raised by my father and Uncle. I had seen this particular affliction affect my grandmother one spring and to our dismay the doctor had been unable to cure her. Finally an elderly crone who lived alone in the hills, and who was rumoured to be a witch, told Father that Grandmother was too weak to drive out what affected her. Instead of trying to cool her down as the doctor had tried, she said to make her even hotter and to sweat, thereby driving out the demons from her body. It sounded suspicious, demons liking fire and all, but Father was desperate and did as she said, and miracle of miracles, she recovered and still lives.

So I wrapped him in a deer hide blanket and I boiled a fish along with a local plant similar to what we call garlic as the old crone had done for my grandmother and I fed him the broth, hoping the local fish and plant would have the same effect as those back home. I kept it up all day and all night, spoonfeeding him in that he was too weak to feed himself and keeping his fever up so the blanket was soaked in sweat. In the morning his fever had broken and his cramps were gone. There was much rejoicing over his recovery and I received much praise. I was merely relieved that my remedy had worked.

The man was a beloved elder and his recovery was seen as an omen of good fortune, adding to the excitement of the village as its members prepared for the big game which I learned was the next day. That evening, the men who were to participate in the game refrained from eating, and I learned would fast until the game was over. The villagers gathered in a secret place selected by the Medicine Man, ensuring that the priest from the opposing village could not sprinkle a potion that was made from the bones and flesh of a rabbit on the ground so as to make our players become timid and afraid. Once the sun had set, the players, wearing only breechcloths and carrying their game sticks, danced to the beat of a group of drummers about a sacred fire, the dance witnessed by all the men, women and children of the village while one of the men shaking a rattle danced around them, to, I believe, frighten away evil spirits.

The women, in full dress and with flowers in their hair, then formed a straight line and advanced toward the men and then retreated, tempting the men, and the men called on the spirits to help them resist the temptations of the women, and to grant them swiftness, quick-wittedness, elusiveness, and endurance. The women gathered about a flat rock upon which the Medicine Man had placed black beads representing the opposing team and sang of weakness and confusion, hoping to pass on their softness to the opponents. The women also sang to their men and promised them they would sleep together after the game and celebrate their victory, and the women, far from soft and sluggish as they had presented themselves to their opponents, danced suggestively, exposing their thighs and swaying and caressing their breasts, causing the men to become aroused, which was evident in that their narrow breechcloths concealed little, but the men resisted, showing their strength and determination. The women sang jokingly about the rival priest using wrong spells and the members of their opponents going limp and the villagers laughed.

The dancing continued all night until dawn, and as the sun began to rise, everyone in the village turned and called out, "Hu-u!", greeting the Great Sun, their chief god. The men purified themselves by splashing cold water from an adjacent stream on their bodies, and boughs from their sacred tree, a pine, were thrown on the sacred fire, and the smoke was wafted over the men believing the smoke from the boughs would hide them from the opposing players and protect them from the opposing priest's spells. The players, whom I accompanied, took a circuitous route to where they planned on playing ball as the opposing village might have planted magical traps along the established paths to weaken them. Four times we stopped for purification by water in case we were inadvertently fouled by hostile magic, and the healer-priest gave individual prayers and performed an individual rite for each player. The players were cautioned not to sit on a log or stone and to lean only on each other's backs rather than the trees least the rocks and trees be cursed by the opposing priest. The players checked their game sticks, adjusted their clothing and decorations, and talked about the upcoming contest while waiting for individual players to receive their rite.

The Medicine Man then spoke to everyone, saying all omens were favorable, and the team cheered at the good news. We then marched triumphantly and confidently to the cleared area where the priests had agreed the game would be played and where the villagers of both villages and villagers from other surrounding villages had also gathered to watch, and to wager on which side would win, and which player would win the most points. I was amazed at the number of men, women, and children that had gathered, and estimated them to be at least six hundred. The opposing players entered the clearing from the other side, all painted and decorated like our team and just as confident, lead by their Medicine Man who assuredly had done all that ours had.

The game being played was called tchung-kee by these people, the game I had watched the Thimogona youth play during my stay with them. Our teams lined up and the first player of each side stepped forward. A pair of bones was tossed and our opponents won the toss. Their player picked up a stone ring about the width of three fingers in diameter and the two players took off on a trot. The opponent rolled the stone in front of them and he and our player slid their tchung-kee, a highly polished stick slightly taller than a tall man with leather strips protruding from the sides. The trick was to determine where the ring would stop rolling so that when it fell it would fall on the player's tchung-kee and the leather strip would protrude through the ring.

Both teams were highly skilled, and the leading points switched from one team to the other back and forth. It soon became evident who was the leading player on both sides and where the greatest amount of betting was from the cheers and the groans from those watching. On our side was the young man who had approached me the night before and whose name I discovered was Hawk Eye. Our Medicine Man had our players crowd around me from the moment we entered the playing area until about half way through the contest when they moved away and my presence was discovered. I stood out with my long, loose hair, beaded forelocks, and light skin, darkened by this relentless sun but still much lighter than any of the others. Rumors of my discovery and identification as a lightening god, and a pornanacu who had healed one of their most honoured elders, spread through the crowd like lightening itself, with a similar effect.

The other side faltered but the players quickly recovered and began to gain again. I was then called upon to take my turn, and I knew the importance of a win for my own safety besides in the overall game. With much nervousness, I took my turn, the opponent having the advantage of tossing the ring. I fortunately was swift on my feet, and had a good eye-hand coordination and a keen judgement on speed and distance, honed from my experience as a sailor and from my training as a novice Mameluke soldier at the age of fourteen. We threw our sticks and my tchung-kee was the closest, much to the cheering of our side. In subsequent throws, our side had the advantage in morale and ended in winning by a wide margin.

That night the warriors returned home and were rewarded by their women. Our star player, Hawk Eye, was rewarded by an evening with me. Or perhaps it was the other way around: I was rewarded by an evening with him. He was, I learned, a single man of eighteen winters, a year older than myself and already considered old to still be single, skilled as an athlete and as a hunter and therefore highly respected by his companions and much sought after by the women of the village. I have already commented on his physical attributes. He was also I discovered understandably exceedingly prurient, being a virile, healthy youth and a highly attractive and desirable male but by custom forbidden congress with a member of the opposite sex until he married.

He was not forbidden congress with those of his own gender, except for the requirement for abstinence prior to war and to ball games, and in fact, he took great delight in such congress. He would have eagerly coupled with me the previous evening but had dared not weaken himself prior to the big ball game. He had been sent by the Medicine Man not just as a test to see if I was indeed a pornanacu, but also as a test of his resolve to abstain. There being no longer a need for abstinence, we wasted no time once we retired to the lodge for the single men. He practically tore off his breechclout and then mine and he embraced and kissed me passionately, pressing his hot lips against mine and his hands dropping down my back and grasping my backside. I just as eagerly returned the kiss, pressing my lips against his as I fondled his stones and member, which quickly responded to my caresses, as did mine to his.

He lubricated his growing cock with bear grease and I dipped my finger into the grease and lubricated my hole and I turned and dropping to my hands and knees presented myself to him. He eagerly shuffled up behind and mounted me there in the dark before the other young, single men. We were experienced and joined effortlessly and I sighed with delight as I felt his thick, hard cock slowly penetrate me until his rough, curly hairs were pressed against my buttocks and he had sunk his member up my rectum as far as it could reach. He paused there and I tightened my anal grip about his solid shaft and delighted in the sensation of having my rectum stuffed with a solid, throbbing cock, just as he paused to delight in the sensation of having his aching cock surrounded by throbbing ass flesh. Grasping my hips, he ever so slowly withdrew, drawing his cock back out of my ass until his knob was stretching open my anal ring, and then slowly sinking his spear back up my rectum. It was pitch-black but I knew that the other young men in the lodge were aware of what we were doing, which added to my arousal.

He fucked me slowly so as to enjoy the pleasure, but as is the case for any great pleasure, we could not resist increasing our tempo as our passions increased. Being fucked by this prime specimen of a man in the presence of over a dozen young men ranging in age from ten to their late teens raised my passion to an indescribable high and I openly and shamefully panted and gasped with my sordid pleasure and obscene lust, caring not who heard or what others felt as my body throbbed in unison with the cock buried deep up my body, and my own member burned and ached with the devil's lust. Grasping my hips tightly, he at last lunged forward and uttered a battle cry of triumph as he shot his hot seed deep up my rectum. So filled with pleasure was I that my own stones contracted and my seed spurted from my aching cock and sprayed the ground beneath me. The air was thick with the scent of lust and sweat and fresh seed and we sucked it deep into our lungs and our heads spun in ecstasy.

He mounted me four times that night, and each time was as pleasurable as the first and each time we came together. When I had met with King João just over nine months ago and agreed to serve as his eyes and ears on this mission, little had I known what lay ahead of me. I certainly had no idea I would be spending a night in the throes of ecstasy with a naked, red-skinned savage, a warrior-athlete a year older than myself, in a strange land of verdant growth and violent storms and violent heathens before a dozen boys and young men.

Encouraged by our win, the chief sent out young men to challenge the other villages, none of whom were eager to meet the challenge of a team who had a god in their midst but all were honor bound to accept. Four days later one of the villages agreed to a game of anetsa, a ball game whose name meant "little brother of war", again a game played by young men of great physical prowess and rigorous training. The accepting village sent a bundle of five sticks with our challenger. Each day one stick was discarded and when there was one remaining it meant we would meet the following morning. Since our earlier win we were on a strict program to prepare us for the next game, which everyone knew would occur in only a matter of time. We were not allowed to eat rabbit as to consume rabbit flesh would cause us to be confused and frightened and want to hide. We avoided frog meat since consumption of frog flesh would result in our bones being easily broken, we avoided sucker fish since it would make us sluggish, flesh of the young since it would make us weak and prone to error, and hot food since great hunters like wolves and wild cats did not eat hot food. We were forbidden to flavor our food with salt, a spice as highly sought after here as back home, and we refrained from touching a woman for such contact would result in us catching her weakness. If a man's wife was with child he could not play as his energy had been used to make the child. These rules were religiously enforced and believed in without question.

