Seven Yanomami die in suspected swine flu outbreak

Seven Yanomami Indians living on the border between Venezuela and Brazil have died from an outbreak of the Type A H1NI "swine flu" virus in the last three weeks, according to reports from Venezuelan sources and the UK-based NGO Survival International.

Raidan Bernade, a Venezuelan doctor based in La Esmeralda on the Orinoco, said that a 35-year-old Yanomami woman was confirmed to have died from swine flu but it was not possible to confirm that the six babies who died - the oldest just 1-year-old - had died of the illness.

Some 1,000 Yanomami are reported to have contracted the virus and Yamilet Mirabal, the government's deputy minister of indigenous affairs for the region, has confirmed that suspected cases of swine flu had been detected in the jungle villages of Mavaca, Platanal and Hatakoa and that medical teams had been dispatched to treat the sick.

Bernade, meanwhile, told news agencies that: "everything is under control" and that many of the flu cases the indigenous Yanomami are suffering from are down to a seasonal flu.

The UK-based indigenous rights group Survival International has called on the governments of Venezuela and Brazil to take urgent action to protect the 32,000 Yanomami who live in the isolated border area, where there is little access to medical care.

"The situation is critical. Both governments must take immediate action to halt the epidemic and radically improve the health care to the Yanomami. If they do not, we could once more see hundreds of Yanomami dying of treatable diseases," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International.

"This would be utterly devastating for this isolated tribe, whose population has only just recovered from the epidemics which decimated their population 20 years ago," he added, referring to malaria outbreaks in the 1980s and 1990s introduced by wildcat gold miners known as garimpeiros.

The Yanomami, who are linguistically and culturally related to the Sanema, are the largest relatively isolated tribe in the Amazon rainforest and due to their isolation have very little resistance to introduced diseases such as flu.

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 1: The Origin of Fire

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Endo-Cannibalism

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

The Dolphin People: Novel set in Venezuelan jungle

A small plane crashes deep in the Venezuelan jungle. A family fleeing the post-WWII nightmare of occupied Germany is captured by a warlike tribe living far from civilization who think they are magical river dolphins in human form. Can they keep up the pretence? Or will they be discovered and cast out or even killed?

To read more about Torsten Krol's debut novel "The Dolphin People" click here:

Kariña Myth 2: Kaputa and the Great Flood

This Kariña myth recounts the arrival on Earth of the creator god Kaputa, who comes to warn his people that a great flood is coming. Many similarities have been drawn between this story and the Biblical flood story of Noah and the Ark. The idea of all the animals entering the great canoe in pairs and the seeds of all the plants also being stored is very similar.

Whether it is an adaptation of the biblical story passed on to the Kariña by missionaries and adapted by them, or an original Kariña myth is almost impossible to say, although the annual flooding of the major rivers in Venezuela during the rainy season has given rise to many myths. The text is taken from Father Cesareo de Armellada´s book: "Literaturas Indigenas de Venezuela" (Monte Avila Editores, 1991).

The Great Canoe

One day Kaputa came to the land of the Kariñas to tell them that the world was going to be flooded and nobody would survive unless they quickly built a great canoe and got in.

- My children, a great rain is going to fall. It will rain for many nights and many days.

But out of all the Indians only four couples were afraid; the rest didn't believe him.

- My children, help me to build a canoe we can all get in before the rains swell the rivers. That way we won't drown.

- What do you mean everything's going to be flooded? That just couldn't happen, they said, unconvinced.

- I am Kaputa, the father and creator of the Kariña. I don't want my children to die

- You're not Kaputa, the Indians said, except for the four couples who began to build a great canoe.

When they had finished they began to put different animals inside in pairs, and a seed for each plant.

Then the day turned to night as the sky darkened and it began to rain for months without stopping.

The rivers broke their banks and flooded the land. The water rose so high that it covered the highest trees.

