The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa

they could see in the night the way you and I can see in the daytime. They said: “It’s quite true. Kashiri, the moon, is grateful to us for the help we give him.” They started calling themselves not men of the earth, as before, or men who walk, or men who talk. But men of darkness.
    Everything was going very well, perhaps. They seemed happy, perhaps. Life went on without anything happening. They felt at peace. Those who went came back, and one way or another, there was always enough food. “We were wise to do what we did,” they said. But they were mistaken, it seems. They had lost wisdom. They were all turning into kamagarinis, but they didn’t know it. Until certain things started happening to them. One fine day Tasurinchi woke up covered with fish scales, with a tail where his feet had been. He looked like an enormous carachama. Yes, the fish that lives in water and on land, the fish that swims and walks. Dragging himself painfully along, he took refuge in the pond, muttering mournfully that he couldn’t bear life on land because he missed the water. A few moons later, when he woke up, wings had sprouted where Tasurinchi’s arms used to be. He gave a little hop, and they saw him take off and disappear above the trees, beating his wings like a hummingbird. A snout and tusks grew on Tasurinchi, and his sons, not recognizing him, shouted excitedly: “A sajino! Let’s eat it!” When he tried to tell them who he was, all he could do was snort and grunt. He had to make his escape trotting clumsily on his four stumpy legs he hardly knew how to use, pursued by a hungry horde aiming arrows and stones at him. “Let’s catch it, let’s chase it down!” they said.
    The earth was running short of men. Some had turned into birds, some into fish, others into tortoises or spiders, and went to live the life of little kamagarini devils. “What is happening to us? What misfortunes are these?” the ones who survived asked themselves, bewildered. They were helpless with fear and blind, but they didn’t know it. Once again, wisdom had been lost. “We are about to disappear,” they moaned. They were sad, perhaps. And then, amid all the confusion, the Mashcos fell upon them and there was a great massacre. They cut off the heads of many and carried off their women. It seemed that there would be no end to the catastrophes. And then it all of a sudden occurred to one of them, in his despair: “Let’s go visit Tasurinchi.”
    He was a seripigari, old by then, who lived by the river Timpía, behind a waterfall. He listened to them but said nothing. He went with them to the place where they lived. His eyes gummy with sleep, he contemplated the hopelessness and disorder that reigned in the world. He fasted for several moons, silent, concentrating, meditating. He prepared the brews for the trance. He pounded green tobacco in a mortar, pressed the leaves through a sieve, poured water on them, and put the pot on to boil till the brew thickened and bubbled. He pounded the roots of ayahuasca, pressed out the dark juice, boiled it, and let it cool. They put out the fire and covered the hut all around with plantain leaves so it would be totally dark inside. The seripigari breathed smoke on them one by one, all of them; he chanted and they answered him, chanting. Then he swallowed his brews, still chanting. They waited, breathless. He went on waving his bundle of leaves and chanting. They didn’t understand what he was saying. At last, when he’d become a spirit, they saw his shadow climb up the center pole of the hut and disappear through the roof, out the very same place the devil goes when carrying off souls. Not long after, he came back. He had the same body as before, but it was no longer him; it was a saankarite. He scolded them furiously. He reminded them of what they had been, of what they had done, all the many sacrifices since they had started