Again we fasted and danced as we had for the game of tchung-kee. Great care was taken that no woman touched our ball sticks; sticks as long as a man's arm made of a hard wood whose name I did not know bent in a loop at the end and laced with animal skin or vegetable fibre, and decorated with bat whiskers or bird feathers. As the priests of the two tribes could put hostile spells on the players of the opposing team, the game was not just a contest between ball players but one also between priests. The day of the game, we again took a circuitous route to the ball field, and as we approached the area the Medicine Man marked off a symbolic area and taking a small bundle of pointed sticks as long as a man's foot he stuck them in the ground to represent the players and told us the positions we would assume.

The Medicine Man's assistants then took a kanuga, a comb made from two splinters of turkey leg bone tied to a frame made from a turkey feather. The turkey is a huge, fierce, warlike bird somewhat like a chicken but much larger unique to these Indies, and these peoples believe its qualities are transferred to us when scratched. Just the tips project from the comb so it is not a weapon but it causes great pain. We each stepped forward and the Medicine Man's assistants scratched us from our shoulder half way to our elbow, four times on each forearm, four times on each upper and lower leg, once shallowly across the chest in the form of an x and crossed from shoulder to shoulder, and once in a similar pattern on the back. Blood welled from the overlapping network of scratches but nobody flinched. We chewed a medicinal root and spit the juice on the scratches and rubbed it in so our skin was less inflamed and paired up to do each other's back and then we washed off the blood in a nearby river.

We smeared our bodies with bear grease to make them slippery, wove eagle feathers in our hair for keenness of sight, many also donning the tail of a deer for swiftness in running and others wearing snake rattles to make them fierce. So it was that we received spiritual help from the air, forest and ground. We marked our bodies with red paint and black charcoal from the dance fire that had been made with wood from a fragrant, thorned tree struck by lightning but not killed. Everything had to be exactly right to invoke the most powerful spirits. Entering the river facing east and upstream side by side we gazed into the water with our ball sticks clasp across our breasts. The assistant spread red and black pieces of cloth on the ground with a red bead for each player and black bead for the opposing player.

Hawk Eye stepped up to the Medicine Man and gave him his name and clan, and holding a black bead in his left hand and a red bead in his right the Medicine Man spoke to the river, asking it to give Hawk Eye its strength, and he called upon the hawks to give him a sharp eye and elevated Hawk Eye to the seventh level of the earth which players sought for ultimate success. He then asked Hawk Eye for the name of his most hated opponent and his clan and Hawk Eye whispered to him and the Medicine Man called upon the black forces, the black snake and the black spider, to bring weakness to the individual named. One by one we stepped forward and went through the same ritual. Not knowing anyone in the opposing team I claimed they were all equally hated, which seemed to please the Medicine Man. Then with a cry of victory, we walked in a single file to the ball ground and the opposing team entered from the other side. Many knew of me by then and I am sure my name was named by many of my opponents, much to my consternation. I am not superstitious, but I know better than to tempt the gods, and I know even better that some men do not need belief in a god to drive their actions.

Again the playing field was encircled by spectators. Sometimes the rivalry between villages was bitter and other times friendly. This was the latter case and many had come for amusement, and others eager to bet on the results. Being the challengers, we brought the game ball and now the other side inspected it closely to ensure it was the proper size and color. After everyone had placed their bets, we lined up facing each other, each player's two ball sticks laying on the ground and pointing at his opponent. One of the elders stepped forward with the ball and reminded everyone the Great Sun was looking down on us so we should obey the rules and show good sportsmanship, and when the game was over we should follow the white trail back to our white lodge, which was their way of saying to go in peace after the game. He then threw the ball in the air and called out "for the twelve" and the game began.

We grabbed our ball sticks and raced for the ball. Hawk Eye arrived first and scooped up the ball with his right ball stick and ran toward his goal. Two of the opposing team converged on him and while one tried to trip him the other struck his stick, jarring the ball out, and one of the opposing players scooped it up and raced in the other direction. Hurling the ball between the two standing poles, he scored the first point and the opposing village cheered. The ball was returned to the center and play resumed. As the game progressed, the emotions of the players increased and though it was a friendly game they played roughly and though not intentional, players were injured. The ball traversed back and forth between the two goals, at times knocked to the side and out of play, and as emotions grew higher the game became more violent. It was very much like a small war with players tackling each other and throwing each other to the ground in an attempt to gain control of the ball. With the frequent pileups soon there were few players not limping or favoring an arm.

Meanwhile there were seven counselors on each side who watched and advised a runner who then ran to a secluded spot where the priest was working his magic. During the play each player prayed to the river for strength and to one animal and then another for help depending on one's clan or one's special protector or namesake. The teams were evenly matched and the spirits did not favor one over another so that the score was frequently tied and ended up with each side with eleven goals. Standing out from the others and rumors of my spirituality resulted in me being heavily surrounded, preventing me from gaining much control of the ball throughout the game. However, finally as dusk approached, there was a pileup on one side of the field and the ball bounced away from the players and directly to me. Scooping it up, I raced for the goal, the others racing after me. I was swift of foot and light and had the advantage, but these were skilled players and, as I said, I was constantly shadowed. Almost at the goal, I found myself hopelessly surrounded. Spotting a young player to the side, I took a chance and threw the ball back toward him instead of continuing forward and attempting to score a goal as they had expected of me. He scooped it up and in the confusion raced forward and scored the winning goal.

The young chief and war chief were exuberant with the win by the village's athletes and lead the villagers in the victory dance that night. After our strict diet we feasted on roasted venison cooked over a spit in the center of the village and the women brought out bowl upon bowl of corn, squash and beans and cake upon cake of freshly baked bread. As we feasted, the details of the game were repeated, with much exaggeration on the skill of our players and the incompetence of the opposing team, with much joking by the women on the ineffectiveness of the priest of the other village and how this night the women must be withholding their favors from the men. I noticed that while the healer-priests were highly revered and almost feared, they were also subject to the greatest derision and ribaldry by the opposing villagers. Several of the men brought out reed flutes and began to play them and men and women, adults and children, rose to dance. Dancing and music was both performed socially and ceremonially by these peoples. I sought out my panpipe and played it along with them, and then as a solo for they had not heard of such an instrument, and they marveled at the tunes I could play.

As the evening progressed the men slowly began to slip away with their wives for a more intimate celebration of their victory, and the more desirable of the young men, including Hawk Eye, were approached by young maidens heavily scented with honey and many of whom had hopes of marriage to their young man in the future. Our Medicine Man I noticed took two women to his lodge, his wife, a plump, wrinkled woman as old as he, and a young girl whose budding breasts would indicate she was no more than twelve or thirteen, but who wore a moss skirt indicating that she was of marriageable age. As they walked past me, the fragrance of honey was unmistakable. I was not the only one who had noticed the threesome, and the young warriors with me joked that the young maiden would learn much from the Medicine Man's wife that night, which would make her all the more valuable as a wife for some lucky man in the future. The young men joked who would last the longest, the wife or the maiden, some preferring the one and others the other, and they all agreed the Medicine Man would have to use his magic to remain hard that night. I marveled that they found no shame in a man having congress with a wife and another woman at the same time, or of a man having congress with one so young.

I noticed the chief and war chief also making their way to their lodges, but to my surprise and confusion a woman whom I had thought was the wife of one accompanied the other and vice versa. I mentioned this to one of the ball players I was sitting with and he laughed at my confusion and assured me I was correct. It was not uncommon for a man to share his wife with his brothers, nor for a woman to share her husband with her sisters. I sat there speechless as I tried to imagine a man sharing his wife with his brothers. There was no way that my father would share my mother with his brothers, and I could not imagine any of them having any desire to do so, and the thought of my mother sharing Father with her sisters was ludicrous. Although I could not imagine it possibly happening in my family, to my surprise and to my great shame I found the idea nonetheless erotic. The thought of a man's wife spreading her legs and allowing herself to be penetrated by her husband's brothers, perhaps even becoming impregnated by one of them, was obscene yet my member began to lift with the thought. As I sat there, I found I could not determine if these savages were enlightened and their openness regarding sex something to be emulated, or if they were perverted heathens with the morals and lusts of the followers of Satan. I was shocked by my indecision. How could a Christian man condone such corruptness and disregard for all that the Church taught? In the same light, how could one not praise such acceptance and acknowledgment of the most basic of human needs and pleasures? Who were the true savages, these red-skinned heathens or the puritans of my homeland who revered killing over copulation? I found my thoughts shocking, and most troublesome.

The young man who had scored the winning goal, a single youth of fifteen winters, timidly approached me as I sat there contemplating these deep and heavy thoughts. He thanked me for having the confidence in his skill and for giving him the opportunity to score the winning goal, and for the praise and prestige that had been bestowed upon him as a hero of the game when I could have scored the goal myself and received such honor. That I would have been able to do so was a possibility but in my opinion a slight one, and while I certainly would have liked to have scored the goal and the honor that would have come with doing so, it was not as high on my list as I know it was on others.

Glancing down at his feet nervously, he timidly asked if we might celebrate his success that night, from the tremor in his voice fully expecting me to reject him as not being worthy. I replied that I would be honored to do so and he looked up at me with such disbelief and joy that it warmed my heart and sent a thrill of excitement and desire through my groin. All doubts that had been plaguing me fled like shadows before the light of happiness illuminating his face. With a shy, self-conscious smile, he reached out and took my outstretched hand and I lead him to the unmarried men's lodge. As we walked, he glanced about sheepishly and proudly, hoping that others would notice and delighted when they did. Having congress with me, I discovered later, was as high an achievement and honor as scoring the winning goal in his eyes, and in the eyes of many of the other young men, something totally unimaginable in my homeland.

