The Mythology of All Races, Vol. 11: Latin-American

by Hartley Burr Alexander

The men covered the corpse with a pall of beautiful feathers, placing about it Maconaura's arms and utensils; the women prepared the tapana for the funeral feast; and all assembled to hear the funeral chant, the last farewell of mother to son. She recounted the tragic tale of his love and death, and then, raising the cup of tapana to her lips, she cried: "Who has extinguished the light of my son? Who has sent him into the valley of shades? Woe! woe to him!... Alas! you see in me, O friends and brothers, only a poor, weak old woman. I can do nothing. Who of you will avenge me?" Forthwith two men sprang forward, seized the cup, and emptied it; beside the corpse they intoned the Kenaima song, dancing the dance of vengeance; and into one of them the soul of a boa constrictor entered, into the other that of a jaguar.

The great feast of tapana was being held at the village of Kaikoutji, where hundreds of natives were gathered, men, women, and children. They drank and vomited; drank and vomited again; till finally all were drunken. Then two men came, one in the hide of a jaguar, the other in the mottled scales of a boa constrictor; and in an instant Kaikoutji and all about him were struck down, some crushed by the jaguar's blows, others strangled in snaky folds. Nevertheless fear had rescued some from their drunkenness; and they seized their bows, threatening the assailants with hundreds of arrows, whereupon the two Kenaima ceased their attack, while one of them cried: "Hold, friends! we are in your hands, but let us first speak!" Then he recounted the tale of Maconaura, and when he had ceased, an old peaiman advanced, saying: "Young men, you have spoken well. We receive you as friends."

The feast was renewed more heartily than ever, but though Anuanaïtu, in her grief, had remained away, she now advanced, searching among the corpses. She examined them, one by one, with dry eyes; but at last she paused beside a body, her eyes filled with tears, and seating herself, long, long she chanted plaintively the praises of the dead. Suddenly she leaped up, with hair bristling and with face of fire, in vibrant voice in-toning the terrible Kenaima; and as she danced, the soul of a rattlesnake entered into her.

Meantime, in the other village, the people were celebrating the tapana, delirious with joy for the vengeance taken, while the mother of Maconaura, overcome by drink, lay in her hammock, dreaming of her son. Anuanaïtu entered, possessed, but she drew back moved when she heard her name pronounced by the dreaming woman: "Anuanaïtu, my child, you are good, as was also your mother! But why come you hither? My son, whom you have lost, is no more.... O son Maconaura, rejoice! Thou art happy, now, for thou art avenged in the blood of thy murderers! Ah, yes, thou art well avenged!" During this Anuanaïtu felt in her soul a dread conflict, the call of love struggling with the call of duty; but at the words, "avenged in blood," she restrained herself no longer, and throwing herself upon the old woman, she drew her tongue from her mouth, striking it with venomous poison; and leaning over her agonized victim, she spoke: "The cayman which your son killed beside the basket-net was my brother. Like my father, he had a cayman's head. I would pardon that. My father avenged his son's death in inflicting on yours the same doom that he had dealt—an arrow between the eyes. Your kindred have slain my father and all mine. I would have pardoned that, too, had they but spared my mother. Maconaura is the cause that what is most dear to me in the world is perished; and robbing him in my turn, I immolate what he held most precious!"

Uttering a terrible cry, she fled into the forest; and at the sound a change unprecedented occurred throughout all nature. The winds responded with a tempest which struck down the trees and uprooted the very oaks; thick clouds veiled the face of Adaheli, while sinister lightnings and the roar of thunders filled the tenebrous world; a deluge of rain mingled with the floods of rivers. The animals, until then peaceable, fell upon and devoured one another: the serpent struck with his venom, the cayman made his terrible jaws to crash, the jaguar tore the flesh of the harmless agouti. Anuanaïtu, followed by the savage hosts of the forest, pursued her insensate course until she arrived at the summit of an enormous rock, whence gushed a cascade; and there, on the brink of the precipice, she stretched forth her arms, leaned forward, and plunged into the depths. The waters received her and closed over her: nought was to be seen but a terrifying whirlpool.

