XII.
TACUMÁ - THE SITTING BULL OF THE AMAZON
Tacumá is the chief and shaman of the Kamayurá people in the Xingu, and a man whose authority comes not from myth but from experience. He’s old enough to remember what life was like before the Xingu enclave was opened to the outside world — before airplanes, before electricity, before the encroachment of ministries and cameras and maps. He was a boy when the Villas Boas brothers first arrived by plane — a moment that changed everything. He has lived the before and after.
John Cain Carter refers to him as “the Sitting Bull of the Amazon” — not because he performs any kind of ceremonial mysticism, but because, like Sitting Bull, he is a man who has led his people through the slow erosion of a world. He carries history in his eyes. His strength is quiet but absolute.
Tacumá is slightly taller than most Kamayurá men. His skin, weathered and stained red from pequi oil, speaks of a lifetime under the sun. He wears little — a single beaded cord knotted at his waist — but he carries himself with the weight of someone who has spent a life protecting what can’t be recovered once lost.
When John meets him, it’s not ceremony that defines the interaction — it’s clarity. Tacumá sees a man who wants to help but hasn’t yet learned what that really means. He doesn’t try to impress John. He doesn’t try to instruct him. He simply speaks to him, man to man, with the kind of perspective that comes from standing in one place long enough to see it change.
“You must go now. Remember to face the winds with courage. Some men get lost in the darkness, but do not fear it. Inside the storm is a voice calling you. It’s the same voice that brought you here.”
Tacumá doesn’t claim to know where John is going. But he knows what it means to hold a line when the world shifts beneath your feet. That’s what makes him a leader. That’s what makes him unforgettable.