It was a clear night and there was a full moon and as he untied his breechclout and let it drop and stood there before me uncertainly, I admired his young body in the moonlight. He reminded me of the marble sculptures of young Greek athletes I had seen in the Medici gardens in Florence, his body smooth and lithe with sinewy arms and legs and a muscular, sculptured chest and flat stomach. This was the type of youth Michelangelo would have embraced and made love to and would have memorialized in stone, the type of youth that Greek poets described in their poems of boylove. Unmarried and not yet having engaged in his rite of manhood, he wore his dark black hair loose, held in place by a leather band decorated with beads and porcupine quills and hanging down over his shoulders.

He had seen his parents in congress as have all youth in these lands, and had seen men engage in sex with other men, and like all children had experimented and imitated these acts as a young boy, but he was inexperienced and unskilled and so stood there uncertain how to begin, which added to his sexual appeal. I quickly removed my loincloth and stepped forward and slipped my arms about him and drawing him close, I lowered my head and kissed him on the lips. He immediately responded in like and I began to caress his firm, muscular body, running my hands over his shoulder blades and down his strong back, and on down to his firm buttocks which I cupped and caressed. He copied what I did and I pressed my naked body against his. As we continued to kiss and caress I felt his member, pressed between our bodies, slowly begin to swell, and mine did likewise.

I desperately wanted to fuck this boy, to feel my member deep in his body. As I began to lubricate my stiff penis with bear grease, the boy knew the positions I intended on us taking, but he did not seem the least perturbed by this, and when I was done lubricating my cock he dutifully turned and bent over for me to lubricate his hole. I asked if this would be his first time and he acknowledged that it was. I lubricated his anus well, knowing he would be tight, and that he was a virgin increased my lust for this handsome, tender young athlete. I scooped up a thick dollop of bear fat with my middle finger and stuffed it up his rectum and then finger fucked him a dozen times to help prepare him. We then assumed the position on our hands and knees and he spread his legs. I knelt between them and placing the tip of my erect, greased member against his lubricated hole, I grasped his slender hips and slowly pushed forward.

I penetrated him easily and as he gasped with the delight of his first penetration, I drove my cock up his rectum until my hairs were pressing against his smooth, naked backside. Just as a woman's breasts or her thighs causes a man's heart to speed, the sight of the compact backside of a young boy causes mine to race. I paused for a moment to savor the delight of having my cock surrounded by his hot, moist flesh, and to delight in the knowledge that I was the first man to penetrate this virile young athlete, besides to allow him time to enjoy the delight of having his rectum stuffed with a man's stiff cock. I then slowly eased my cock back out of his rectum until my bulb was stretching his anal muscle and then I slowly sank it back up his body. My bulb tingled with the friction and with my lust and my cock throbbed hotly in his body as his rectum throbbed hotly about my aching bone. He clenched his anus shut as I withdrew and he then relaxed as I sank back up his rectum, working his body in time with my thrusts and withdrawals and his breathing became labored with his exertion and with his desire.

As with Hawk Eye, he and I sought our pleasure in the company of the rest of the young warrior-athletes in the single men's lodge and I know that my young partner was very much aware of the fact that our congress was being witnessed, and I know he was proud of the fact. Again I could not help but admire the openness of these peoples regarding congress between those of the same gender. I know it was not practiced by all, but the practice did seem much more common among these people than those of my homeland, and it was clearly accepted by everyone, just as was the congress of unmarried couples of opposite sexes so that young girls might gain experience and be more desired. It was that openness and acceptance that I found delightful and that caused me to wonder why a peoples so ignorant in many other ways were so wise in this, and why a superior civilization such as existed across the ocean sea could not see the beauty of congress between males, and between men and boys.

I was soon spurting my seed up his rectum, and that he had found pleasure in our act was evident when he reached an orgasm himself heartbeats later. We cuddled afterward, he curled in my arms, enjoying the bliss that follows congress. We were both young and virile and it was not long before we both began to feel the need once again. This time I greased his cock and my hole, much to his surprise and delight, and again we assumed the position that one sees dogs in the street and animals in the field assume except this time I was the one being penetrated. I suspected and he later confirmed that this was also his first time. Having seen his parents in congress, both face to face and using the opening in the woman designed for conception, and on their knees with his father penetrating that other opening, he and his brothers, and he and his young friends, simulated that act, but never with actual penetration. Why I do not know and did not inquire.

He did know of the process though, and he penetrated me as if he had done this many times. Like all youth he was excited by his loss of innocence and by the physical pleasure of rutting, and he rushed to achieve the ultimate goal of ejaculation. I advised him to slow down and enjoy the pleasure he was feeling, and the pleasure he was giving me, and he did so, though I had to remind him several times as his balls took over for his brain. At last he grasped my hips and I felt his seed penetrating my rectum, and I quivered as my own stones contracted and I sprayed my seed on the ground. I do not know which brought him the greatest delight, squirting his seed up my ass or having caused me to spill my own. When we were done, sweat was pouring down our sides in the hot night, and the sweat we worked up in our congress was as enjoyable as the sweat we worked up in our ball game. For him, having had congress with the God of Lightening, both as a passive and as an active partner, was an added bonus to having lost the virginity both of his backside and of his stones this night.

Author's notes:
1. The current name of these peoples, Apalachee, likely comes from the word 'abalahci' which means 'the other side of the river' in their language and was likely the name their neighbors used to refer to them. It could also come from 'apalwahci' which in the Muskogean language of the Hitchiti living to their north means 'dwelling on one side'. They spoke Muskobean and had a large population and trade network. They were lead by hereditary chiefs and like most of the southern tribes were matrilineal. They lived in the Florida panhandle and their culture was similar to the Timucua to their east and the Choctaw to their west. Reduced by traditional tribal enemies, European diseases and encroachment, and integration, they are now extinct as a tribe and reduced to three hundred self-identified individuals living in Rapides Parish, Louisiana where they were resettled in 1763 after fleeing the British and the Creek Indians.
2. A Timucua word meaning 'two-spirit'. The concept of two-spirited was first mentioned in chapter 3 (Taino) by name (niizh maniduowag) but Nico did not know the meaning of the word. Two-spirited was again referred to in chapter 5 (The Ocale) but Nico did not pursue the meaning.
3. Reference to Nico's experiences in his first travels. See Travels of Nicolau Ribeiro, Book One, chapter 13 (Caucasia).
4. Details of the preparation for the ball games are taken from the fictional novel Tatham Moundby Piers Anthony referred to earlier as a resource.

8. Choctaw

Travelling the bayous and swamps of southern Mississippi, Nico learns more about two-spirit roles and duties in a charnel house and is amazed that it is totally acceptable for a man to marry both a woman and her daughter and impregnate both, that men marry children before they even reach puberty, that men marry other men and women marry women in Choctaw culture. He adopts the dress and insignia of a Medicine Man and two-spirit and comes to understand the full meaning of such individuals in native culture. He engages in sex with married man with two pregnant wives and twelve children.

Nicolau Ribeiro (16yo); Many Bears (15yo), marriend man (34yo)
Mt tt tb

Everyone was in high spirits, the chiefs and elders because the village had won two games against villages renown for their athletic skill, bringing great honour and prestige to the village; the Medicine Man because of the praise he received for having conjured strong magic to enable the success of the village's players and the prestige that went with it; the ball players because they had performed well, and because they had been rewarded for their success upon their return to the village, a reward they made no effort to conceal; the women because their men were happy and because of their own perverted sexual gratification; the adults because they had bet heavily on their village and their players and had won handsomely; and the children because the adults were happy.

I had reason to be happy also. Many Bears, the young ball player who had played the winning goal in our last game, was eager to learn all that I could teach about the nighttime pleasure between two males, and I was a willing and eager teacher. He was fifteen, on the verge of his manhood initiation, but he had not yet proven himself and so still went by his childhood name which referred to an incident when as a child he had stumbled upon a family of bears feeding on berries and who had fortunately been too full to attack him. In that he was not yet a man, the pleasures of a young maiden, many of whom would have eagerly initiated him, were forbidden him, but being fifteen winters and of good health, he had the needs of any lusty teenage boy. Myself having turned seventeen only a couple weeks earlier, had needs just as demanding. Fortunately, among these people, there was no stigma for two boys to satisfy those urges with each other, one of the few benefits I had found living with these primitive savages.

Having introduced him to kissing and caressing followed by anal congress with first him and then myself taking the submissive role the first night, I dared to introduce him to an alternative pleasure the second night, one which I dared not attempt with those I had bedded earlier. As we snuggled in the dark and kissed and fondled each other's privates, I snuggled further down and kissed his smooth, muscular chest, and then his nipples, and then sucked on them and played with them with my tongue until they were hard and aching with that same pleasure and pain that one's cockhead does as one approaches his orgasm. I then allowed him to do the same to me, which he did awkwardly but eagerly, adding to my arousal.

Then, with my nipples burning and itching unbearably, I snuggled still further down and kissed his stomach, and then kissed and nibbled his still flaccid cock and his smooth, sparsely haired stones. I licked his cock, delighting in the unique taste of his red-brown member and the unique fragrance of his sweaty stones, both quite different from anything I had experienced in my homeland or in the land of the Saracens. My actions caused his member to quickly rise up. I pulled back his foreskin and ran my tongue along the sensitive, exposed flesh beneath his bulb, which I knew he kept fastidiously clean, which was not always the case of men back home who did not practice the covenant of circumcision. He was so aroused by this new pleasure that a droplet of that clear, sweet nectar that precedes one's seed oozed out of the tip of his now erect cock. I eagerly lapped it up and quivered with the delightful taste and texture of that intoxicating juice.

