Okoné and the Hunt

Okoné stretched himself to get rid of the remainders of sleep he still felt. It was barely 4.30 in the morning. The kaka (rooster) had only crowed once. He looked at his hammock, still swinging lightly and felt tempted to just lie back down and forget all about the hunt. But he couldn’t do that. As a young man, now sixteen years old, Okone had his responsibilities, and one of them was to ensure food on the table. He still lived with his parents and two younger siblings, but his own hut was ready, and soon he would get married to the beautiful Maiwie from a neighboring village, only a half-hour away by canoe. Both from the old Carib tribes, one of the few surviving tribes in the Amazon forest of South America, Okone and Maiwie were eager to start a life together, even though they had only seen each other twice. Maiwie was fifteen years old, and considered a woman according to the customs of her tribe. Both youngsters had already gone through the adult-inauguration rituals.