One of the best known of the South American deluge stories is the Caingang legend[201] which the native narrator had heard "from the mother of the mother of his mother, who had heard it in her day from her ancient progenitors." The story is the common one of people fleeing before the flood to a hill and clinging to the branches of a tree while they await the subsidence of the waters,—an incident of a kind which may be common enough in flood seasons, and which might be taken as a mere reflection of ordinary experience but for the fact of the series of transformations which follow the return to dry land; and these include not only the formation of the animal kinds, but the gift of song from a singing gourd and a curious process of divination, taught by the ant-eater, by means of which the sex of children is foretold.
The flood is only one incident in a much more comprehensive cycle of events, assembled variously by various peoples, but having such a family likeness that one may without impropriety regard the group as the tropical American Genesis. Of this cycle the fullest versions are those of the Yuracare, as reported by d'Orbigny, and of the Bakairi, as reported by von den Steinen.[202]
In the Bakairi tale the action begins in the sky-world. A certain hunter encountered Oka, the jaguar, and agreed to make wives for Oka if the latter would spare him. He made two wives out of wood, blowing upon them. One of these wives swallowed two finger-bones, and became with child. Mero, the mother of Oka and of the jaguar kind, slew the woman, but Kuara, the brother of Oka, performed the Caesarian operation and saved the twins, who were within her body. These twins were the heroes, Keri and Kame. To avenge their mother they started a conflagration which destroyed Mero, themselves hiding in a burrow in the earth. Kame came forth too soon and was burned, but Keri blew upon his ashes and restored him to life. Keri in his turn was burned and restored by Kame. First, in their resurrected lives did these two assume human form. Now begins the cycle of their labours. They stole the sun and the moon from the red and the white vultures, and gave order to their way in the heavens, keeping them in pots, coverable, when the light of these bodies should be concealed: sun, moon, and ruddy dawn were all regarded as made of feathers. Next, heaven and earth, which were as yet close together, were separated. Keri said to the heavens: "Thou shalt not remain here. My people are dying. I wish not that my people die." The heavens answered: "I will remain here!" "We shall exchange places," said Keri; whereupon he came to earth and the sky rose to where it now is. The theft of fire from the fox, who kept it in his eye; the stealing of water from the Great Serpent, with the formation of rivers; the swallowing of Kame by a water monster, and his revivescence by Keri; the institution of the arts of house-building, fishery, dancing; and the separation of human kinds;—all these are incidents leading up to the final departure of Keri and Kame, who at the last ascend a hill, and go thence on their separate ways. "Whither are they gone? Who knows? Our ancestors knew not whither they went. Today no one knows where they are."
The Bakairi dwell in the central regions of Brazil; the Yuracare are across the continent, near the base of the Andes. From them d'Orbigny obtained a version of the same cosmogony, but fuller and with more incidents. The world began with sombre forests, inhabited by the Yuracare. Then came Sararuma and burned the whole country. One man only escaped, he having constructed an underground refuge. After the conflagration he was wandering sadly through the ruined world when he met Sararuma. "Although I am the cause of this ill, yet I have pity on you," said the latter, and he gave him a handful of seeds from whose planting sprang, as by magic, a magnificent forest. A wife appeared, as it were ex nihilo, and bore sons and a daughter to this man. One day the maiden encountered a beautiful tree with purple flowers, called Ulé. Were it but a man, how she would love it! And she painted and adorned the tree in her devotion, with sighs and hopes,—hopes that were not in vain, for the tree became a beautiful youth. Though at first she had to bind him to keep him from wandering away, the two became happy spouses. But one day Ulé, hunting with his brothers, was slain by a jaguar. His bride, in her grief like Isis, gathered together the morsels of his torn body. Again, her love was rewarded and Ulé was restored to life, but as they journeyed he glanced in a pool, saw a disfigured face, where a bit of flesh had not been recovered, and despite the bride's tears took his departure, telling her not to look behind, no matter what noise she heard. But she was startled into doing this, became lost, and wandered into a jaguar's lair. The mother of the jaguars took pity upon her, but her four sons were for killing her. To test her obedience they commanded her to eat the poisonous ants that infested their bodies; she deceived three of them by substituting seeds for the ants, which she cast to the ground; but the fourth had eyes in the back of his head, detected the ruse and killed her. From her body was torn the child which she was carrying, Tiri, who was raised in secret by the jaguar mother.
When Tiri was grown he one day wounded a paca, which said: "You live in peace with the murderers of your mother, but me, who have done you no harm, you wish to kill." Tiri demanded the meaning of this, and the paca told him the tale. Tiri then lay in wait for the jaguar brothers, slaying the first three with arrows, but the jaguar with eyes in the back of his head, climbed into a tree, calling upon the trees, the sun, stars, and moon to save him. The moon snatched him up, and since that time he can be seen upon her bosom, while all jaguars love the night. Tiri, who was the master of all nature, taught cultivation to his foster-mother, who now had no sons to hunt for her. He longed for a companion, and created Caru, to be his brother, from his own finger-nail; and the two lived in great amity, performing many deeds. Once, invited to a feast, they spilled a vase of liquor which flooded the whole earth and drowned Caru; but when the waters were subsided, Tiri found his brother's bones and revived him. The brothers then married birds, by whom they had children. The son of Caru died and was buried. Tiri then told Caru at the end of a certain time to go seek his son, who would be revived, but to be careful not to eat him. Caru, finding a manioc plant on the grave, ate of it. Immediately a great noise was heard, and Tiri said: "Caru has disobeyed and eaten his son; in punishment he and all men shall be mortal, and subject to all toils and all sufferings."
In following adventures the usual transformations take place, and mankind, in their tribes, are led forth from a great rock, Tiri saying to them: "Ye must divide and people all the earth, and that ye shall do so I create discord and make you enemies of one another." Thus arose the hostility of tribes. Tiri now decided to depart, and he sent birds in the several directions to discover in which the earth extends farthest. Those sent to the east and the north speedily returned, but the bird sent toward the setting sun was gone a long time, and when at last it returned it brought with it beautiful feathers. So Tiri departed into the West, and disappeared.