CRY UNCLE

According to one modern author, human sacrifice is still routinely conducted in parts of Peru and Bolivia. The victims are young women, who are taken to an "apacheta" (the highest accessible spot on a mountain) and, at a ceremony known as a "misa" (mass) are sacrificed to "The Tiu" (from the Spanish "Uncle."). There is an emphasis on the voluntary nature of this, the accounts mention women who "did not want to be sacrificed" and therefore were not. The rite is carried out by a professional shaman who often has one or more purchased girls in tow for use in these rituals. The descriptions below are derived from Patrick Tierney's book The Highest Altar, (Viking, 1989).

"Don't drink so much, little girl," the shaman said with a broad grin. "You'll get drunk!" The light from the fire Larry had helped him build made his craggy face shine starkly red as he crouched on the rocky soil of the place he'd brought them to, high in the Peruvian hills.

"No, no," the pretty nineteen-year-old almost sang back. "I want to marry the tiu! You have to drink to marry the tiu!" Holding a half-full bottle of tequila, she danced around the fire, her long black hair flowing out behind her, her large dark eyes reflecting the firelight.

The shaman's grin broadened. "She has said it herself," he noted. "No one said it for her, she has said it herself!" Ignoring him, the girl kicked off her shoes, danced barefoot on the rocks; her dance gradually became more and more suggestive.

Standing a little to one side, his arms folded across his chest, Larry watched her. The shaman did not know it, but Larry had been aware, well in advance of the ceremony, that the girl would say precisely what she'd said. Drunk she might've been, but she knew exactly what she was doing. Staring at her, hardly able to believe what was happening, Larry couldn't help reflecting on the unbelievable events of the past several weeks.

He'd come to Peru with high hopes for the future; the owner of a failing manufacturing business in the United States, he'd taken advantage of a little-known government program designed to provide Peruvians with an income alternative to the growing of coca. With government assistance he'd moved his plant here, to this remote village in the Andes. For a while--while the plant was being built and the first wave of workers were being trained--everything went smoothly.

Then, there'd been an accident, a fire; a local worker had been seriously injured. To Larry's absolute amazement, not a single man, other than those he'd hired as managers, showed up for work the next day.

"It is the way it is here, senor," Umberto, one of his managers, told him. "The accident, all the workers think it a sign, a sign from the Tiu. Before any of them will come back to work, you must perform a misa at the apacheta."

At first, Larry hadn't been the least interested in understanding what they were talking about; he'd raged, yelled, threatened. None of it did any good, and finally, he'd asked what he was expected to do. They'd told him; the "Tiu," they'd said--the word was a derivation of the Spanish for "uncle"--was a local god believed to inhabit the mountains, a god who could at whim bestow good or bad luck. "Misa" merely meant "mass;" the "apacheta" was a sacred spot up on one of the high peaks, the highest area of flat ground that could be found locally. Asking how he was to go about performing this "misa," he was told that he had to hire the local shaman to do it for him, and Umberto, obligingly, offered to provide an introduction.

His meeting with the shaman--an old and amazingly ugly man--was a shock; the man had explained that the "misa" that Larry needed involved the offering of a gift to the Tiu--the gift being a young and pretty girl. This girl, the shaman explained to a disbelieving Larry, would be sacrificed at the apacheta--just as it had been done before Columbus ever arrived in the Americas.

Once he'd gotten over his shock, Larry had, in a rage, sent the man away; and yet, even as he did, he found himself imagining the sacrifice, wondering how it would be done, fantasizing about it--so much so that he sometimes found himself hoping that something would arise to force his hand. Nevertheless, he'd doggedly insisted that he'd have no more to do with this crazy business; but, as the days dragged on and not a single worker was willing to set foot in his factory, he was forced to have second thoughts.

And, at last, he'd sent for the shaman again. A deal was struck; once it was, the old man disappeared, and when he returned he had a young girl in tow, a girl Larry assumed was a helper of some sort. Young, strikingly pretty, and more than a little flirtatious, she'd attracted Larry immediately.

At first, though, Larry hadn't pursued her; he hadn't wanted to offend the shaman. The medicine man, however, had already seen what was happening, and he, taking the lead, had told Larry rather bluntly that he had no objections to anything Larry might want to do with the girl. Taking that as permission, Larry had approached her; she'd seemed open and eager, and he'd taken her to bed that very night--and every night since. During discussions between lovemaking sessions, he'd asked her what the exact nature of her relationship with the shaman was.