When the flooding began everybody wanted to get into the great canoe but Kaputa said:

- You thought I wasn't kaputa! You didn't want to build the canoe! Well, now you will drown.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Kariña Myth 1: The Twins and the Origin of Yuca

Maria Lionza - indigenous myth or folk legend?

This is just one version of the many myths that have been linked to Maria Lionza, the cult figure from Yaracuy State who is venerated throughout Venezuela.

With so little known about the origins of the cult it is impossible to know if Maria Lionza was a real historical figure or if the legends refer to an Indian girl from one of the historical tribes that inhabited the area around Chivacoa, where the sacred mountain of Sorte is located.

What is clear is that adherents of the cult, who refer to her simply as "La Reina" ("The Queen"), have continuously added stories and attributes to this local folk figure to increase her importance and power.

Adding to the confusion is the iconography of Maria Lionza. In some images she is shown as a Virgin Mary figure, others depict a European-looking lady with green eyes, an elegant dress and a crown.

The most famous image of her is the statue by Alejandro Colina which was placed on the Francisco Fajardo Freeway in Caracas in 1953 by the dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez. It shows a muscular indigenous woman sitting astride a tapir and holding aloft a female pelvis.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the cult became more widespread as people from the countryside moved to Caracas and other big cities. It was also a time when writers and artists were looking back to Venezuela's indigenous past in response to a spate of archaeological finds from the late 1930s and there was a conscious attempt to link "La Reina" to this rediscovered past.

Yara, or Maria Lionza as she was known afterwards, was an indigenous princess. She was the daughter of Yaracuy, the chief of the Nivar tribe, the granddaughter of Chief Chilua and the great-granddaughter of Chief Yare, all great warriors and leaders.

The birth of Maria Lionza must have occurred around the year 1535 in the state that today is named after her father.

The shaman of the village had predicted before Yara was born that if a girl was born with strange, watery-green eyes, she would have to sacrificed and offered to the Master of the Waters, the Great Anaconda, because if not it would lead to the ruin and extinction of the Nivar tribe.

However, her father was unable to sacrifice her and so he hid the little girl in a mountain cave, with 22 warriors to watch over her and stop her from leaving.

She was also forbidden from looking at her image reflected in water.

But one day, her guards were mysteriously put to sleep and the beautiful young girl left the cave and walked to a lagoon, where she looked into the water and saw her reflection for the first time.

Captivated by her own image, she was unable to move, but her presence awakened the Master of the Waters, the Great Anaconda, who emerged from the depths, fell in love with the girl, and drew closer to take her away.

When she resisted its advances the anaconda swallowed the girl, but immediately he began to swell up, forcing the water out of the lagoon, flooding the village and drowning the tribe.

Finally, the anaconda burst and Maria Lionza was set free, becoming the owner of the lagoon, the river and the waters, the protecter of the fish and later of all the plants and animals.

Translated from various sources by Russell Maddicks

Piaroa Myth 1: Buoka and Wajari, the first men

There are about 15,000 Wotuja - better known as Piaroa - living in the Orinoco-Ventuari region of Venezuela's Amazonas and Bolivar states. Their most sacred monument is the dramatic, tabletop mountain known in Spanish as Cerro Autana, a popular destination for adventure tourists. While the majority of Piaroa now wear western clothing and are increasingly part of the cash economy they still hold on to traditional beliefs, including this important myth about the origin of the world and the creation of the first people by the brothers Buoka and Wajari. This myth is taken from Luis Boglar's "Cuentos y Mitos de Los Piaroa" (Montalban, 1977) and appears in "Mitos de Creacion de la Cuenca del Orinoco" (FUNDEF, 1993).

Everything was dark. There was no sun. There was no water. There was no sky. There were no mountains. There were no people. Wajari, the creator of all the elements, the animals and the people had not yet been born.

Suddenly, Buoka appeared next to a beautiful tree that he named Kareru. This tree produced the juice of knowledge.

Enemey Ofoda, a spirit, told Buoka to drink the juice from this tree. Buoka drank it and had visions of what he could do.

