Temedauí - the enchanted city

The old ones say, and that is certainly pagan, because then they were not christened, that there is a hole here called Temedauí, which goes way down into the earth. Temedauí, the enchanted city. It is located beneath Santa Isabel do Rio Negro. From far away it looks like a city. There are streets, houses, all made of stone, really of stone. And one can see human tracks there.

That's how the story goes which the old people, the Pagis, the medicine men, tell. They say that there is a hole here...

That is the magic of here...

Exactly over there there is a stone in the shape of a Boto. Boto literally means: he who swims on the water in the river. That's probably also the sorcerers. I don't know what sort of secrets are concealed there.

One goes into the hole and lands there in this city, in the enchanted city, which is called Temedauí. It is beautiful there, really beautiful. One sees the little city, which is clean and inviting... One sees houses which hold everything which one needs... Lots of people have disappeared there already. I don't know what sort of mysteries are there.

But there is definitely something on this land here. It would be good for us to know what is going on. Sometimes illnesses crop up.

The skin swells up, the little hole swells up, especially when the girls are 12, 13, 14 years old and they get their first menstruation, when they develop into women. Then the sorcery attacks.

There is also a hole, here, right here. I believe that when one pours water into it then it flows through and I don't know where it ends up. Certainly somewhere over there. Somewhere, but there are also the faces of the sorcerers.

Before there were still lots of medicine men. And it was a medicine man that discovered that there is a hole here, which goes through to a mysterious city.

Told by Bento dos Santos in Maria Bethania am Rio Negro, on 5th October 2000.