Laurie Anderson - It Was Up In The Mountains Lyrics

It was up in the mountains. We had this ceremony every year. We had it and everyone from miles around came in for it. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and the kids. Grandmothers, grandfathers ... everyone. And we set it up around this big natural pool. With pine trees and palm trees. All the trees were there. And we had thousands of those big urns--you know the kind. And everyone would dance and sing, and it lasted for three days. Everyone cooked and looked forward to it all the year.
Well one year, we were in the middle of it, and I was just a boy at the time. Anyway, it was evening, and suddenly a whole lot of tigers came in. I don’t know where they came from. They rushed in, snarling, and knocked over all the urns, and it was really a mess.
Well, we spent the whole next year rebuilding everything. But in the middle of the ceremony the next time the same thing happened. These tigers rushed in again and broke everything and then went back into the mountains. This must have gone on four or five years this way--rebuilding and then the tigers would come and break everything. We were getting used to it.
Finally we had a meeting and decided to make these tigers part of the ceremony--you know--to expect them. We began to put food in the urns, so the tigers would have something to eat. Not much at first ... crackers, things like that. Then later we put more food until finally we were saving our food all year for the tigers.
Then one year, the tigers didn’t come. They never came back.