Kareru is the first tree. It is the grandfather tree and the father tree. The father of the white-lipped peccaries was born from this tree, as were the fathers of the collared peccaries and the armadillos.

Buoka drank the juice from the tree and he had visions. In these visions he travelled down underground to the sacred places of the white-lipped peccary spirits, the armadillo spirits, and the spirits of the other rainforest animals.

He saw all the animal spirits that live deep underground and he heard the voices of the white-lipped peccaries' musical instruments.

He had these visions after just one sip of the Kareru juice. He also saw images of the other musical instruments and he saw behind the waterfalls. His eyes crossed the sky in his vision and he saw the spirits of the mountains. He saw the birth of the great father of the waters, the Orinoco River, and its exit into the sea. He also saw the mountain of Paria, the Sipapo River and the Upper Cuao. He also saw the sacred places of the mountain animals.

The Kareru tree reproduces the voices of the father of the white-lipped peccaries and the fathers of the collared peccaries and the armadillos. Inside, it also has the voice of the grandfather and the cry of the mountain bear.

The second time that Buoka drank the juice of the Kareru tree, he saw his brother in a vision and he thought he would make it real so his brother would become the great chief of the world.

So Buoka pulled the vision from his right eye. From his right eye Wajari was born. Buoka thought that Wajari's eyes should be clear, like the eyes of a tapir, but Wajari came into the world blind. Nevertheless, Wajari was wise and before being born he had seen and visited many parts of the Earth.

He spoke to Buoka, his creator, like this: "Brother, how can you live without water, earth and sun?"

Then Wajari created water for the whole world. Afterwards, he said to his brother: "With the visions that the Kareru juice gives you and with my thoughts, let's start working to create the natural elements and everything the Piaroa need to live."

So between the two of them they made the sun and the stars, the soil and the waterfalls. Buoka also had visions about the organization of the family, about wives, sons, and grandchildren.

The two brothers said that everything they were creating was necessary for the other indigenous peoples that appeared in Buoka's visions, such as the Baniwa, the Waika and the Yabarana.

Then Wajari created the sun on the earth. He cleaned it, he blew on it and he lifted it up to the sky. But at first the sun's light could not be seen.

Wajari thought the sun must have lost its way. He decided to travel to the sacred sites in the mountains to see if he could find it.

Finally, he found it. He took it in his hands and made such a giant leap that he managed to reach the sky and made the sun burn fiercely.

When Wajari jumped with the sun in his hands there was a clap of thunder. It was the voice of the white-lipped peccary.

Wajari lifted the sun even higher and its rays reached every part of the world and all could see it.

Buoka, who had created the moon, wanted to do the same as his brother. He took the moon in his hands and jumped but he couldn't jump as high as Wajari and he struck the sky and the moon bashed him in the face. So he placed it under the sky and did not make it burn as Wajari had done with the sun.

When Buoka returned to the earth he said that his thoughts were no longer so powerful and he said he did not have any masks for the collared peccaries. And that he would also need the power to stop the Piaroa suffering from illnesses.

Meanwhile, Wajari asked Ku-upa, the lighting - his celestial companion when he rose into the sky - for help in creating people.

Ku-upa agreed to help and Wajari sat in the sky on a bolt of lightning as he fashioned the first people.

While the lightning flashed and its voice, the thunder, rumbled through the heavens, Wajari created all the different parts of the first people, their skin, bones and eyes.

And depending on the part he was creating the thunder was soft or booming.




Translated by Russell Maddicks

Warao Myth 1: The Owner of the Sun

The Warao of Delta Amacuro State have made their homes in the hundreds of distributaries called caños that make up the Orinoco delta and adapted to life in a watery world that changes with the rise and fall of the tides.

Their palafito houses rise up from the river mud on stilts and their name, Warao, means "boat people". Most travel and nearly all trade is done in the curiara canoes that the Warao hollow from a single giant tree trunk and it is said that Warao babies learn to paddle before they learn to walk.