I then invited him to do the same to me and he looked at my stiff cock hesitantly, I am sure thinking that it must taste of piss, but succumbing to his curiosity and urged on by his own pleasure, he tentatively stuck out his tongue and ran it up the length of my stiff cock from my dangling stones to the tip of my bulb. Finding the taste and odour to his liking, he did so again, and tickled the skin below my bulb with the tip of his tongue, myself of course having no hood unlike these red-skinned, heathen natives of the Indies. I allowed him the pleasure of licking my cock for a short time, delighting in the pleasure it brought me, and then twisting around so we were lying facing each other but in opposite directions, I reached up and took his cock by the base and slipped my lips over the bulb and began to suck. Moments later I was delighted to feel his own hot mouth envelop my knob and feel the suction on my member.

I slowly eased my lips down his cock to the base, which was about five finger-widths long, and then slowly eased my lips back up, maintaining my suction on it. Many Bears copied my actions dutifully if not as smoothly. And so we laid there in the dark in the single-men's lodge eagerly sucking each other's cock, and from our slurping and laboured breathing and the swallowing of our cock-flavoured spittle, there could be no doubt that the others sharing our habitation knew what we were doing. That they knew added to my arousal so wanton I had become, and soon I felt the pressure building deep in my loins and a sharpened desire to release my seed. Unwilling to have my pleasure end so soon, I clamped my lips down tightly about Many Bear's member just below his bulb and stopped my suction in the hopes he would copy me, and to my delight my fifteen-year-old apprentice cocksucker did. I remained motionless until my lust had subsided and then resumed my suction and bobbing of my head, quickly followed by my young student.

As he approached that point a second time, evident from his laboured, erratic breathing and the squirming of his body, I prepared myself for what was about to happen. As I felt the tremor along the underside of his throbbing cock, I slipped my lips to just below the bulb and stopped sucking. Heartbeats later he began to fill my mouth with his hot, tart seed and I eagerly began to swallow it. Heartbeats later I felt the twang deep in the pit of my groin and the burning rush of my seed up the core of my cock and I warned my young partner heartbeats before I began spurting my seed in his mouth. He began to swallow as I filled his mouth with my hot, sticky slime, and so the two of us lay there swallowing each other's seed like two men dying of thirst. As the force and volume of his spurts subsided, I sucked out his remaining juice, draining his balls of his delightful, delicious seed, and to my delight he did likewise, sucking my balls dry until they were drawn up tight beneath my member. Finally drained, we separated and I twisted around so we were lying in the same direction again. His dark eyes were bright with excitement and his lips and chin had a white smear of my juice. A grin slowly curled his lips and we embraced and kissed and I closed my eyes in delight at the taste of my seed on his lips.

The Abalahci tribes are united as a group by marriage between tribes and live in an area of great bounty both in game and in edible plants, and they are known as ferocious warriors, so unlike their neighbours there is seldom war between villages within their territory and little challenge from neighbouring tribes. The games are a substitute for war, keeping the men in good shape and honing their skills, those skills resulting success in the ball games, I realized, being the same as those required for success in battle. Besides, the games were a way to satisfy the ego and boost the pride of the young braves without killing and the risk of being killed. So in the days following our second win the men relaxed and prepared new arrows and spears and basked in their glory and the women went about their work gathering nuts and berries, weaving clothing and baskets, and making ceramic jugs and cookware, all with contented smiles on their faces.

The occasional group headed out hunting and returned with abundant game, which was shared among all the villagers, a peculiarity among these tribes. Except for their weapons and a few personal items of adornment or particular craftsmanship, these people have no personal possessions and share everything else. It is a simple and indolent way of living devoid of any personal aspiration or desire to improve one's lot, a most perplexing way of life. True nobody in the village goes hungry or is in want of shelter and clothing, and greed and theft are practically unknown, but nor is there any want nor motivation. The idea of someone going hungry or without is as foreign to them as the idea of sharing one's prosperity with those less able or less driven to improve their lot is to those of my homeland. One can only wonder what levels of achievement these peoples might be capable of if they had the same ambition to improve their condition as my people. I heard Colombo say many times these natives would make excellent servants, and in that regard I must concur.

Anxious to be on my way, I stated my intention several times but in that I was seen as their good luck charm they were reluctant to see me leave and found every excuse they could think of to delay me. I was, however, on a vision quest, a worthy purpose in their eyes, and a god, and they were not about to anger me. So it was that nine days later I finally packed my canoa and continued on my way west along their maze of waterways in the company of Many Bears, along with two of their single young men eager for an adventure in a second canoa, the three serving as my guides. We travelled for two days, covering I estimated forty miles, to the river that marked the end of their territory where I was handed off to another three young men, their village having been told in advance of my mission and that we were approaching peacefully. I was sorry to have to part company with Many Bears, as he was to leave me, and we wished each other well.

I thought of him often as I travelled with these three young men for another three days, covering roughly another sixty miles by my estimation, where I was similarly passed along to four youths from the next village, boys barely into their teens who saw escorting me through their territory as an adventure and a test of their survival skills, and I am sure, as a step bringing them closer to their manhood. They were lean and muscular and I was sore tempted to engage them in another test of their masculinity, but I dared not take the initiative as great as Satan's temptation was. I was thankful for these escorts not just for the companionship but because the waterways twisted every which way, at times heading north and south and at other times east and west, some with considerable currents and others as still as water in the deepest pool. Some expanses were wide enough for a dozen canoa travelling abreast and divided into numerous channels heading in all directions, and others were so narrow and shallow we had to disembark and half wade and half swim to the next waterway. The land, to me, was unchanging, a verdant swamp of towering, partially submerged trees hung with the ever present moss and tangles of vines in which I was easily turned around.

Fowl were abundant and of assorted sizes and a variety of colours, some like the owl and hawk recognizable, and others foreign to me, silently watching us from adjoining waterways or from the tops of trees, some silent and others loudly calling out, each with its own unique call to warn their kind of our presence, some ignoring us and intent on feeding on small fish, frogs and swarms of insects that thrive in these swamps, and others fleeing us in fear of becoming a meal themselves, and some following us in the hopes of feeding from the scraps of our evening repast. There were also the predators of these strange wilds, primarily the ferocious thick-skinned creatures, the el lagarto, which glide along silently in the murky water with only their nostrils and eyes above the water, sending fear though all of us, and others resting on upended logs and soaking up the sun, obviously content and with full stomachs. There were many snakes of all sizes and colours, swimming in the water or hanging like vines from the trees, most harmless but others deadly with dagger-sharp teeth and venomous bites. Several variations of cats roamed the maze also, some tawny and others black, keeping their distance but eying us hungrily. And, everywhere, were swarms of biting insects requiring us to constantly slater bear fat or stinking mud over our exposed flesh to keep them away.

The days were stifling hot and grew hotter with each passing day, the heat all the more oppressive with the high humidity of the air. Rare was the day when it did not rain at some time, usually a gentle, warm rain. Shortly after joining the latest group of four, we struck out north up one of the larger waterways which turned out to be a river. I was bewildered by their purpose and haste but the reason for our flight north became evident as a dark funnel cloud appeared and roared toward us, bringing such ferocious winds as to tear out and toss around trees as wide in diameter as a man is tall as if they were straw, and bringing a torrent of rain that caused the water level to triple within a candle mark. These storms, these huraca'n which I have mentioned before, I was told occur frequently at this time of year. Their ability to recognize their approach and to survive such storms is amazing.

We had to sit out this particular storm for four days in a little lean-to they had erected on an elevated piece of land, barely large enough for the five of us to lie under but surprising waterproof. Snuggled up with four half-naked boys between the ages of eleven and fourteen all smelling of boy-sweat and virility, had me in a constant state of semi-arousal but I dared not initiate anything least I offended them, needing them to get me through this water maze, and they did not make any move toward me. During this time we talked, and they did not tire of the stories I told of the ball games of the Abalahci or tales of the tribes I had encountered farther to the east and south, and telling such tales helped to distract me from my sinful desires. They also had tales of the battles and games of their village which they took great delight in telling, and I learned much about the peoples of the area from them.

These peoples appear to have no allegiances to anyone other than the chief of their village and each village seems to operate on its own, the villagers ranging over the countryside in search of food. The population of this area appears to be comparatively sparse and given the expanse of swamp extending leagues in all directions, the unbearable heat and relentless sun, the humidity, and the swarms of insects, I can understand why! They seem to move about a lot and have no permanent villages, and I gathered from their comments that many had come to this area only a short time ago, either being pushed out by more populous tribes to the north or in search of a better place to live. I was told that this particular time of year was a time of their highest temperatures, a time when it was too unbearable to travel so they settled in one spot to hunt game and raise their crops. It was also, they said, a time of year when it was not profitable to head off to war for people tired too quickly in the heat. They said this with a hint of disappointment, and with a hint of bravado that they would go to war but it was the elders who prevented them from doing so. (1)

The language of these people is quite similar to those of the others I have encountered so I had little difficulty understanding them, and their way of life was almost identical so I was able to extend and confirm my knowledge of their customs and beliefs. Like the others, they ignorantly worship the sun, whom they see as a living god, and fire, which they see as the living representative of the sun on earth. They also appear to believe in a greater god, a supreme being or creator, who appears to go by several names, and many lessor spirits who live in the waterways, the trees and the sky and they have many legends which involve birds and animals of the region, like the snake, the coyote, and the woodpecker, who take on human characteristics and speak and whose appearance and behaviour are significant omens. In that I was suspected to be one of these minor gods, I made no effort to correct them as I know is the duty of every Christian for fear of my own life, nor did I make any effort to teach them about the only one and true God, upon whose whim and mercy I have survived these past eight months, and to Whom I pray fervently every night to forgive me my weakness for pleasures of the flesh and to deliver me back into the welcoming hands of my family. I know it is only by His Tolerance and Mercy that I have survived living with these savages and for that I am deeply thankful though in my wretchedness I have not always lived by His teachings.

