Folk belief confronts rationalistic science in this poetic fable that sees events through both European and village eyes. Set in the remote Canje region, the villagers feel that they have only the most vestigial remnants of their original Hindu world view. They have indeed absorbed much of the local mix of Amerindian/African folk beliefs, like the existence of the legendary massacouraman. What they still have is a residual Hindu view of the interconnectedness of all living things, though, in their state of rootlessness, this sometimes expresses itself in feelings of mutual hostility and unwarranted cruelty.