I can tell that Eko is dreading another banquet of grubs en papillote, and I’m not exactly looking forward to it either. Luckily, the tribe goes all out for Kidah, and grubs are just one of the menu options available. There is also roast peccary and wild fowl and a dozen varieties of fresh fruit, none of which I’ve ever seen before.

Kidah has a remarkable appetite for such a small man, and his table manners are not exactly polished. “I feel like I haven’t had a decent meal in a thousand years!” he laughs, tearing into a huge peccary haunch and wiping the grease off his cheek with the back of his hand. Then, to the delight of the kids, he lets loose a prodigious belch.

After the feast the shaman and the warriors recount the expedition to revive Kidah in songs and dances. I can’t understand the words, but I can follow the narrative as our expedition descends into the chasm, sails on the flimsy raft, and survives the friagem. The shaman does a wicked impersonation of Kidah slowly waking up from his sleep and looking around with bleary, stupefied eyes.

When the shaman finishes, to much laughter, the kids all point to Kidah. The wizard walks to the center of the clearing, enjoying his moment in the spotlight. First he sings. It’s a slow tune, beautiful and very sad, and I sense it’s a song about loss. I’m not sure whether it’s a dirge for a dying world or a ballad about a lost young love, but by the time he finishes, several of the old men and women have tears running down their cheeks.

Then Kidah dances out a story that involves different rain forest animals. He does an obnoxious howler monkey, and a peeved peccary, charging around the circle of kids with his index fingers out as tusks. The kids scream and dart out of the way.

Kidah’s dance ends with a battle between an eagle and a tarantula. His tarantula is fearsome, and reminds me quite a bit of Colonel Aranha, but his eagle is noble and overpowering. It bites the head off the thrashing tarantula to end the dance, and I find myself hoping that this kids’ show is also a divination of things to come.

Kidah closes his act with magic tricks. None of them are what you might expect from the great sorcerer of the next millennium. He does some sleight of hand that the kids love. Finally he asks a boy to come forward.

This boy was bitten on the calf by a poisonous snake years ago. With the help of the shaman’s nature cures the child survived, but his leg never recovered. I’ve watched him at play, gamely running after the other kids, dragging his useless limb. Now Kidah waves him over, and the boy hesitantly hobbles out to the center of the clearing.