It Was Up in the Mountains

It was up in the mountains

We had this ceremony every year

We had it and everyone from miles around came in for it

Cousins, aunts, uncles, and the kids

Grandmothers, grandfathers everyone

And we set it up around this big natural pool

With pine trees and palm trees

All the trees were there

And we had thousands of those big urns

You know the kind

And everyone would dance and sing

And it lasted for three days

Everyone cooked and looked forward to it all the year

Well, one year, we were in the middle of it

And I was just a boy at the time

Anyway, it was evening, and suddenly

A whole lot of tigers came in

I don't know where they came from

They rushed in, snarling

And knocked over all the urns

And it was really a mess

Well, we spent the whole

Next year rebuilding everything

But in the middle of the ceremony

The next time the same thing happened

These tigers rushed in again and broke everything

And then went back into the mountains

This must have gone on four or five years

This way rebuilding and then the tigers would come

And break everything, we were getting used to it

Finally we had a meeting and decided

To make these tigers part of the ceremony

You know to expect them

We began to put food in the urns

So the tigers would have something to eat

Not much at first crackers, things like that

Then later we put more food until finally

We were saving our food all year for the tigers

Then one year, the tigers didn't come

They never came back