He could remember it very clearly; the girl had been lying on his bed, nude, her incredibly smooth skin glowing golden brown in the late afternoon sunlight. "He purchased me," she'd told him, "from my family in San Acona." She'd smiled. "He paid my father five hundred dollars for me!" She'd seemed very proud of the amount, which to Larry seemed cheap.

Larry had been shocked. "Your family sold you? That must've been horrible for you!"

She'd laughed. "Oh, no. No, he came to me first; he found me in the city looking for work. He told me who he was, he told me what he wanted; I thought about it, I told him to meet me the next day. By then I'd decided, I'd made up my mind. I took him to see my papa. Mama cried, but papa sold me."

"So you're his--slave?"

She'd shaken her head. "Not his slave, no--though I do belong to him. No, I--go with him, I--help him. Always I have known he would sell me again." Her wonderfully beautiful dark eyes had been bright, excited. "And now, he has!"

"He has? To who?"

She'd exploded in laughter. "To you, Lairee! I have been sold to you, for your misa!"

As she'd said this, he'd gone ice-cold inside. Knowing quite well what this "misa" entailed, he'd felt sure he knew what her role was to be--and he'd been just as sure that she had not the slightest inkling of it. "No, no, wait," he'd told her. "No, you don't know what--"

"Yes," she'd said, stopping his words by laying a gentle finger on his lips. "Yes, Lairee, I do know, I have always known, since the day he came to me in my town. I know very well; we have--how you say--rehearsed it. I know all my lines, I know exactly what is expected of me."

Larry had relaxed a little; obviously, he'd jumped to conclusions, she couldn't be slated for the role he'd imagined. "And what are you expected to do?" he'd asked curiously.

Smiling still, she'd rolled over, she'd laid her head on his thigh, and she'd toyed with his slowly-recovering erection while she spoke. "On the night he chooses," she'd said, "we will go to the Apacheta, up on the mountain. We will build a fire, we will give offerings to the Tiu; then he will give me tequila to drink, beer to drink, cigars to smoke. I will dance, and I will become very drunk very quickly, and I will say, I will cry, 'I want to marry the Tiu!'"

She'd paused and giggled; for Larry the coldness had begun to return. "And then," he'd asked, "what'll happen?"

"And then," she went on, smiling at his now utterly rigid erection, "he will take off my clothes. I will be naked, I will be completely naked, naked as I am right now. I will dance more, a little more. I will be drunk, very very drunk. He will come to me, I will go to him." Pausing again, she'd reached down between her legs and spread her genitals open; at the same time she'd tipped her head down and licked his penis a few times--only then had he realized that her words had spurred it to rock-hardness.

"He will have a knife," she's said, her voice dreamy. "A big knife, I have seen it many many times. It will be very sharp because I myself will have sharpened it!" She'd pressed on her groin. "Right here, right here, he will push it in me, far up in me. My blood will run out. There will be pain, terrible pain, but I will not feel it too much because of the drink, and I will not cry out from the pain; instead I will cry 'oh, yes, the Tiu has entered me!'" She'd drawn her hand up over her body slowly until she'd reached her breast. "Then, I will say, 'ah, Tiu, Tiu, kiss my breasts!' But no one will kiss them, he will use that knife again and he will pierce them, and after he has pierced them he will cut them off. I will lie down then, on the ground before the fire, and my blood will run out, and it will keep running out until I die. Then, you will bury me and your misa will be complete." Her smile still in place, she'd lowered her head and sucked in his raging penis.

"You're crazy!" Larry had cried, choking on the word because of the stimulation of her lips and tongue. "Crazy! You're just going to go up there with us and let him kill you?"

She'd looked up, evidently startled, an expression of wide-eyed innocence on her face. "Lairee, did you not know that during the misa a woman would be sacrificed to the Tiu?"

"Yes! I just didn't know it'd be you!"

Her eyes had grown even wider. "Why does it matter?"

"Well, Jesus! I know you now! Besides, I don't understand, I thought he was going to go out and kidnap somebody!"

Again she'd exploded with laughter. "Lairee, if he goes out and kidnaps somebody she won't know her part! She might even fight and struggle, she might try to run away!" She'd pursed her lips in a smile. "I," she'd continued, "will not..."

"I just cannot believe this! I just can't! Knowing you're going to be killed--good God, knowing how you're going to be killed!--you're just going to walk up there and let him do it?"

She'd looked puzzled. "Yes, of course. That is why he bought me, after all!"

"But--!"