If today some stranger pass beside a certain cascade, the Carib native will warn him not to speak its name. That would be his infallible death, for at the bottom of these waters Maconaura and Anuanaïtu dwell together in the marvellous palace of her who is the Soul of the Waters.

It is not merely the artistic symmetry of this tale—which may be due as much to the clever rendering by Father van Coll as to the genius of the savage raconteur—that justifies giving it at length. It is a wonderfully instructive picture of savage life, emotions, and customs; and a full commentary upon it would lead to an exposition of most that we know of the customs and thought of the Orinoco aborigines—such practices, for example, as im Thurn describes: the putting of red pepper in one's eyes to propitiate the spirits of rapids one is about to shoot; the method of Kenaima murder by pricking the tongue with poison; the perpetual vendetta which to the savage seems to hold not only between tribe and tribe of men, but also between tribe and tribe of animals; the tapana feasts in which men become inspired; or again, such mythic and religious conceptions as the cult of the jaguar and cayman, extending far throughout South and Central America; the still more universal notion of a community of First People, part man, part animal; the ominous birds and animal helpers; the central story of the visit of the hero-youth to the ogreish father-in-law, and of the trials to which he is subjected. In these and in other respects the story is of interest; but its chief attraction is surely in the fact that here we have an American Job or Œdipus, presenting, as Job presents, the problem of evil; and, like Greek tragedy, portraying the harsh conflict between the inexorable justice of the law of retribution and the loves and mercies which combat it, in the savage heart perhaps not less than in the civilized.

IV. CREATION AND CATACLYSM

Both creation and cataclysm appear in the story of Maconaura and Anuanaïtu, but this legend is only one among several tales of the kind gathered from various groups of Orinoco natives, the fullest collection, "'old peoples' stories,' as the rising race somewhat contemptuously call them," being given by Brett. The creation myths are of the two familiar American types: true creations out of the void, and migrations of First Beings into a new land; while transformation-incidents, and especially the doughty deeds of the Transformer-Hero, a true demiurge, are characteristic of traditions of each type.

The Ackawoi make their Makonaima the creator, and Sigu, his son, the hero, in a tale which, says Brett,[165] they repeat "while striving to maintain a very grave aspect, as befitting the general nature of the subject." "In the beginning of this world the birds and beasts were created by Makonaima,—the great spirit whom no man hath seen. They, at that time, were all endowed with the gift of speech. Sigu, the son of Makonaima, was placed to rule over them. All lived in harmony together and submitted to his gentle dominion." Here we have the usual sequence: the generation of the world, followed by the Golden Age, with its vocal animals and universal peace; while as a surprise to his subject creatures, Makonaima caused a wonderful tree, bearing all good fruits, to spring from the earth—the tree which was the origin of all cultivated plants. The acouri first discovered this tree, selfishly trying to keep the secret to himself; and the woodpecker, set by Sigu to trace the acouri, proved a poor spy, since his tapping warned it of his presence; but when the rat solved the mystery, Sigu determined to fell the tree and plant its fruits broadcast. Only the lazy monkey refused to assist, and even mischievously hindered the others, so that Sigu, provoked, put him at the task of the Danaïdes—to fetch water in a basket-sieve. The stump of the tree proved to be filled with water, stocked with every kind of fish and from its riches Sigu proposed to supply all streams; but the waters began of themselves to flow so copiously that he was compelled hastily to cover the top with a basket which the mischievous monkey discovered; and raising it, the deluge poured forth. To save the animals, Sigu sealed in a cave those which could not climb; the others he took with him into a high cocorite tree, where they remained through a long and uncomfortable night, Sigu dropping cocorite seeds from time to time to judge by the splash if the waters were receding, until finally the sound was no longer heard, and with the return of day the animals descended to repeople the earth. But they were no longer the same. The arauta still howls his discomfort from the trees; the trumpeter-bird, too greedily descending into the food-rich mud, had his legs, till then respectable, so devoured by ants that they have ever since been bonily thin; the bush-fowl snapped up the spark of fire which Sigu laboriously kindled, and got his red wattle for his greed; while the alligator had his tongue pulled out for lying (it is a common belief that the cayman is tongueless). Thus the world became what it is.