There are over 36,000 Warao in Delta Amacuro, Monagas and Sucre states, according to the 2001 census, and they speak an independent language that was once thought to be linked to Yanomami.

They have a complex tradition of myths, healing rituals and music that survives to this day and Warao women are noted for their excellent weaving skills and the baskets and hammocks they weave from moriche palm fibres.

This myth, which relates how Ya, the Sun, and Guaniku, the Moon, came to light up the sky, is taken from Maria Manuela de Cora's book "Kuai-Mare: Mitos Aborigenes de Venezuela" (1957, Editorial Oceanida).

Long ago, at the beginning of everything, the sun did not light up the rivers or warm the conuco gardens, because a man who lived in the land up above, towards the East, had locked up Ya, the Sun, in a large bag and did not let him rise up over the clouds.

A Warao who lived in one of the branches of the Orinoco discovered the way in which Ya was hidden and decided to send his oldest daughter to the east to see if she could make the man release the sun.

The girl had to walk for a long time through the jungle and had a hard job clearing a path through the forest and crossing the steep riverbanks before she finally arrived at the distant place where the owner of the Sun lived.

When she arrived in front of him she said: "My father wants you to release the Sun from the hiding place you're keeping him in and to put him on the sea above (the sky) so he can shine his light on everybody.

The owner of the Sun pretended not to understand the girl's words, he looked at her warmly and finding her pretty wanted to take her for his wife.

She did not want to give in to his desires but the man rudely forced her to accept him and then sent her away, taking no notice of her father's request.

When the girl got home to the village she told her father everything that had happened and how the owner of the Sun had laughed at his request.

The father, undeterred by this, decided to send his second daughter, to see if she would have more luck than her sister.

The Warao's second daughter also had to cross the jungle and walk a long way, although she took less time than her sister to arrive at the house of the owner of the Sun, who she asked to release Ya and let him pass freely through the clouds.

But the man also ignored the girl's request and made her his wife like the other one, because she was also pretty and had awoken his desire.

Afterwards, he said: "Off you go now to the land below and don't come back and bother me."

Instead of obeying these cruel words as her sister had done, she relied angrily: "How dare you speak to me like that? Are you not going to release the Sun?"

And while she spoke to him, she looked around anxiously to see if she could discover the place where Ya was hidden, until she spied a strange and very large bag tied to the wooden posts of the wall and stared at it intently, suspecting that this was it.

Seeing that the girl was looking at the bag, the man said quickly: "careful! Don't even think about touching that!"

By the tone of his voice the Warao girl knew for sure that the Sun was hidden there and ignoring the man's threats she leapt towards the bag in a single bound and ripped it open with a swipe of her hand.

The bright face of Ya, the Sun, appeared immediately, orange and dazzling, and began to diffuse its heat and the light of its rays over the clouds of the sea above and over the hills and woods of the Earth. Its light reached to the very bottom of the rivers and the realm of the spirits who live beneath the water.

Seeing that his secret had been discovered and he could not contain the power of Ya again, the man pushed it towards the East and hung the ripped bag in the West, which was lit up by the rays of the Sun and became the Moon.

The girl ran home to her hut to tell her father how she had managed to free the Sun from its hiding place.

The Warao was very happy and did nothing more than contemplate the beauty of Ya, shining from the sea above. But when less than half a joyakaba (tide) had passed the Sun disappeared behind the hills, leaving the rivers lit only by the reflection of Guaniku, the moon.

The Warao said to his daughter: "Go again to the East and wait for the Sun to start his trip over the clouds. Just as he is starting out, carefully tie a tortoise behind him, so he travels more slowly.

The girl did what her father had told her and managed to hook Guaku, the tortoise, to the Sun's tail, stopping Ya from racing too much with its slow pace and so making sure the Earth was illuminated for the period of joyakaba and joajua (the tides).

Since then it has done just this every day and it only hides away at night, disappearing little by little over the waters of the rivers to sleep and refresh itself by drinking, because if it didn't it would die of the heat given off by its rays.