"You don't understand, Lairee," she said patiently. "I was a poor girl from a poor family. What were my choices? I am pretty, I am told; I can marry a farmer, I can have ten children, I will no longer be pretty. I can be la puta, I can make much money, but in ten years I will be all used up, what good is money then? I can work as a maid, my employer will take advantage because I am poor, I have no voice. I can--"

"Any of those beats dying on a mountaintop this weekend!"

"For you, maybe. Not for me. If I go, if I let the Old Man cut me, if I die, all will remember me. All will say 'such courage!' I will die but I will be with the Tiu, and I will be remembered. And there is this, too, Lairee--I will not die in a bed, sick, sometime in the future. My death will be an adventure, my death will be exciting!" She'd begun squirming on the bed then. "Come, Lairee!" she'd demanded, grabbing at his rock-hard erection. "Put this where the knife will go!"

He'd done as she'd asked; he was at least as excited as she was. Their lovemaking had been violent but brief, but, each night since, they'd gotten together again; each time they'd discussed her coming death, and each time they'd fallen together with raging passion afterwards.

The previous night had been perhaps the most intense of all. He'd gone to her room immediately after a conference with the shaman; she'd been expecting him, she'd been waiting for him, and she'd greeted him in the nude.

"The misa is tomorrow night," she'd said. Putting her hands under her breasts, she'd lifted them as if offering them. "Kiss my breasts, Lairee," she'd begged. "Kiss them now, for tomorrow they will be cut off my body..." He'd obliged; after kissing her mouth, he'd licked and sucked her nipples for a long time. While he was sucking her left one, she'd rolled the right between her fingers. "Will it excite you, Lairee?" she'd asked. "Will it excite you when you see a knife going in, right here, when you see my blood running out? Ah, Lairee, it will cause me pain, it will pain me! Will you be excited, Lairee, when I am dying?" He'd hesitated; she'd laughed. "I want you to be excited, Lairee!"

"I don't think you have to worry about that," he'd mumbled in response.

Again, she'd reached down, spreading her vagina wide. "Touch me here, Lairee," she'd asked. "Touch me, push your fingers inside me." He'd done that; she'd sighed and squirmed. "Ah, yes, yes! Ah, his knife will go in like that, just like that--he will cut me, inside, so deep...!"

"You sound like you're actually looking forward to this!"

She'd laughed again. "I am. I have seen this ritual, Lairee. He has had other girls besides me. He sold one, oh, three, four months ago. At the misa, I watched."

He'd been intrigued; in spite of rising excitement he’d pulled his fingers out of her. "You watched?"

"Yes."

"And it was done--like you said he was going to do you?"

"No. It was a different misa. Marina was not to 'marry the Tiu.' It was different."

"What happened?"

She'd shrugged. "She danced, she smoked, she drank. She took off all her clothes, she danced some more. Finally the Old Man called her to him, and she was good, she was strong, she came to him."

"What'd he do?"

The girl's eyes had been glowing. "She laid down when he told her," she'd continued, "and she spread her arms out, straight out, like so, and she opened her legs a little. He knelt beside her." She'd begun caressing her own stomach, just above her navel. "Then, right here, he stood his knife. On its point. Oh, Lairee, Marina had good courage, she smiled! The Old Man went on with the misa then, for a long time he kept the knife standing on her belly and he prayed, he chanted, he sang.

"Then, at last, he looked down at her, he nodded to her and she nodded back--and she knew that he meant he was going to put the knife in her then. He called the man who the misa was for; and while the Old Man held the knife in place, while he guided the blade, he told the man to push on it, to push it down, to push it into Marina. That man, he was frightened!" She laughed. "Marina was looking up at him, watching him, and he did not know what he should do. But Marina smiled and looked down at the knife, and he put his palms on the back of it; he looked at her eyes and she smiled again and she nodded to him and she even pushed her belly up against it. Then he started pushing it in."

She'd begun quivering then. "Ah, Lairee, it was very beautiful! Marina was so strong; I saw the way the knife pushed her stomach in, I saw when it started to go into her body. She made fists and her legs trembled but she did not move and she did not cry out, she only groaned a little bit. Down, down went that knife, deeper and deeper; Marina's blood came roaring up, it ran off her body onto the ground. Finally it was all the way in, the handle was sitting on her belly." She'd sighed; there was a faraway look in her eyes. "I could see her face, her eyes, I could see the pain she was feeling, but she still did not move. They drew the knife back out of her, and her blood came out, more, much more, a big puddle of it on the ground."

"What happened then?"

