Of Wood, Voodoo and Llama (Part at Last)

Woodsie Woodsie Die Woodsie got up.

With heavy steps he approached the great tree, picked up the tomahawk and held it in his blackened hands. The rain kept falling in the jungle, soaking everything in a murky veil. Echoes of thunder came from the distance, as white cracks of light formed on the horizon. He loosened his grip on the tomahawk and let it slide down in his hand. It fell with a thud and hammered the ground with its weight.

  He looked up and saw only darkness. Then he closed his eyes and turned his face to the ground. Like a predator surrounding his prey, he began to walk in circles around the tree - slowly with a heavy pace - with his tomahawk ploughing rings around the ancient roots.

And lightning struck again above his head.

The tomahawk flailed wildly against the air as he started swirling like a tornado, making the trees around him bend and crash from the gust of wind. With a kick he pushed the earth from his feet and leaped high into the air.

For a moment everything froze, and he stood there. Above the trees and the birds and the animals, among his brothers and sisters, who tear the sky and light the night with white fire. And Machusacha was beneath his toes.

He raised the tomahawk and dived.

But then something unexpected happened.

As he dashed for the tree ready to deliver the final blow, from it's roots, a thousand red vines erupted, thin like threads and hard like diamonds. For the first time, a sudden glimpse of terror reflected in his eyes.

The needles flung towards the demon and the tomahawk flew towards Machusasha.

* * *

  Like a pin cushion.

  Pierced and nailed in mid air above the tree they found him.

The tomahawk was lying on the ground along with a chunk of fallen wood. Machusasha was bleeding, but time would heal the wounds.

Oji walked below the hanging demon. On the top of his staff, hanged by red thread, was the granite doll. As he untied it the vines begun to contract back to the roots of the tree. The demon's body fell to the ground and the thundering tremor from the crush spread until the far ends of the forest. He bend over and plucked the last feather from the demonic headdress. Then he picked up the fallen log and placed it on a flat rock. The pilgrims gathered around him once again and pointed their staves towards the log. All started humming louder and louder, and Oji chanted and singed and danced the one legged dance around the center. A schism in the sky appeared and from inside the nothingness, the devouring serpents of the void appeared. As a ray of energy struck the altar setting the log on fire Oji pinned the magical feather on Machusasha's bark, sending the demon's soul imprisoned to the Great Void - the chasm between the living worlds.

The void took it's price and left, and so did the three pilgrims, and as for Oji, he wasn't seen around again.

This is the tale of how the enemy of the forest was defeated.

* * *

In the somewhat far west villages there is a story of a similar demon.

The old legend says when the demon's soul was rested inside the log, it took life and the form of a young wooden boy - not a real boy, just a wooden one - with a curious predisposition to a disease, also known as the Munchausen syndrome.

The demon and the boy were banished to an distant place called Tuscany, where people eat pizza and speak in singing tongues. The demon was damned to live forever there, bound to the very material he once loathed. There he took the form of an old man named Geppetto and to his doll he gave the name of his father, Pinocchio. He became a humble woodcarver and waited for the time he would be free again.

But that's another story.

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