The storm having uprooted trees and changed the directions of waterways, preventing us from continuing in the direction of our intended journey, my guides decided instead to continue to the northwest to their village, and being at their mercy, I was in no position to argue. Their village was small and much like all the other villages I have encountered except upon our arrival we discovered the storm had hit it with even greater severity and the villagers were in the process of repairing and rebuilding. The storm had resulted in several dead by drowning or being crushed by falling trees and several very badly injured, including the individual whose job it was to deal with the dead. The name they used for him was new to me but through gestures and other words I gathered the role he played was the same as that played by the individuals the Timacua called poranacu, individuals somehow having two spirits and whose nature and purpose I had little understanding but an individual I had from time to time been taken for, because of my long hair and how I wore it, or something else about my appearance or manner which I had not yet figured out, just as I had learned to distinguish those individuals who were chiefs or healers by their air of authority and things they carried or adorned themselves with.

Either because of these things or because of my reputation which had preceded me, these peoples were under the mistaken impression that I was a poranacu, and it was clear they expected me to assist their injured individual. These people, like most people, have a great fear of the spirits of the dead, and strong superstitions regarding the deceased, so abnormally so that the surviving relatives refuse to have anything to do with the dead and their disposal. I had found the same situation when living with the Ocale, but at that time the young healer Muqbey took care of the dead upon returning from war, sparing me the grisly duty, though I am thankful now for our relationship for I was able to learn much about what was required by observing him and listening to his tales.

I had determined by this time that the individual I have referred to in this journal as a Healer-priest or just a priest, whose name varies according to the language of the tribe but can be roughly translated as the Medicine Person, who is usually a man but not always so, is a combination of doctor, priest and witch, curing the ill through the use of herbs and potions and just as the doctors back home, through the proven modern practices of bleeding, cupping and inducing sweating. They also attempt cures by way of magic, as do witches, and by chanting and prayers to the spiritual world to intercede on behalf of mortals, as do priests. Besides curing the ill, the Healer also, as I have described earlier, calls upon the spirit world to assist in wars and in ball games, and is capable of casting evil spells on the villagers' enemies, or so they believe and I have no cause to suggest they are wrong. Although only seventeen, I have seen enough of this world to know that witches are very real and to be feared, and that there is much in this world that a mere mortal like myself cannot explain.

When it comes to the dead and evil spirits however, the Medicine Man or Healer apparently is just as vulnerable as any other mortal, Muqbey for some reason unknown to me being an exception to that rule, or perhaps having risked taking on the additional role of a poranacu because the tribe had no such individual, or perhaps because of his youth and daring nature. There is still much about these savages that I cannot fathom and which hopefully the more learned might explain upon reading this journal. Anyway, these poranacu, whom they also refer to as being two-spirited individuals, apparently are somehow protected from the predation of evil spirits and the spirits of the dead and so are especially revered as individuals who prepare their dead for their afterlife. And so it was that I suddenly found myself thrust into the role of an esteemed undertaker and having no recourse to decline! It is, as you can imagine, a most gruesome and stomach-turning role, and one the reader may wish to skip over in its telling, but one which I feel I must relate for those who will read this journal in search of a better understanding of these savages, and the life I spent with them. And so, dear reader, consider yourself forewarned.

To begin, as I have mentioned, most of these individuals living in the Indies worship the sun as a god, whom these particular people call Hushtahli, and they worship fire as the living representative of their god on earth. They believe that when a person dies his body gives itself back to the sun. As such, they do not bury their dead as good Christians do, but leave them in a house set apart from all the others and some distance from the rest of the village, or I later learned for many of their neighbours, upon platforms raised to the sky, where the body is left to rot. These particular people believe it takes four days for a spirit or soul to enter and become part of a body upon the birth of a child, and similarly four days of preparation for it to leave. It is the role of the poranacu to assist the soul in its departure, preparing the dead body in its finest clothing and carrying it and, for a man, his weapons, and for a woman, her best pottery, weaving or jewellery, to this charnel house or platform. In the heat and humidity of this accursed land, the body begins to decompose immediately upon death, so one can only imagine the stench that emanates from a body after four days, a stench that I am incapable of finding words to describe.

Now, to add to my difficulties, the storm had destroyed the charnel house which had contained the decomposed bodies of several individuals, some tribes I discovered disposing of the remains after a period of mourning and others waiting until a chief or elder dies and then holding special ceremonies and disposing of him and all who had died previously at the same time. So, my first chore was to light a ceremonial fire to purify an area nearby upon which the villagers hastily erected a new charnel house. I then carried the newly dead and laid them out in their finest on platforms in the hastily built new house. Days had passed since their deaths and already the bodies were bloated and black and the flesh was dropping from their bones. The stench was like nothing I have ever smelled, and hopefully one I will never smell again.

I next went about with the injured poranacu gathering up the putrid pieces of those bodies which had been in the house prior to the storm and returned them, the older man somehow deciding which pieces belonged together. It was all I could do to keep from vomiting at the sight of the bloated, blackened pieces of flesh and I did what he instructed blindly and mindlessly, eager for it to be over. Worse was to come! He decided, from the condition of the bones I suspect, that some of the dead were ready for burial. This entailed scraping off what little rotting flesh remained with a sharpened stone and purifying the bones with fire and then wrapping them up in a skin with a fine red earth for burial, and with his broken arm, it was a duty left entirely up to me. Never have I felt so filthy and nauseated and though I rubbed my hands raw and lathered them with the sap of the plant they crush to wash themselves, I could not feel clean!

This being a place where they returned seasonally, there was a large mound near the village purposefully located on higher ground so as not to be affected by flooding where they buried their dead. Under the guidance of their poranacu, I dug pits into this mound on either the east or west side according to the clan of the deceased's mother, purified the cavities with fire, and positioned the bones in the cavity. Their healer-priest then prayed to the spirits to accept the spirit of the dead individual and performed his magic rituals to ensure the spirits of the mound would not disturb the village, and I covered up the bones, offering up my own prayer to my own god that the spirits would have mercy on me for my falsehood.

These people believe they have two spirits, which they call shadows. The inner shadow, Shilup, makes a long trip west to where the land is forever green and crops and game are plentiful. There if the person has been bad, his shadow falls into a deep chasm while crossing a peeled log to these hunting grounds and becomes caught in a whirlpool to forever see the cherished land but unable to reach it. Meanwhile the outer shadow, Shilombish, remains behind until the funeral ceremony and then fades away, though how long this takes seems to vary for they have tales of ancestors speaking to spirits who have remained at the mound for many generations. These beliefs are considerably different from those of the Tocobaga who had told me that a person has three spirits, one existing in his shadow, a second in his image in a still pool, and the third in the pupil of his eye. The latter soul goes to the mound with the body and can speak to the living while the other two enter the bodies of lesser animals. Not wishing to offend and depending on their good will for my survival, I said nothing about the true nature of one's soul, feeling much the coward and having a deeper appreciation of those missionaries who travel forth to bring the true message of God to the heathen.

Having completed these chores, I finally assisted in the preparation of a feast for the village to honour the recent dead. It is the custom of these people for the women to tear out their hair in mourning, and to mourn their dead for thirty days, during which time they bring food each evening for the spirit of the departed. The men mourn also, but in that they must also provide food and protection for the village, their mourning is much briefer. That I hoped was the last of it, but I found out there was one other duty I was expected to carry out. These charnel houses, I discovered, must also be guarded until the spirit leaves. That duty is left to captives in times of war or to those who have committed some wrongdoing and is seen as a punishment. In the absence of captives or transgressors, that duty falls upon the poranacu, for whom it is a badge of honor and bravery for guarding these houses is filled with danger. For one, in the case of persons who have died of some disease, the guard is placing himself in a position where he is in constant contact with whatever disrupted the humours of the body and killed the person and might therefore die of the same thing. For another, he is placing himself in direct contact with the dead person's spirit and the other spirits of the beyond, who usually have no tolerance for the living infringing on their domain. And, third, he is placing himself between the dead and the food left by the villagers and the wild animals drawn by the dead and the food, especially panthers who can move about at night as silently as the spirits.

As you can imagine, it was a most distasteful and frightening experience, one that left me feeling a filthiness and a dread that no words can adequately describe. Also, as you can imagine, this duty encompassed not just a couple days, but a couple weeks in total before routine once again returned to the village. Now my role was greatly appreciated and I was rewarded with the choicest cuts of meat when the hunters returned, the choicest of fish and seafood, and the choicest of fruits, vegetables and nuts collected from the surrounding forests or harvested from the meagre gardens these folk maintained, and all treated me with the deepest reverence, and yes, apprehension, for no ordinary man can walk where the spirits tread. It would have been easy to give up my quest and remain with these peoples given the respect and courtesies extended to me but for the distasteful tasks I was expected to perform. Besides, I sorely missed my family and my homeland and it was not my nature to give up, nor to rest on my laurels. Besides, we had, by then, by my estimate, reached the summer solstice, and the unbearable heat still continued to increase each day and I yearned for the cool fresh air of Viana do Costelo and my dear estate, the Quintas de Ribeiro. And so, at long last, a week after the summer solstice, I packed my canoa and made my way west once more.

