Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/41
her pick from them the fruity pulp or the paste of green maize,[1] nor ever now did the sweet hand caress her or smooth the golden plumage of her head.
If she spoke the beloved name of her mistress, the smile of Iraçéma was never bent upon her, nor did the ear of the mistress even appear to know the voice of that companion and friend, which had once been so dear to her heart.
Woe to her! The Tupy nation called her Jandáia,[2] because in her joy she made the plains resound with her vibrating song. But now, sad and silent because disdained by her mistress, she appeared no more the beautiful Jandáia, but rather the homely Urutão,[3] which knows only to groan.
Low sloped the sun over the Serra heights; its rays hardly gilded the highest crests. The hushed melancholy of evening which precedes the silence of night began to oppress the various sounds of the prairie. Here and there a night-bird, deceived by the thicker darkness of the forest, screeched aloud.
The old man raised his bald forehead.
"Was it not the cry of the Inhuma bird[4] that awoke the ear of Araken?" said he, wondering.
The maiden trembled. Already she was out of the wigwam, and back to answer the Pagé՚s question.
"It is the War-cry of Cauby the brave!"
When the second screech of the midnight bird
- ↑ Indian-corn, milho.
- ↑ Jandáia, also written Nhendáia and Nhándaia, which is an adjective that qualifies the ará or macaw, from nheng, to speak, antan, hard, rough, strong, and ará, the agent who acts, nh՚ant-ará. Ceará in Tupy means "the song of the jandáia," from cemo, to sing loud, and arára, paroquet.
- ↑ Urutão, a night-bird.
- ↑ Inhuma, a bird which sings regularly about midnight with a harsh unpleasant note. The orthography is anhuma, from anho, solitary, and anum, a well-known aotophagus, which the aborigines regarded as a bird of augury. Thus it would mean the "solitary anum," the unicorn-bird.