The Kiss of Death

When they arrived at Villca Coto mountain, all sorts of animals had already filled it up: pumas, foxes, guanacos, condors, all kinds of animals in great numbers.

They stayed there huddling tightly together.

The waters covered all those mountains and it was only Villca Coto mountain, or rather its very peak, that was not covered by the water.

Water soaked the fox’s tail.

That’s how it turned black.

Five days later, the waters descended and began to dry up.

The drying waters caused the ocean to retreat all the way down again and exterminate all the people.

Afterward, that man began to multiply once more.

That’s the reason there are people until today.

Regarding this story, we Christians believe it refers to the time of the Flood.

But they believe it was Villca Coto mountain that saved them (Huarochiri ms., Chapter 3, 29-34, ed. and trans. Salomon and Urioste 1991).

Villca Coto Mountain was the most beautiful huaca (earth shrine) at the Inca court in Cuzco. A huaca is any material thing that manifests the superhuman: a mountain peak, a spring, a union of streams, a rock outcrop, an ancient ruin, a twinned cob of maize, a tree split by lightning (Salomon and Urioste 1991:17). The world imagined by Andeans is not made of two kinds of stuffmatter and spiritlike that of Christians. Huacas are energized matter. This myth gives the earth dynamic shape by mapping onto it huacas that symbolize idealized environments and relations between animals and humans. Humanity, the superhuman, society, and earth forms relate to each other in a structure of correspondence.

Andean legends offer us a map to reorder things. Brocket deer serve to warn about overpopulation and overconsumption; a llama predicts impending destruction of the earth and is carried on the herder’s back to Villca Cota, where they are saved.

A modern sequel to brocket deer and llama is vinchuca. Vinchuca brings humans Trypanosoma cruzi to remind them that they are in a state of eternal competition. Humans have beaten out virtually every other species to the point that humans now talk about protecting their former predators (Joshua Lederberg 1994). Vinchucas warn humans that they are not alone on top of the mountain. Trypanosoma cruzi and scores of other microbe predators are adapting, changing, evolving, and warning humans that any more rapid change might come at the cost of human devastation. Humans have been neglectful of the microbes, among other things, and that is coming back to haunt us. The world really is just one village. Vinchucas warn us to return to huaca Villca Cota.

Appendices

APPENDIX 1 Trypanosoma cruzi

The full taxonomic name of the Chagas’ disease parasite is Trypanosoma (Schizotrypanum) cruzi (Chagas 1909). In its biological classification, Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) belongs to subkingdom Protozoa, phylum Sarcomastigophora, subphylum Mastigophora, class Zoomoastigophorea, order Kinetoplastida, family Trypanosomatidae, genus Trypanosoma, and species cruzi. Each of these categories reveals something interesting about this parasite.

Trypanosomes fit into the order Kinetoplastida because they are flagellar organisms with a kinetoplast, an organelle unique to this order which contains the mitochondrial DNA and gives rise to the mitochondrion. Sausage- or disc-shaped, a kinetoplast has a single mitochondrion that contains enzymes for respiration and energy production. The DNA fibers run in an anterior-posterior direction and are organized into a network of linked circles, with up to 20,000 mini-circles and 20 to 50 maxi-circles in the kinetoplast network (Battaglia et al. 1983). Like a minuscule computer, these circles program the replication rate and survival activity of the mitochondrion during the cell cycle. Trypanosomes have one nucleus. Although there is indirect evidence of sexuality, it has not been observed directly (Tait 1983), and the organisms reproduce asexually by binary fission.

Trypanosoma cruzi belong to the family Trypanosomatidae, or trypanosomes, which are classified together because during one stage of their lives they live in the blood and/or tissues of vertebrate hosts, and during other stages they live in the intestines of bloodsucking invertebrate vectors (Schmidt and Roberts 1989). They also belong to the subgenus Schizotrypanum, which is a category adopted for trypanosomes that multiply in vertebrates via intracellular stages. Technically speaking, all species are hemoflagellate and heteroxenous and (except T. equiperdum) are transmitted to animal hosts.

Trypanosoma cruzi belong to the stercorian section (A. stercoria), a subspecies, because its infective stages develop in the vector’s digestive tract and contaminate the mammalian hosts through the vector’s feces. Important factors in the transmission of T. cruzi to humans are lack of personal hygiene, invasion of human habitations by vectors, and a close temporal relationship between the taking of the blood meal and defecation by the vector. Chagas’ disease also has been transmitted by insect feces falling from the ceiling and contaminating foods. Triatoma infestans is a particularly efficient vector because it defecates close to the bite wound, providing T. cruzi easy access to enter the wound.

In comparison, T. rangeli, which is not associated with human pathogenicity, belongs to the salivary section (B. salivaria) because it infects hosts through saliva as well as feces. Because the two parasites can be confused in diagnosis, one way to distinguish T. rangeli from T. cruzi is to examine by xenodiagnosis if the parasite is found in the insect’s saliva. If so, it is T. rangeli, which does not cause Chagas’ disease. The highly pathogenic (to humans) salivary trypanosomes belong to the T. bruceigroup, which are transmitted through the saliva of tsetse flies and cause human sleeping sickness.

Trypanosoma cruzi pass through different forms at various stages in their life cycle, of which three are important in the human context: trypomastigotes, amastigotes, and epimastigotes (see Figure 5). T. cruzi become metacyclic trypomastigotes in the hindgut of the vinchuca bug, and they are the infectious forms for animals and humans. Metacyclic trypomastigotes are 20 microns long, 3 microns wide, and can change positions very rapidly. (A micron equals .001 millimeters.) They are flat on the sides, with a free flagellum (tail) attached to an undulating membrane on the body (Manson-Bahr and Bell 1987). They have a central nucleus and a posterior kinetoplast. Trypomastigotes occur in peripheral blood of hosts and multiply by splitting lengthwise, with the kinetoplast and nucleus dividing before the cytoplasm and a new flagellum developing from the new kinoplast. Amastigotes are intracellular round and oval forms, 1.5 to 5 microns long, without an external flagellum. They occur within hosts.

All trypanosome species are either elongate with a single flagellum or rounded with a very short, nonprotruding flagellum. The flagellum arises from a kinetosome (core or basal body), is attached to the parasite’s membrane, and pulls the organism by undulating along its side and, at certain life stages, extending forward from its prow. This makes the organisms agile swimmers and intruders into cells. The flagellum may also be used to attach the organism to the insect’s gut wall or salivary glands.

Epimastigotes are easily distinguishable from trypomastigotes, because, in epimastigotes, the flagellum