The Tiger of Sumpul
He was there. Black under the branches, the sinister face dotted with moonlight. He was clearly distinguished by the three guara feathers that he wore on his forehead; he was the Tiger del Sumpul (figure 1), that lonely and lost river that creeps under rocks and among roots, the river of crimes that have been stained so many times in blood and has heard so many cries of anguish and pain. A river of corpses and bones! Figure 1. The Tiger of Sumpul. ¹ Right there, that man who hid behind the trunk of that gnarled tigüilote had robbed the travelers and had paid their margins with blood. He was of Mayan origin. He had been raised in the mountains, in the high mountains of Chalatenango, where the Pipil Confederation had stopped the advance of Ulmec imperialism. From the upper Cayaguanca to the gloomy Sumpul, he had traveled committing crimes. On the roadside he burned a mixture of "tapa" (datura) and tobacco leaves, the smoke of which produces sleep, delirium, and inst