Many of the villages I passed through were small and consisted of only a dozen or fewer families. Often there was only a subchief of sorts who paid tribute to a more powerful chief in another village and often there was no warchief, no Medicine Man, nor poranacu. My reputation as a two-spirit and a healer preceded me and I was made welcome as a special guest wherever I went. My abilities as a tale spinner also became known and I was asked to relate stories about the peoples I had encountered on my vision quest, the ball games I had witnessed, and the battles I engaged in, story telling being their chief entertainment in the evenings. And so I passed through this remote territory crossing one river after another flowing from the north into the great ocean sea to the south until at last I found myself in the land of the Choctaw. (2)

These peoples reminded me of the Taino in temperament. Their most important values were peace and harmony. They participated less in war than did many of their neighbors and did not value victory brought by the death of their companions, although they did not shirk from defensive fighting and were as skilled as any other warriors I have seen. Like the others whose land I had just passed through, their villages were small and often had only a subchief, who usually ruled by holding a council of elders (imokiashas) who governed by consensus. Although I myself was a youth, an inhulalatas, by nature of my special status as a two spirit I was often included in these councils. Their chiefs I found were limited in power compared to those I had previously met and there did not appear to be any overall chief for the tribe. Like the other tribes, they preferred to settle disputes by means of ball games with rituals and ceremonies beginning days before a game, and the games themselves having few rules regarding physical contact so injuries were common and few men were without scars. To my surprise there were among these peoples both male and female teams, and the women played just as viciously.

Like all villages, the centre of the village was a plaza where they engaged in their games and held important ceremonies. The men built pole frame houses roofed with grass or cane reed thatch and walled with a variety of materials, whatever seemed available, including crushed shell, hide, bark, and reed mats. These villages were usually surrounded by extensive farmland, causing me to think back upon my estate and wonder how it was faring, and of course how Vasco was faring and what he was doing, and if he had found someone else to satisfy his sexual needs with. Many were the nights I went to sleep with him on my mind and often the sweet memories with him were what kept me pressing on in search of a route that would take me back to him and my homeland.

I began my journey across the land of these people at a most auspicious time, the commencement of what they called the Green Corn Ceremony. As I have mentioned, a staple in the diet of these people of the Indies, including the Choctaw, is this vegetable I have never seen before, the vegetable they call maize, a plant that grows on a long stalk as tall as a man with leaves similar to grass but much wider and coarser, and which produces a pod of large, yellow, edible seeds. The ceremony is performed at the commencement of the harvest of this vegetable. The centre of the plaza is first purified by fire, and then a large square is built on this ground with the four corners marking the four directions. Four is a holy number for these people just as three (the trinity) is to Christians. As it was explained to me, there are four directions, four seasons, and four things that make up the world (earth, water, sky, and living things). Lattices with vines are erected along the edges to provide shade for the men who sit around the square facing the four directions. This square is encircled by a ring of clan houses, of which there are twelve. In the centre is the sacred fire, the Grandfather Fire, which is seen as a living, sacred being who takes the prayers to one they call the Breath Maker.

They have a large family meal at their individual homes and then gather at the plaza where the women perform an intricate dance with ribbons and men begin their fast, sleeping outside the ceremonial square to protect it. The next day the men rise before dawn, remove the previous year's fire, and clean the area of all coals and ash while the women remove and clean away all evidence of their cooking fires. A central fire is once again lit in the plaza by the Hillis Hiya, the Medicine Person. That afternoon under the blazing sun the men line up and the Medicine Person administers ceremonial scratches with the bones of a turkey feather similar to what was done by the Abalahci for the game of anetsa. As the sharpened bone pierced my skin and my blood welled up and flowed down my arms and down my thighs, I stared straight ahead and prayed to my Lord for the strength to endure, and I thought of the torture and pain that Jesus suffered for mankind and I was strengthened by my faith.

The first ear of their maize crop is then sacrificed to the goddess Ohoyochisba, daughter of the sun (Hashtahli) and the moon (Hashi Ninak Anya - little sun that shines at night) to ensure that the rest of the crop is successful. Disguised as a poor, old woman, Ohoyochisba had travelled the earth where she was given a share of hawk stew and shelter by a pair of destitute brothers and in reward for their actions they were told to go to a clearing the next morning and there they found the first corn seed. Other ears of maize from this plant are then given to the chief as representative of the sun. It is the role of the poranacu, which these peoples call a hoobuk, to pick these ears and carry them to the Medicine Man and to the chief and as the tribe I was with at the time did not have such a person, the duty fell to me. It was by far a far more pleasant role than my previous one.

These presentations were followed by dances and sacred rites under the hot summer sun. This is their new year, a time when old things are taken down and replaced with the new. All disagreements and trespasses are forgiven except for two crimes, rape and murder, both which are exceedingly rare and totally unknown by most tribes I have encountered. As I have mentioned, women give freely of their bodies once they reach puberty or their first skirt, and are encouraged to do so in order to become experienced and better wives, and boys once they undergo their rite of manhood at puberty can have congress with any woman or maiden who is willing, and these wanton savages are most willing. For boys who have not yet undergone the rite there are other boys or even men, these primitives having no taboos when it comes to congress between members of the same sex, male or females. So, there is no need for rape for if a female a man has a fancy for rejects him, there are many others, female and male, whom he can turn to. As for murder, these people, as I have said, own nothing, so there is little for men to covet or be envious of to the point that they would become angry enough to kill another.

Men who have earned a war name since the last Green Corn Festival are given one after much proclaiming of their deeds by themselves and their friends, followed by another dance depicting their courage and skill at war. This is followed by what they call a Feather Dance with the participants decorated with feathers in their hair and tied to their arms, wrists, legs and ankles. This is followed by a blessing of the area by the priest and a rite of passage for boys becoming men, followed by another dance by the boys showing off their courage and virility with many glances between the young braves and the maidens watching. Not to be outdone, this is followed by another dance by the young warriors of the tribe with a display of war-party tactics and of their virility. When these half naked savages dance and thrust their hips at the audience, their red-brown skin streaked with rivulets of sweat, it is impossible not to feel the lust in the air and sitting there bare-chested and bare-legged in my deerskin breechclout, I could not help but feel the animal lust of these savages course through my veins and ache for the half-naked young braves prancing before us.

The head woman of each family is then given coals from the ceremonial fire to light their family cook fire and while they begin preparing the evening meal and men march in single file to a stream to be purified in the water and blessed by the Priest after which they hold a men's only meeting during which they discuss the running of the village and future plans for games or for raids against their neighbours. The men then return to the ceremonial square and perform what they call a Stomp Dance before returning to their home camps for a feast and the end of their fast. Everyone dresses in their finest clothes and adorns their hair with shells and feathers and paints their bodies and gather once more at the plaza at midnight for another stomp dance and more feasting, the dancing and eating continuing through the night with many slipping away for a more intimate celebration of the new year, the ceremony finally ending at dawn.

As I said, this village did not have a hoobuk. As the evening progressed and more and more couples paired off and slipped off into the forest or back to their homes, I was approached by a married man, a heavily tattooed warrior whom I learned was thirty-four winters, twice my age. His forehead was greatly flattened, the result of having a flat board tied to his forehead as a child, a strange practice among the males of many of these people with the idea that doing so enhances their attractiveness. The abundance of tattoos on his arms, legs, chest and back indicated that he was both experienced and highly successful as a hunter and as a warrior, a man of high respect and rank in the village. He had a woman to whom he had been married for twenty years and a second wife, a younger woman half the age of his first wife, and between the two of them he had twelve children, seven of them living, the youngest three and the oldest a year older than myself. Both of his wives, I discovered, were heavy with child and expecting to deliver any day, a rarity for the older wife as most women her age doused themselves with honey and a herb so as not to conceive, thirty-three considered old and approaching the end of one's life.

Unable to have congress with his two wives, and having no interest in any of the other young maidens, several of which would have been honored to bring him pleasure on this night, he wished to have congress with me. Now I have had congress with men twice my age, and with married men, during my travels with the heathen Saracens, and with the knowledge of their wives and children, so this was not a new experience for me and given the depravity of these peoples did not come as a surprise. So lustful are these savages that the men think nothing of having congress with both females and males. As for myself, I was at the whim of these peoples and did not wish to offend them, especially one as respected as this brave, and with everyone about me pulsating with animal lust as they pranced and whooped about the ceremonial fire and slipped away to satisfy those passions, Satan's desire was pulsating in my loins also.

I, like the others, had donned my best clothes including a deerskin breechclout intricately decorated with dyed threads and porcupine needles which extended down to my knees, longer than that men usually wore but which I preferred in that I was more easily able to conceal my erections which popped up at the most inconvenient times, a gift I had received from Muqbey. For this night I had worn a bear claw necklace, a gift from the chief of the Ocale for my part in leading his men in battle, and a necklace with a large, turquoise stone which hung halfway down my chest, the latter a gift from Many Bears which he had traded his best knife for as a parting gift to me. About my biceps and my ankles I wore otter skin bands decorated with turkey feathers which I had been shown how to make while living with the Thimogona. I had greased and braided my long hair into two braids in which I had entwined multicolored beads and soft, downy feathers from the breast of a great-horned owl.

And so I followed this man to his home, and as I did so his two wives, their bellies extended with child, sat with other women at the plaza and smiled up at him and at me as we passed, the looks in their dark eyes revealing that they were very much aware where he was taking me and for what purpose. Four of his children were sitting with his wives, two boys and two girls between the ages of three and eight, and they watched as we went by and I am certain that they too knew for what purpose we were leaving the plaza, even his three-year-old daughter. We passed another of his sons, a boy a year younger than myself, sitting with his young wife and two-year-old child, and as we passed father and son exchanged whispers. I do not know what they said, but from the look in the boy's eyes and the smirk on his face I had a good idea that the comments exchanged had been regarding myself.

Arriving at his home, we wasted no time. He took me in his strong, muscular arms and embraced me and kissed me, forcing his tongue into my mouth. It was the first such kiss I had exchanged with these peoples since my arrival in the Indies and my member immediately began to swell. With our loins pressed together and our privates separated only by two layers of thin deerskin, he could feel my arousal, and I could feel the immediate response of his own cock. He held me tighter and pressed his lips harder against mine, his tongue still in my mouth, and I felt his cock swelling and pressing against mine as I wrapped my arms about his broad back.

