Wayuu Myth 1: The Soul and Death The Arawak-speaking Wayuu who live around Maracaibo in Venezuela and both sides of the border with Colombia in the Guajira Peninsula are also known as Guajiros. They are the largest indigenous group in Venezuela and have preserved a rich tradition of myth and legend as well as their own shamanic traditions and burial practices. This myth about the nature of the soul and the cause of death was collected by Michel Perrin in 1969 and is taken from his 1976 book: "El Camino de Los Indios Muertos". I have kept the sentence structure of the original.Each one of us is joined to a soul.
It is like a small piece of white cotton, like a puff of smoke.
But nobody can see it.
Our soul follows us everywhere we go,
like our shadow.
- Some say that our shadow is the form of the soul,
and call the soul the shadow -.
Our soul does not leave us except during sleep,
or when we are sick,
or when we have been hit by the arrows of Wanulu (god of illness and death).
Everything that happens in our dreams
is what happens to our soul.
If a Guajiro dreams that they are outside
close to a well, in a house...,
or if they see birds,
that means that their soul has left their heart,
coming out through their mouth,
to fly there.
But their heart continues to beat.
Nevertheless, it is our soul that makes us die.
A man who dreams that he dies never wakes up again.
His soul has left him forever.
Someone who dreams that a knife has been plunged into his chest,
is still alive.
But his soul is now badly injured.
The sickness is there.
Death is close.
When a Guajiro gets sick,
their soul is like a prisoner,
in the place of dreams.
That is where the shaman's spirit
can find it and bring it back to the sick one.
But if he cannot find it,
if it is hidden away,
if it is somewhere inside,
the Guajiro dies.
His soul has passed along the path,
the path of the dead Indians:
the Milky Way.
It travels towards the sea,
to enter the house where the sisters,
the mothers, the maternal uncles, the brothers are...
And the last words are said by the dying man:
- I am going now, I am going,
going to die.
I am going and will never return...
But his soul has already gone and will never return.
It will have taken its saddle.
It will have taken its belongings, its hammocks...
It will have gone to its land,
to Jepira, the land of the Yoluja (the spirits of dead Wayuu)...
When they die, Guajiros become Yoluja.
They go to Jepira via the Milky Way,
the way of the dead Indians,
there they find their houses.
The souls of the dead return to the earth
in our dreams.
Our souls meet them
when we dream about the dead.
Here, sometimes, you can see their ghosts.
They are the Yoluja,
the ghosts of the dead come back to earth.
On our death, however, we do not lose our soul.
Only our bones do we lose.
Our bones and our skin.
Our soul goes, that's all.
What goes is our shadow,
like our silhouette, blurry, imprecise...
But we die twice.
Once here,
and again in Jepira...Translated by Russell Maddicks Wayuu Myth 2: Pulowi and the Jewels Wayuu Myth 3: Kasipoluin the Rainbow Wayuu Myth 4: The Origin of FireVideo of the Wayuu People and Their native Land
Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Eating the DeadThis myth comes from the book "Literaturas Indigenas de Venezuela" (Monte Avila, 1975), an anthology of myths from many Venezuelan indigenous groups collected by Father Cesareo de Armellada. It explains the origin of the Yanomami practice of endocannibalism, consuming the ashes of their dead in a plantain soup. This is a unique practice among tribal peoples today, but endocannibalism was once widespread among Panoan-speakers in South America and was only banned among Aboriginal groups in Australia in the 1960s. The photo comes from a trip I made to La Esmeralda and the Yanomami community of El Cejal. Poreími was a talented, generous Yanomami with a magnificent intelligence. He is the one who gave the Indians stone axe blades. All the stone axe blades that are found at ancient sites are from Poreími.
At that time, there was a terrible scarcity of food in the world and the Yanomami had to eat meat raw, as they did not possess fire yet.
At that time, Poreími went to the jungle and built a magnificent house to live in with his wife Poreímiyoma.
One day some Indians came to visit them, and as a gift, they left different kinds of plantains, including a very large variety called "pareamu". That is what the one they were presented with is called.
Later, Poreími received another visit from Wayaromi, who as a present left "wabu", a fruit that is eaten when better foods are in short supply. As 'wabu" is poisonous in its natural state, Wayaromiriwa (the spirit of Wayaromi) showed Poreími how it should be prepared, cutting it into small slices with a tortoise shell.
Then Wayaromi turned himself into a bird.
Later, some other Yanomami arrived at Poreími's house. Not with presents this time, but with... empty stomachs.
They brought with them a frightful hunger. Poreími, moved by their plight, gave them abundant food to eat and on saying goodbye gave them several kinds of plantains, urging them to plant many, especially the "pareamu". He also gave them the "wabu".
The vistors then returned to their village. In their gardens they planted many plantains, harvested them in great quantities and since then have not suffered hunger any more.
Grateful for the precious presents they had received they sent a delegation to pass on their thanks to Poreími.
Arriving at his house they found him very upset: his son had died.
At that time the Yanomami used to bury their dead.
Poreími told his guests how he had carried out his son's funeral: he had burnt the body, collected the bones, ground them to ash and eaten the ashes in a soup of "pareamu" plantains.
When he said goodbye, he urged them to do the same with their own dead.
Since then, the Yanomami no longer bury the dead but burn them and consume their ashes mixed with plantain soup.
Translated by Russell MaddicksClick here to read Yanomami Myth 1: The Origin of Fire Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry Click here to return to Venezuelan Indian main page
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 Return to Venezuelan Indian main page
