He was still alive, they said. He could be eighty-five by then. He lived in Borbón. I should go and ask him to prove it was true, they said. They even recalled his real name, which I forgot. His nickname, that was unforgettable: El Comecayapo, "the Cayapo eater," or one who likes eating Cayapas Indians.

How did he come to be known by such a name? He used to live up in "la montaña," the hills, near a footpath used by the Indians to go back and forth between home in the mountain and the coast, a long walk that usually took many days to complete.

One night, a group of Cayapas asked him to let them stay in his hut, as they needed some rest before continuing their journey home the next day. He agreed, but once they were asleep he thought it would be a good idea to take something from them in return. They were carrying among other things a good amount of meat, for sure the product of a good hunt. He decided to take a chunk of that meat for himself, convinced they would not notice it.

In the morning they departed, just to return in alarm a few days later asking about the missing meat. Cayapas are very attached to their place, to such an extent that they do not consider dying away from home. Should that happen, the body has to be returned home, since it must be buried inside of the house. The house will be abandoned after that, and a new one will be built somewhere else.

It so happened that one of the Cayapas had died very far from home while traveling. There was no way to go back without the body completely decomposing. That is why they decided to prepare the body just as they would prepare any meat, scaling, smoking and salting it. Not a bad idea after all, and so well executed that it fooled the Comecayapo. He never noticed that he was eating human flesh.

(Thanks to M and F for sharing the anecdote, and for the time spent building together).