Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) / A Record of Five Years' Exploration Among the Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and Among the Tarascos of Michoacan

by Carl Lumholtz

Deluge Legends

When the world became full of water, a little girl and a little boy climbed up on a mountain, called Laváchi (gourd), which is south of Panalachic, and when the waters subsided they came down again. They brought three grains of corn and three beans with them. The rocks were soft after the flood, and the footprints of the little boy and the little girl may still be seen. They planted the corn and went to sleep and had a dream that night; then they harvested, and all the Tarahumares are descended from them.

The Tarahumares were fighting among themselves and Tata Dios sent much rain, and all the people perished. After the flood he sent three men and three women to people the earth. They planted corn at once, bringing three kinds, the same varieties still found here—soft corn, hard corn, and yellow corn.