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

Canaima: Pemon Spirit of Death

For most people who visit Venezuela, the name Canaima conjures up images of jungle tours, boat trips in dugout canoes up the Rio Carrao and visits to the base camp below Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world.

But for the Pemon Indians of the Gran Sabana, Canaima is nothing less than the evil spirit which lurks in wait for them in the dense forest, the poisonous snake in the underbrush, the sharp branch that catches them in the eye.

According to Venezuelan writer Jose Berti, the Pemon, "like most pre-Colombian tribes don't believe in a natural death; and in order to explain their eternal disappearance from this world, they have created a symbolic character, Canaima, who pursues them without rest and who in the end defeats and kills them."

Canaima, the Indians say, can take the form of a jaguar in the forest, or a spirit who passes through their huts at night. Every mishap that ends in cuts and bruises is laid at his door.

"If an Indian suffers from pneumonia, they say that Canaima has blown on his chest, if he has a stomach ache, it is put down to the evil work of Canaima, so that Canaima, or Death, is his implacable and eternal enemy," he adds.

I experienced the Pemon fear of Canaima first hand a number of years ago when I was working in Canaima camp as a tour guide. I had started working there with the idea that I would spend all my time leading tour groups to Angel Falls and the tepuis but my first weeks were spent at the small airstrip fighting the other guides for the few tourists who arrived in air taxis from Ciudad Bolivar.

One morning, the drowsy stupor of the airstrip was broken by shouts that something was happening down at the lagoon.

It seems that an American tourist had gone for a swim in the cold, tea-red waters of the lagoon and had never come back. He was with a young Venezuelan woman and her child and when they lost sight of him they had called the National Guard and the staff at the beach bar to help them look, but nobody could find any trace of him.

She said he was a strong swimmer and had insisted on swimming beyond the area marked out near the beach with small bouys and out towards the Hacha Falls.

Later, somebody said a reward had been offered for anybody who found him. It was feared he had drowned but the National Guard needed proof.

Next day, the rumours of a reward had spread all over the camp. People came down from the base camps to help in the search. As the day wore on it seemed the reward changed with whoever you asked until it reached several thousand dollars, a small fortune for most people marooned out here in the middle of the jungle.

Soon, nearly all the Indians had launched their wooden curiaras (canoes) and fashioned long branches and poles so they could probe the bottom of the lagoon and find the unfortunate US tourist. Some even brought out old diving masks, useless in the dark waters, and dived in again and again to feel with their hands along the deep, murky bottom.

It seemed like everybody had come out to try their luck that day and the day after.

But it was only after they'd all given up, on the third day, that the body was found- just floating on the surface. Again I was at the small airstrip when the word came and we all rushed down to the small church in the camp to see what they'd found.

The Pemon Indians from the village next door had already arrived and were holding cloths or their T-shirts over their mouths and noses so as not to be infected by any vapours from the corpse.

The body had set rigid and the man, who was at least six foot, looked like a large action figure, his legs caught in the action of kicking out against the eddies and swirling currents that had dragged him down. He must have been head first down in the water because his shoulders were enormous and pink, puffed up like a superhero. His face was contorted with the effort of saving his skin. The fish had nibbled away at his ears.

But the strangest thing was his ankle. The Indians were all pointing to some marks on his ankle, like the puncture marks a snake might make, only it would have to be a mighty large snake to make those kind of marks.

"Anaconda bite", one young Indian said. I'd seen small anacondas in the lagoon and on the beach but never anything that could hold a grown man under the water like that.

Like, where's Jennifer Lopez when you need her?

But the older Pemon were shaking their heads: "Canaima", an old man said in a sort of whisper, as if it was a word you shouldn't say out loud. "It was the Canaima who took him down to its lair in the calm waters behind the falls."

And that was it. Case closed. All anybody could talk about was the Canaima. And nobody went swimming, at least for a week, until the tourists started to arrive en masse and we were all too busy to think about the strange case of the big, scary snake in the lagoon.

I guess I'll never know what caused those marks on the dead man's ankles, but for a moment, standing in that church with most of the Pemon village crowded in around me, the idea that he had been drowned by a malignant spirit taking the form of a giant anaconda seemed to make perfect sense.

Russell Maddicks

Pemon Myth 1: The Legend of Makunaima
Pemon Myth 2: The Tree of Life
Pemon Myth 3: The Great Flood and the Creation of Roraima
Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon myths

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