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IRAÇÉMA.
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her husband abandon her. She would sit down close to the arrow until night came, and then seek the cabin.

She would set out in early morning, as hurriedly as she would return slowly in the evening. The same warriors who had seen her so joyous in the waters of Porangába now met her sad and alone, like the widowed heron on the river-banks. Hence they called the spot, "of the Mocejana,"[1] or "of the forsaken."

One day when the beautiful daughter of Araken was lamenting on the brink of the Mocejana Lake, a strident voice from the top of a Carnaúba cried out her name—

"Iraçéma ! Iraçéma!"

Raising her eyes, she saw amongst the palm-fronds her beautiful Jandáia flapping its wings and ruffling its feathers with the joy of seeing her.

The remembrance of her country, extinguished by love, burned again in her thoughts. She saw the beautiful plains of the Ipú; the sides of the mountain-range where she was born, and the Wigwam of Araken; and she felt Saudades; but even at this moment she did not repent of having abandoned them.

Her voice gushed forth in song. The Jandáia opened its wings, fluttered around, and settled on her shoulder. It stretched its neck and rubbed itself against her throat; it smoothed her hair with its black beak, and pecked her small red lips, as if it mistook them for a Pitanga.[2]

Iraçéma remembered how ungrateful she had been to the Jandáia, forgetting it at the time of her happiness, and now it came to console her in her sorrow.

This evening she did not return alone to the cabin,

  1. ↑ Mocejana is a lake and village two leagues from the capital of Ceará. The word means "what made abandon," "the place of abandoning," and "occasion of abandoning."
  2. ↑ A small red fruit in Brazil, the Pitanga myrtle berry.

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