It’s bad that wisdom should be getting lost. Before, there were any number of seripigaris, and if the man who walks had any doubts about what to eat, how to cure the evil, or which stones protect against Kientibakori and his little devils, he went and asked. There was always a seripigari close by. Smoking, drinking brew, thinking, talking with the saankarites in the worlds up above, he could find the answer. But now there are few of them and some of them shouldn’t call themselves seripigaris. Can they counsel you? Their wisdom has dried up on them like a worm-eaten root, it seems. This brings much confusion. Wherever I go, that’s what the men who walk say. Could it be because we don’t keep on the move enough? they say. Can it be that we’ve grown lazy? We’re not fulfilling our obligation, perhaps. That, anyway, is what I have learned. The wisest seripigari I ever knew has gone. Maybe he’s come back; maybe not. He lived on the other side of the Gran Pongo, by the Kompiroshiato.
