Author's website: yun.complife.info
     From the notes of the African explorer
	
	by Yury Nesterenko

     (Editor's  comment.  This  notes  represents  a  memoirs  about  an
expedition to Africa in 1911,  where a new tribe was encountered,  which
was  unknown for  antropologists until now.  In  the  beginning of  1912
author of  this notes  went  to the USA.  apparently intending to make a
report about his sensational discovery to his American colleagues. Alas,
he choosed the Titanic for his voyage...
     Thus,  only at  present days this notes came to the scientists with
the other things, raised from the deep. It's a pity that water destroyed
much of the notes and that is why we don't know neither the geographical
coordinates of  this  mysterious tribe,  nor  the  name  of  this  brave
pioneer)

     Our  way  through the  jungle lasted for seventeen days already and
some of  my  comrades expressed the  more and more greater concern.  But
Mbootoo,  who  was  our  local  guide,  walked  ahead  with  an  amazing
self-confidence. He walked and walked forward, to the place in the heart
of  the  rainforests where the unknown for us  mysterious tribe Nterneti
was hided.
     Eventually we  reached the  village on  the ninth day early in  the
morning.  It seemed that some kind of misfortune disturbes this village:
it▓s dwellers sat on  the ground with a  great depression on their faces
or strolled one by one among the huts.  From time to time one or another
took the  bare stick,  with which the natives usually extract fire,  and
started to  revolve it  in  the  hole  until  the  first  smoke appears.
However,  instead of  finishing this  task of  inflaming the  fire,  the
nterneti looked sadly  over  the  flying smoke  and  gone  deep  in  his
thoughts again staying motionless..  We  asked Mbootoo to  find out  the
reason of what have happen.
     "Ser Ver down", answered our guide.
     I  thought that Ser Ver is the name of their local leader,  who had
fallen down the palm-tree, and gave the natives my sincere regrets. Then
I curiously asked them about the meaning of this ritual.
     "They are  sending pingoos",  explained Mbootoo.  From the  further
explanations I  understood that pingoos are  the  devotions to  the holy
spirits,  offered up  to the healing of the Ser Ver.  I  smiled,  when I
heard about such a naive faith of this children of the forest,  however,
from behind of the trees I  saw a  column of thick black smoke rising up
to the air just before the smile came off from my face. This smoke seems
to be visible for a many miles away. And all of the Nterneti immediately
started their happy shouts.
     "Ser Ver up!,  Ser Ver up!" -  shouts continued and they all set to
extract  their  own  smoke  together.  I  have  to  abandon all  further
inquiries,  because from  that point they payed no  attention neither on
us, nor on the other events in the outside world.
     That  circumstance made  extremely  difficulties for  our  studies,
nevertheless,  while living amongst this  mysterious folk  more  than  a
month we  put  together all of  the collected facts and formed some idea
about their astonishing culture.
     The whole life of  the Nterneti is  attented to a  very complicated
religious cult.  They devote themselves to  the other things,  including
hunting and breeding,  very seldom and reluctantly,  believing that this
distracts them from the main task.  There are Connectoo as a good spirit
and Disconnectoo as a bad spirit in the center of their cult.  Connectoo
can send nice weather and dry firewood,  so the smoke ascends higher and
is visible from a  greater distance.  Disconnectoo can inflict winds and
rains that  extinguishes the  fires.  They  think that  the  terrestrial
incarnation of the Connectoo spirit is Provida, the sovereign shaman who
is  maintaining the main fire of the tribe.  Every Nterneti brings him a
sacrifice each month -  if  not,  he will "cut-off",  as they explained.
What exactly will cut Provida after such a disobedience, they didn't say
- the execution must be too horrible to describe it aloud. Provida is so
important link in  the  tribe that it's not  allowed for simple Nterneti
folk to  see him.  All givings they leave in front of his hut,  which is
covered by  the skins of rhinoceroses.  All problems they address to the
servants of the shaman -  soop-ports,  so they serve as a  communicators
between Provida and the mortal men.
     As  usually in  the  tribes with primitive cults people hides their
real names, fearing those who know that names to get a witchy power over
them -  Nterneti tribe is not an exception. So in the everyday life they
are  using the name substitutes -  the so-called "yurals";  but the true
names ("ai-pee" in the native language) knows only the Provida.
     The  way that simple Nterneti folk are extracting smokes is  called
"day-lar-paw";  perhaps,  that name goes from palms wich leaves are like
big paws,  because branches of  those palms Nterneti people usually uses
for setting up the smokes.  However, Nterneti believes that most condign
of  them will get a  special fuel after death,  which is  immune to  the
winds and rains and which produces smoke in  many times greater.  That's
why it  is  called "dee-see-el",  or Double Smoking Line.  They say that
some people are  awarded with such a  fuel in  their lifetime,  and  the
first candidate is the Provida himself, of course. It's true - the smoke
of Provida is thicker than of any other members of the tribe.
     Though all  tribes confess one  common cult,  they  have some minor
differences;  however, it's enough for a constant religious wars. One of
the  longest wars is  related to  what kind of  sticks to  use  for  the
smoke-extracting.  One tribe is using msaiee sticks made of a coco palms
and  the  other is  using ntscay-pee sticks made of  banana palms.  It's
interesting that  all  sticks are  equally warped,  however,  each tribe
notices the warp of the enemy sticks only.
     Besides religious opponents Nterneti has the other enemies. Once in
the  morning I  left my  tent and  was terrified by  the view -  all the
eastern part of  the  horizon was  tighten by  the  the  smoke.  But the
natives seemed not to  be  worried by this sight of a  grandiose fire in
the jungles, it caused just a vexatious irritation and no more than it:
     "It's spamee again!", explained them to me, dryly.
     Spamees are  the  outcasts,  most  despising part of  the  Nterneti
tribe.  They absolutely don't know how to hunt and so they makes a great
number of  fires asking to  feed them with fruits of a  breadfruit tree.
It's absolutely incomprehensible to  understand why they believe in  the
efficiency of those calls:  if Nterneti manages to caught a spamee, they
do  not feed him,  but punish him by torments and executions.  A  lot of
dried spamees heads decorates the stakes around the Provida's hut. Those
heads have a  size of a fist of an adult men.  I asked the natives about
how  can  they reduce those heads in  size so  significantly,  and  they
answerred that  spamees have  such heads by  nature,  'cause they have a
very little brain inside.
     But if  the spamees are in common contempt,  then the other variety
of the violators of law of the tribe -  hkrrs - causes the superstitious
horror amongst the vast majority of  the Nterneti.  Hkrrs are the native
wizards who are not assuming the power of Provida.  Natives told me that
they [hkrrs] could quench the fire at  an  impressive distance or  could
change it's  smoke in  such  a  way  that  it's owner surely wouldn't be
happy.
     That's a pity that rain season came and we had to leave the village
and to  go  back as  well as  not having heard many other secrets of the
Nterneti tribe. But I'm looking forward to come back again with the next
expedition.

(я) Yury Nesterenko, 2001
http://yun.complife.info

     (Translator's comment: This notes were first found as English text,
but due to a strange chain of events it was once lost. We are lucky that
somebody ;-) translated them into Russian and saved for the mankind. Now
I took some work for restoring the original text)

Translated by Yuri Lapitskiy, 2004
http://yuriybrisk.narod.ru/


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