We were hard within heartbeats. Removing and dropping his loincloth he untied the cord of mine and as it dropped to my feet I slipped off my arm and ankle bands. The two of us had nothing else to shed. Our naked bodies, already streaked with sweat and heated with the hot blood pulsating through our veins, pressed against each other, our chests both firm and muscular, his a deep red-brown and tattooed with dark blue swirls and geometric designs, mine smooth and a swarthy olive-brown from constant exposure to this unrelenting sun, both hairless. His strong, long-fingered hands cupped my buttocks and squeezed them and he squirmed his body against mine as I reached around and cupped his tight, firm buttocks myself, my stiff penis trapped between our bodies as was his. I have been generously provided, and so was he, his stiff cock a finger width or two longer than my own.

We dropped to the floor onto the thick hide of a beast they called a yvnnvsh, a beast that sounded like a huge, shaggy ox, me on my back, him above me. He reached over and took out a gourd containing bear fat from the odor. Scooping out a dollop, he generously coated his erect member jutting up above his hairy balls, and then scooping out a second he raised me by the legs with his other arm and deftly slipped his greased finger up my raised butt, evidently experienced at this. Inserting his finger all the way to his knuckle, he twisted it, and as he slowly began to withdraw it, I tightened my anal muscle. He immediately slipped into position, placing the tip of his erect, greased cock against my hole and then slowly pressing upward and forward while at the same time lowering my body, impaling me on his long, thick spear. I sank down on it naturally with the weight of my body and he adjusted our positions as I did so, resulting in me ending up on my back with my hips raised in the air and my legs thrown over my head and him kneeling behind me with his stiff cock buried to the hilt up my ass and his body bent over me. He continued to bend over me, placing an arm on either side of my body and supporting himself on his elbows and forearms.

He then began to fuck me, slowly and rhythmically, easing his cock up my greased chute and then easing it back out as he rocked to and fro on his knees and elbows. His eyes were closed with the effort and the pleasure pulsating through his loins and his stiff cock and I stared up into the face of this savage as pleasure pulsated up my rectum and my stiff cock ached to be touched. Opening his eyes, our gaze met and he smiled as he pumped to and fro between my legs, driving his cock in and out of my body, his long braids swinging in the air. I could not help but think that this was the same hide upon which he fucked and impregnated his first wife who was almost twice my age, and his second wife who was the same age as I. I imagined him fucking the one while being watched by the other, and I imagined the two of them sitting back at the plaza, knowing that I was in their home, on their bed, being fucked by their husband.

My rectum throbbed and my anus burned with pleasure, just as I imagined their cunts did, and his thick, stiff cock throbbed up my rectum, just as it did in their bodies. I was being fucked, just as his two wives had been hundreds of times. I was being fucked here in this godforsaken land of swamps and blazing sun by an ignorant savage, one highly esteemed among his fellows for his ability to hunt game and to kill their enemies. From the sparkling of his dark eyes and the curl of his lips I could tell he was feeling pleasure from our union, and I could not deny that I was also. This was pure, animal lust, copulating for the pleasure of copulating, for the pleasure of throbbing flesh and itching holes. His children knew that we were engaging in this act, that their father was buggering another man, a man as young as the oldest of them. I wondered if they were picturing their father and me in their minds, just as they had to have pictured their father and his wives as young children having witnessed their congress.

It was while thinking of his boys thinking of me being sodomized that I felt his cock throb and begin squirting his hot, thick seed up my rectum, and thinking of his boys and feeling him filling me caused my own stones to constrict and my own seed to rush up the core of my swollen, benumbed cock and out the burning tip. My hot seed spurted through the air to land in hot puddles on my heaving chest and to ooze down over my chest and ribs along with the rivulets of sweat. I groaned with the pleasure of my release and the pleasure of his, and he groaned also as he slipped his arms under me and drew my naked body to his, my seed and our sweat gluing our naked chests together. I sucked in the hot, humid air thick with the fragrance of spilt seed, his and mine, of bear grease, and the duck fat I had greased my hair with and my mind spun with delight. This man twice my age was skilled in more than just hunting and warfare, he was skilled in the sport of sex between men besides. It was a delightful way to conclude the Green Corn Ceremony.

I found these people often have more food than they need, both the crops they grew, those they harvested wild from the surrounding forests, things like berries, nuts, seeds and roots, and the game they hunted, which included deer, bear (which they killed mainly for its fat) and this beast which they called a yvnnvs which they said were as numerous as the stars in the night in the large flat plains to the north. I never saw such an animal, but as I have mentioned they have hides of a beast with coarse, woolly hair that they slept on and clothing and robes made from the hair and I was told worn by those farther north where the winters turned colder than where we were. They use the hides of all the animals they kill for clothing, shelter, bedding or ornamentation. Men hunt deer by draping their bodies with its hide and tying its horns to their heads and posing as one of them to act as decoys to draw the animals close enough to be killed by arrows. Fowl, some familiar and others not, fish, bird eggs, and small game, again some familiar and others not, more often formed our meals. They were a most ingenious people, fishing not only with spears and nets, but using a stunning poison made from a particular plant and traps made from this ox-creature. They also carved stools of wood and made skin-covered gourds and horn pouches, and wove bags from twisted tree bark. A thick and strong cane growing abundantly in these marshes was used for such things as knives, blowguns, darts, and baskets. There was little of their world that they did not adapt for their use.

Dance was a part of most rituals and celebrations and was engaged in by all, young and old, male and female, accompanied by music produced by drums made of skins stretched over hollowed logs, rattles, rasps and flutes and group chanting. Having never seen nor heard a panpipe, they were fascinated by the instrument and delighted by the music. There were men who composed music and poetry and these compositions were often proudly introduced at festivals. And so it was that another of my skills brought me renown and respect among these peoples.

One custom I found most peculiar was that the children live with their mothers up to about the age of six, after which they live in a single men's lodge largely on their own, showing up around the family campfire for meals but largely ignored by their fathers. During this time the boys are mainly taught and disciplined by their mother's brother. I immediately thought of Uncle and pangs of sadness and longing struck me as I thought of him and all that I have learned from him, about fishing and sailing, about trade, and about people, and how he too had a large part in my upbringing, and as I wrapped my fingers about the cross of Saint Christopher, his parting gift to me, I prayed that he was all right. By now Colombo had to have returned to Portugal and my treachery in freeing his captives and disappearance with them reported. The news had to have been devastating for Uncle and as I thought about him, and Mother and Father and my sisters, and even my baby brother, I was filled with such sadness and homesickness I had to slip away where I cried with loneliness and despair.

With these peoples, as with others I have encountered here in the Indies, somewhere between the ages of twelve and fifteen, a boy undergoes a rite of manhood, being tested for his strength and courage and his skill as a hunter and warrior, sending him out alone or with his age mates on his first hunt, his first raid, or his first task to prove he is no longer a child. Once he has proven himself a man, a special ceremony is held where he fasts and is purified with white drink, and then given a man's name and for the first time in his life his father recognizes him as his child and not just another face appearing at the evening cookfire and presents him with a gift, a bow or spear or blow gun or a new knife. He is given a tattoo which marks his clan, which is his mother's clan, and his nose is pierced and he is allowed to wear the claws of a bear in his nose.

As these new men proudly strut about the village they remind me of a rooster in a barnyard, and in many ways there is no difference. I mentioned while living with the Tocobaga that these savages live a rough and dangerous life, age quickly, and die young. So it is with the Choctaw, and indeed, all the peoples I have so far encountered. Once a boy has proven his manhood, he is allowed to have congress with a member of the opposite sex, and as I mentioned, the girls are encouraged to have congress for it is thought that in doing so they become experienced and better wives, and so it is until they become married, and even after marriage, they have most liberal attitudes about wives continuing to have sex with men other than their husband.

The Admiral had observed that these peoples are without a faith, but I have found the contrary. They all have some form of religion which they believe in strongly, as strongly as a Christian believes in the Trinity and the Moslem believes in Allah and the Prophet Mohammed. The names they attribute to their gods differ from tribe to tribe, but I believe that is a matter of language, and that these names all refer to the same god. I have already mentioned that they worship the sun and the moon. Among the lesser gods is Sinti lapitta, a venerated horned snake who visits usually wise young men. There are many tales of this god, many of them dealing with virility and references to that part of the male that most resembles a snake, tales which are told usually during the ceremony when boys become men, with much snickering and leering by those who have not yet proven themselves.

There is Na Lusa Chito, a big black being that eats people who find themselves alone in the forest, especially women and children. An even more frightening being is Impashilup, Soul Eater. Evil thoughts let him into a person's body and once there he eats the person's soul. Like other peoples I have encountered, they worship thunder and lightening, but attribute different characteristics to these gods. To the Choctaw thunder is a female bird, Heloha, who warns those on earth of an approaching storm by rolling her eggs. Lightning is a male bird, Melatha, who moves quickly over clouds to catch the eggs and stop them from falling, leaving flashes of light behind him. They so deeply believe in these myths it gives one cause to question his own beliefs.

Delayed by frequent storms and by the demands of those I encountered, my journey across the vast land of the Choctaw was slow. I lived with them for two months, traveling from village to village, and in that time I witnessed many things that I know the reader will not believe and I know Father Francisco would fall into a faint upon hearing. In one village I witnessed the marriage of a young man, a boy of only sixteen summers, to a girl of thirteen. The marriage of these savages is very different from that of civilized folk. First, the boy built a lodge for the two of them. He then went off into the forest and shot a deer, which he presented to his wife-to-be to show his willingness to provide for her and to prove that he was capable of doing so. Accepting the meat, she in turn presented him with an ear of corn and a bowl of berries and nuts as a token of her willingness and ability to cook for him in the manner of women. With that, he entered the lodge he had built and she followed and the marriage was consummated.