"For a long time, they stood and they watched her, they watched her bleed. Then the Old Man said it was time, time for her to go. He knelt down beside her again, he stood the knife here." The girl indicated a spot on her left breast, inside and below the nipple. "Then he pushed it, he pushed it down and in, in deep, oh, so deep... Marina closed her eyes, she trembled; the Old Man, he cut her, down her side, like so. There was much blood, very much blood. Then, after he had cut her, he pried open her chest; while she trembled he reached inside and tore out her heart, he threw it in the fire!"

"My God!"

"Oh, yes! It was very beautiful, Lairee!"

"And you... you're going to let this happen to you? You agreed to this when you first met him?"

She'd nodded. "Yes... as I told you..."

"I just don't understand that!"

"Well. As I have told you, I was in San Acona looking for work. He came up to me, in the park, he said, 'little girl, I have a job for you.' I told him I'd take it, I was so poor, I needed a job so badly..."

"And he said?"

"He explained what he was. He told me he always needed girls for his misas; he told me I was pretty, I was--how you say--ideal for it..." She smiled almost shyly. "The Tiu likes pretty girls, Lairee..."

"And you knew what the misas entailed. What--uh--use you were going to be put to."

She looked away. "Yes," she answered. "I knew that he meant that he would--sooner or later--kill me. I decided that I wanted it to be that way."

“You want to be killed.”

Her eyes were shining. “Yes,” she declared. “Yes. This is right for me.” She touched his face lightly. “And now I am to die for you, Lairee, for your misa.” Her eyes misted, her features were soft. “It is a good thing, Lairee, you are a good man... it will please me to die for you...” She scooted toward him, pushing her body against his erection. “It pleases me to excite you...”

After that his control had vanished; but, even as they fell to lovemaking, she kept talking about what was going to happen the next, about the misa...

All had gone as she'd said; without protest or comment she'd accompanied them earlier that day as they'd made their way up the mountainside to the apacheta, sometimes almost dancing ahead of them, looking happy as a child. She'd helped them build the fire, she'd helped with the offerings; once all that had been done the shaman had given her a signal Larry believed he was not supposed to have seen, and she'd begun her loud protesting that she wanted to "marry the Tiu!"

Now, she looked in his direction, smiled, and gave him a wink as she danced on; in a short time, the tequila was gone. The shaman gave her a cigar; she lit it and smoked it awkwardly but furiously. By now her eyes were rather glazed. "More liquor," she called, giggling and slurring her words. The shaman handed her a bottle of beer, and she drank it down almost without pausing.

Still singing, trying to dance but repeatedly stumbling, she made another circuit of the fire; the shaman--and Larry, following the old man's instruction--approached her, and the shaman lifted the hem of her dress. Smiling sensually, her eyes half closed, she put a finger to her lip and watched him as he pushed it on up to her waist. She wore no underpants. Her legs were very beautiful; she bent them a little, and the shaman stroked her pubic hair, slipped a finger between her legs. He handed her another bottle of beer, and she drank it while the shaman toyed with her genitals. Larry, his chest tight with anticipation, stroked her legs; when the shaman grinned with approval he let his hand stray between them, finally working a finger up inside her vagina. She moaned softly; she was very wet.

Finally the shaman pushed her dress on up; she raised her arms, let him pull it over her head. Now completely nude, her trim and athletic body glistened in the light; the shaman threw her dress into the fire, watched it burn. She watched that, too, without saying a word in protest.

Then he turned back to her. "It is time now," he told her, "time for your wedding with the tiu!"

She sighed, tried to focus her glassy but still-lovely eyes on his face. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes, it is, it is...!"

"Good," he said. "Come here, crouch by the fire."

She did, squatting with her knees spread as he knelt in front of her. She seemed to be concentrating on keeping herself steady, but with little success; each time she lost her balance she giggled. Finally, at the shaman's request, Larry stood behind her and held her shoulders. She put her hands on his, and, looking back at him, smiled dreamily and gave him a knowing look. Then, turning her head again, she watched the shaman draw the long double-edged knife from his waistband. She shivered noticeably but her smile didn't fade.

Lowering his head, the shaman rested one hand on her knee and brought the knife up between her legs, teasing her genitals lightly with it, tucking the blade between the soft and lightly-haired folds. Feeling the touch, she sighed and smiled.

"It is time for you to love the tiu now," the shaman whispered, slipping the tip of the knife inside her vagina. "Are you ready?" By the firelight, Larry saw the edges of the blade pressing against her labia. The tightness in his chest increased, and it was matched by an almost painful tightness in his pants in the front; he could not remember ever having been so excited in his entire life.

