Jagua, A Journey Into Body Art from the Amazon. Carine Jr. Fabius

out about jagua, the more intriguing it gets. In response to a blog about jagua that I once posted on my website, one person commented that she was from the Dominican Republic and that jagua grows there too. “It is an exquisite fruit,” she wrote, adding, almost seductively, “Try going there, and have a great time while you’re at it...”

      I knew that jagua grows in tropical places. You can even find it in my native Haiti, home of Vodou spirit possessions and hard times under a humid sun that sets every evening on resistant flowers. But the place it grows in profusion is in the Amazon, where intrigue reigns supreme.

      Jagua reveals its secrets in its own time and tempo, so my education is a work in progress, but here is what I know for sure about the fruit thus far:

      Jagua is temperamental

      Jagua is unpredictable

      Jagua is consistent

      Jagua is demanding

      Jagua is giving

      Jagua takes its time

      Jagua changes its mind

      Jagua keeps its promise

      Jagua keeps me on my toes

      I am in love with jagua

      Meeting Jagua

      We had never made our search for a natural skin dye that would safely stain the skin black an obsessive pursuit, but it was something always hovering in the background, gently requesting our attention with persistent reminders (such as regular customer inquiries). We had all but given up hope that such a thing existed. Yet we were prodded on in our search, especially by frequent reports of serious skin damage to temporary tattoo aficionados caused by fake products purporting to be so-called black henna.

      Pascal and I first heard about jagua when our office manager stumbled upon it while surfing the Internet one day. Mesmerized by what it promised to deliver, I became consumed with the goal of finding a way to import the fruit or its extract from a producer in any of the countries where it grows.

      Our very first attempts at importing the elusive Jagua fruit proved disastrous—administratively, logistically, and financially. Dead end number 1. There would be many others. So I was really happy when we crossed paths with Mr. X, an American ecologist and conservationist who had written various articles on a number of Amazonian Indian groups. In many of these articles, he described the Indians’ use of the jagua fruit to paint their bodies black or to create tribal markings with it as part of their current cultural practices. Accompanying his pieces were gorgeous photographs of men and women with bold black stripes on their faces and bodies, or with long whiskers made from the ribs of palm leaves to make them look like jaguars (there is no etymological connection between the words jagua and jaguar). He also sold videos of footage depicting these tribal groups—videos that were inherently fascinating and invited further inquiry. To be Californian for a moment, it was, like, wow! I emailed the man, told him about our small business, and what we were looking for. To my delight, he responded with enthusiasm and offered to put us in touch with various tribal communities, among them the Matsés, Ticuna, Bora, and others living in the Peruvian Amazon.

      A couple of months later, as Pascal prepared to board his flight to Lima and beyond, he promised to stay in touch with me every three days to let me know he was alive and well. As it turns out, in the month he was away, he managed to call me a total of three times—when it exists, technology is downright spotty in the jungle! While a sleepless night or two did claim me, instinctively I felt he was okay. Little did I know that the Matsés, the people he ended up staying with, had as recently as the seventies, been one of the groups most feared by the Peruvian government because of their fierce warrior ways and well-documented raids on nearby tribal communities for the purpose of taking their women captive. The Matsés had even kidnapped a couple of nuns! Fortunately, at least in that regard, things are much different now.

      In any case, during one of our early telephone conversations, I encouraged Pascal to record his impressions and observations in a journal, which he agreed to do.