In another village, I saw another man, a distinguished warrior in his late twenties, whose wife had died in childbirth and who had six children, three of whom were living, marry a child of fourteen. Even stranger was meeting a man of thirty-three years whose wife was dead and whose children were themselves married, a man considered old by the standards of these people, who had married a woman of twenty-eight, already considered past her prime, and in the same ceremony had married her twelve-year-old daughter, and when I had met them both had become impregnated by him. Even stranger yet, on my travels I discovered men who married other men and lived with them openly, and women who married other women, and men who openly buggered men, others who buggered women, and still others who buggered children, all with the knowledge and approval of the rest of the village. These people are the spawn of Sodom and disciples of Satan.

Speaking of which, another of the spirits these people believe in are the Okwo Nahilo, white people of the water, people who are almost transparent in the water and who kidnap children and turn them into beings like themselves. There were on occasion children who feared that I was one of these spirits given the lightness of my skin compared to theirs, and not so rarely adults also. My sword and my panpipes were also curiosities besides my skin colour, the former admired and coveted by chiefs and warriors, and the latter putting the villagers at ease for they all loved music and to dance. They loved song also and when I sang old Portuguese ballads it did not matter that they could not understand the language, which they called the language of the gods. They understood the tone of my voice and the look in my eyes as I sang about love, the young maidens in particular. And when I looked at the young men as I sang they too understood and blushed knowingly. I was identified as a hoobuk wherever I went among these people, because of my long, loose hair and beaded forelocks and because my reputation preceded me. That added to the esteem and respect with which I was held, but it also caused those I met to view me with a certain apprehension.

I tried to get those who called me a hoobuk to explain just what such an individual was but they had great difficulty in doing so and I had great difficulty with their explanations for there is nothing in the Portuguese language like it. Those in one village said that such a person is "not man - not woman" leading me to conclude that a hoobuk was what I knew as a eunuch. Among the Turkomen and the Tamurids eunuchs were entrusted to guard a chieftain's harem and they associated more with women than they did with men. Among some they had an elevated status and were treated with great respect and reverence while there were others who mocked them and despised them for not being men. It was evident to these savages, however, that I still had my stones, and from my experience none of the native hoobuks I encountered were missing theirs either so I left them more confused than when I had arrived.

In another village they explained the hoobuk was "half man half woman" which lead me to wonder for a while if such individuals were hermaphrodites, particularly since the individuals of that village did not have the opportunity to see my privates closely, but again all those I had encountered who were called hoobuks very definitely had the parts of only a male. As the days passed I grew more and more frustrated with the difficulty of determining exactly what a hoobuk was and how one became one. (3)

Besides causing me to fear for my life, these huraca'n were also a source of major frustration. There was one, however, that resulted in bringing me much hope at a time when I despaired that I would never find my way to my homeland. Being delayed at one village due to an impending storm and having nothing else to do, I joined a group of youngsters about the village's plaza fire and listened to one of the elders relating to them where the Choctaw had come from. He told them that the Choctaw had once lived far to the west, beyond the great river and mountains of snow. I of course was immediately interested, wondering if perhaps this was the mighty Nile and the snow-capped mountains of the Italies, giving me a flicker of hope that I might be within a reasonable distance from my homeland. According to this legend, the land had become unproductive so the people were lead by two brothers, Chicksah and Chata, to find a better home. Each night they placed a red pole in the ground and in the morning they headed in whatever direction it pointed, which was always east until one day it remained upright. So they built a large mound, Nanih Waiya, where they buried the bones of their ancestors they had been carrying with them, and Chata decided that was where they would live. Chicksah took a group of the people and they settled to the north, and eventually the two groups became two different tribes. When I inquired, he knew of no other details about this land to the west and said it was many, many moons away, but the tale gave me renewed hope!

Author's notes:
1. The area Nico is passing through extends along the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Chattahoochee River which marked the end of the Apalachee Territory, along the coastline of the Florida panhandle, Alabama and Mississippi. The inhabitants of this region were newly arrived in the 1400's and did not identify as members of a larger tribal unit (the future Chatot, Pensacola, Mobile and Biloxi tribes) until later. It would not be until 35 years later, in April of 1528, that the area would be invaded by the Spaniard Pánfilo de Narváez, along with Cabeza de Vaca, who had been sent to find the fabled city of Apalachen said to be filled with food and gold (but they discovered was rich only in corn.) Reaching the Mississippi River, Narváez was swept out to sea in a hurricane and Cabeza, one of fifteen men out of three hundred who survived the winter, was later captured. He and three others escaped and trekked through the southwest states and northern Mexico until arriving at a Spanish settlement in Mexico in 1536. He referred to each individual village he encountered in his journey usually by some physical feature of their chief or after their principal food. And so these early inhabitants were referred to as the Roots People, the Fish and Blackberry People, the People of the Scar Faced Chief, and so forth.
2. The Choctaw (`Chok tä, `Shok tä or Chahta) is a more recent name for this group of peoples and is used in this narrative out of convenience. An early name for the tribe might have been Pafallaya, or "long hair". Choctaws followed the general southeastern dress of deerskin breechclouts, skirts, and tunics and buffalo or bear robes and turkey feather blankets for warmth. Some women made their skirts of spun buffalo wool plus a plant fiber. Both men and women wore long hair except, for men, in time of mourning. Both also tattooed their bodies. They were culturally related to the Chickasaws and Creeks who were their traditional enemies. In the sixteenth century, most Choctaws lived in southern and central Mississippi, as well as parts of Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. Choctaws worshiped the sun and fire as well as a host of lesser deities and beings. They were less warlike than their enemies and were likely the most able farmers of the southeast region, raising corn (the kernels of which were ground into flour for bread), beans, sweet potato (the seed also ground into flour for bread), squash, sunflower, pumpkins and tobacco. They fished and hunted with blowguns and the bow and arrow. Game included squirrel, rabbit, turkey, beaver, otter, raccoon, and opossum. By 1842 they were relocated in Oklahoma where the majority now live.
3. The hoobuks or two spirits were men who took on feminine duties and behaviors. They were considered neither men nor women, but were considered like a third sex and often held spiritual functions. The conquistadors often thought of them as passive homosexuals, and they were treated with contempt and cruelty. As noted in Footnote (1) in Chapter 6 on the Thimogona, early French and Spanish explorers arrived at the same conclusion as Nico from the explanation given them and from the behavior of such individuals that there existed a significant group of natives who were hermaphrodites. The traveler and writer Francisco Coreal set out for Florida in 1669, a hundred-and-five years after Rene Laudonniere reported on the occurrence of hermaphrodites among the Thimogona of Florida, and he reported the discovery of a class of effeminate boys who lived with the women, made the same handiwork, wore particular feathers to identify them, and served the native tribesmen in various ways that included sodomy. Regarding the reports by early French traders, Coreal wrote: "I believe that these hermaphrodites are none other than the effeminate boys, that in a sense truly are hermaphrodites." We know today these reports by the French and the Spanish contain many inaccuracies, the result of misinterpretations of local customs, behaviors and language, a common occurrence when two very different cultures meet. Some are also very likely exaggerations by the writers eager to portray the indigenous peoples as unclean or perverted to justify subsequent European treatment of the native population. Similarly denial by current native groups that such behavior existed could be the result of years of indoctrination of European Christian values and today's negativity toward such sexual practices, just as the acceptance by current native groups that such behaviors occurred and were acceptable could be a backlash against those who have imposed their religion and Christian values on their ancestors. We will never know with certainty the true extent or acceptance of the occurrence of same sex relationships in these pre-Columbian cultures.

   However, despite the questionable accuracy and motivation of reports, past and present, there is today considerable evidence that the concept of a "third gender" and overall acceptance or at least tolerance of homosexuality and bisexuality was widespread throughout the Americas. It is believed today that individuals composing this third gender were known and identified by name by over a hundred different tribes, including poranacu (Timacua) and hoobuk (Choctaw meaning male bodied) as already mentioned. The early French explorers called these individuals bardache (< Spanish bardaxa < Italian bardasso < Arabic barda, < Persian bardaj meaning kept boy or catamite). The English word berdache was subsequently used to describe such individuals, a term that persisted throughout the literature on Native American history and culture for the next four hundred years. Due to the connotations of being a catamite, the term fell into disfavor and in 1990 the term "two-spirit" was adopted by the Intertribal Native American Gay Conference held in Canada from the Ojibwa niizh manitoag which means having two spirits. This concept of having two spirits and used to describe such individuals was first introduced in this journey in Chapters 5 (the Ocale) and 7 (the Abalahci). Like the many Europeans who would invade the area after him, Nico initially cannot comprehend the unique concept of a third gender commonly held throughout North American tribes as the Europeans had no such concept.

   Such individuals are believed to have a special power others do not and a unique role of bridging the material and spiritual world, linking male and female, pure and impure, and sacred and polluted, which distinguishes them from Medicine People (frequently called Shamans, another term growing out of favor in North America.) The two-spirited performed many roles including carrying food to store houses and supplies while traveling and even carrying other people in that although they are effeminate in appearance they are usually extraordinarily strong and muscular; making black drink in battle as women are seen as weak and not allowed in battles; removing the dead and injured from battle, carrying the dead to the burial ground, and preparing the dead for internment; helping women in childbirth and caring for sick men and women when in confinement (lighting the ceremonial fire to purify the area, cooking for them and bathing them as they bridge the pure and impure); caring of the camp or village, and making pottery and clothing. Because they bridge the sacred and polluted worlds they are the ones to carry the first fruits. Two spirits usually avoid marriage and mostly engage in sex with men though some do marry and some do have sex with women. With men they can both penetrate and can be penetrated. They don't perform rituals nor provide medicinal treatment, which are the duties of the Medicine People. They light the purifying fire before the Medicine Man says prayers, sing and dance. Healers, midwives, herbalists and medicine people were important positions among all tribes. In rare cases where the Medicine Man was also a two-spirited individual, it was felt that he was a particularly powerful individual. (Muqbey of the Ocale, Chapter 5, was one such individual though of course at the time Nico was unaware of the two distinct roles normally performed by two different people.)

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