Turning her head, she threw another quick glance at Larry. She smiled, crinkling her nose, and arched her eyebrows; then she looked down at her groin, at the knife, then back at the shaman. "Yesss..." she whispered in answer.

"Hold her well," the shaman cautioned, his eyes flicking up and then back down. His hands trembling, Larry did as he was told; the shaman, using his left hand and right elbow to keep her legs well spread, began sliding the knife up inside her, slowly but steadily. After a moment blood made its appearance, trickling down her inner thighs and dripping onto the ground. The girl's body stiffened; Larry felt her fingers clamp down on his hands.

"Oh," she sighed. "Oh, ooooo...!" The shaman worked the blade deeper; the flow of blood increased sharply. He kept on, forcing the knife on in until nothing of it was visible except the hilt. "Oh, yes!" she cried. "Yes, yes! He has entered me! Yes, I am his woman now...!"

The shaman moved the handle of the knife from side to side, sliding it out a little as he did, then drawing it back and slipping it quickly up inside her again. The rush of blood increased again, dramatically. The girl squirmed a little and her face now looked a little tight. Picking up a gold cup, the shaman held it under the gushing blood; it filled rapidly. "You see?" he said, pulling the bloody knife out and glancing up at Larry. "As I said, as I told you. She is with the tiu now."

"Put it back inside me," the girl moaned. "My tiu, my man, put it back...!"

"Yes, little girl," the shaman said, looking into her shining eyes. "He will, he will!" As he spoke he pushed the knife back up inside her. This time he kept it there for several minutes, sliding it back and forth, cutting deeply into the tissues in and around her vagina. Her body trembled and her blood bubbled out in a torrent, soaking the ground between her legs.

Then he took it out again, put the cup back under her. "The tiu wants to play with your breasts now, little one," he told the girl softly.

She smiled langorously. Lowering her hands unsteadily, she stroked her stiffly erect nipples. "Mmmm," she murmured. "I'd like that, I'd like that...!"

"I thought you would," the shaman said softly. He brought the knife up; she looked right at the blood-covered blade but didn't react, not even when he pressed the point of the knife hard against her nipple, flattening her breast against her ribs. "Hold her," he repeated, glancing up at Larry again. Then he began pushing much harder, grinding the point into her breast.

The point broke through, blood welled out; with a long sigh she threw her head back, pressing it against Larry's chest. Again her fingers clamped on his hands; the shaman pushed on, slipping the knife gently into her breast. He did not bury it; once he'd pierced her to a depth of about three inches he pulled it back and out. For several minutes he waited, letting her blood splash on the ground. Then he slipped the edge of the knife up under the breast and began cutting her, deeply; again she merely sighed. Holding her bleeding breast and pulling it out a little, the shaman sliced into it again and again from beneath; fresh blood streamed down her chest even as it continued to flow from her torn vagina. He moved her hand aside as she tried to touch her nipple again and kept cutting until her breast had been severed, leaving a large and freely-bleeding wound on her chest.

"He's not kissing my other nipple," she complained. "I want him to kiss my other nipple!"

"As you wish, little girl," the shaman said. But it was the knife that moved to her remaining breast, the knife's point that touched her nipple, that first teased it lightly and then bit into it.

"Mm, oh, yes!" she cried. "Yes, yes!" She squirmed a little, and there was a rather loud ripping sound as the shaman pushed the knife deeper into her breast, right through the nipple. "Oh, yes, yes!" She looked down it, then back up at the shaman. She stretched her body up a little, pressing her own breast into the knife; then, she surprised them both by covering the shaman's hands with her own and, pulling hard, burying the knife even deeper in her own chest.

Shaking his head and smiling, the shaman pulled the knife out of her again. Holding her breast and pulling it out, he began slicing it from beneath, ignoring the spurting blood. Her head was lolling now; she was saying something but her words were slurred so badly as to be unintelligible.

"You can let her down now," the shaman told the man behind her as the girl's remaining breast came free. "She'll be dead in a couple of minutes."

Larry nodded and allowed her mangled body to slip to the ground. "I can't see how she's alive now!" he remarked.

"The power of the tiu," the shaman told him. On the ground, the girl, lying in an incredible pool of her own blood, still squirmed, still moaned and sighed. Her legs stretched out, drew up; her eyelids fluttered. But it wasn't too long before the blood loss took its toll, and her body relaxed. Even then, she continued to breathe for several minutes. But finally that movement too came to a halt. Her eyes, open now, stared sightlessly.

"It is finished," the shaman said with a dramatic gesture.