Meanwhile, Guaniku follows Ya's path, reflecting the light of the Sun from the West.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Kariña Myth 1: The Twins and the Origin of Yuca

The Kariña, or True Caribs as they are sometimes called, were once spread throughout the Orinoco and the Caribbean and are still found in Surinam and French Guiana. The main concentration in Venezuela is now in the Mesa de Guanipa in Anzoategui State, but there are smaller communities in Monagas, Sucre and Bolivar states.

Many Kariña live and work in the cities of Ciudad Bolivar and Caracas but return home for tribal traditions such as the Akaatompo dances, which are celebrated every year from 1-3 November. The Akaatompo is like the Mexican Day of the Dead, a time when dead ancestors (añaatos) come to visit the living and speak to family members via mediums. It is also a time for communal dances, such as the Maremare.

This myth recounts the birth of the hero twins, the death of their mother and the origin of yuca and other plant foods. It is taken from Father Cesareo de Armellada´s book: "Literaturas Indigenas de Venezuela" (Monte Avila Editores, 1991).

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Long ago the Sun slept with the Moon and she became pregnant.
So the Sun invited her to give birth in his house.

"How do I get to your house?" the Moon asked him.

He said:
"At the first crossroads along the path that leads to the mountains you must take the path where you find a macaw feather. Further on you will find a feather from the Yuis bird and my house is close by. But you must be very careful. If you take the wrong path you will arrive at the house of Tarunmio, the old cannibal-woman!"

When the day came, the Moon set out to give birth in the Sun's house. More concerned than the mother were the children inside her belly. They bothered her ceaselessly. During the trek they kept saying:
"Look at those pretty flowers mother."
"Look at those ripe fruits."

On one of these occasions the Moon fell over and annoyed by the cheek of her babies she banged her belly to punish them.

They weren't born yet and they were already a nuisance.

When she arrived at the crossroads the Moon could not remember the sign that had been agreed. Frightened, she asked her babies, but they were angry and did not answer.

As might be expected she took the wrong road and ended up at the house of the old cannibal woman Tarunmio, who was cooking when she arrived.

The Moon was tired and hungry and asked if she could stay the night. Tarunmio didn't need to be asked twice. She offered her food, water and a room and then helped her to lie down.

In the middle of the night Tarunmio killed the Moon. She took out the twin babies and then she ate her.

From that night on the only mother the boys knew was the old woman.

In a few days they grew and became strong, because the blood of the gods ran through their veins.

The boys became great hunters. Every day they brought home from the jungle guan birds, agoutis and opossums that the old woman cooked in the night, giving the boys nothing.

The cannibal woman only gave them a white bread that tasted like cassava (flat manioc-flour cakes).

The boys, tired of the same food, asked themselves where the old woman got the cassava from if she didn't grow yuca (manioc). So they decided to watch how she did it.

From an enormous toad the old woman extracted a heavy milk that she threw on the hot flat circular cooking plate (budare) and from which she made the sipiipa (cassava cakes).

Afterwards, she spoke to the toad:

"The day will come when I shall stop getting milk from you for these two. Sometime soon I shall eat them."

Realizing that the old woman was not their mother, but a Tarunmio, the twins decided to kill her.

Also, after returning from hunting guans one day they heard two of the birds who were still alive speaking:

"Those two who hunted us are the sons of the moon...," said one of the birds, before recounting the whole story of what had happened to their mother.

The next afternoon, the twins told the old woman that they were going to burn the ground to prepare it for planting, but to obtain a good harvest they needed her to shout out her chants on top of a platform of sticks they would build.

After two days the ground was cleared and on on the third day the platform of sticks was ready.

When the old woman started to sing the twins set fire to the wood underneath her. The old woman had no time to escape because the flames burnt her up like a dry twig...

That was the origin of the indigenous people's first attempt at sowing, and from where all the fruits and root vegetables first came: ocumo, mapuey, ñame and many others.