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| The Jaguar, the Deer, and the Anteater: Once a woman had three children, all born with fangs, claws, and apparently vicious intentions. She asked her first child "Do you plan to use your teeth and claws to eat human flesh?" The child answered with a nod, "Yeah!". So the mother grabbed her child by the nose and stretched its snout out so long that it could no longer use its teeth. Its large, razor-sharp claws remained. This was the anteater. The mother asked the same question of her second child, "Do you plan to eat human flesh?" The child answered affirmatively, so the mother pulled out its claws and teeth and stuck them on its head. This became the deer. When the mother asked her third child whether it would eat human flesh, it remained silent and the mother did not punish it. This is thus how the jaguar retained its teeth, claws, and appetite for human flesh. |
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When the Sun was a Sloth: Long ago, the sun was a sloth, very slow and very lazy. It would ascend into the sky to warm the earth feebly for a few minutes, and then extinguish suddenly, plunging the earth into darkness and cold. It would light up dimly a while later, and then go out again unpredictably. People used to have to wait for the sloth-sun to shine, and then run around madly trying to gather food before it went out again. Then the moon had two sons, who, like the moon, had a luminous quality about them. These two sons bathed in the sea like ducks, and the people wanted to catch them and put them up into the sky to warm the earth. These "suns", however, were very wary and elusive. Finally a shaman succeeded in sneaking out to where the ducks were, holding his breath and swimming under the water and grabbing them by their feet as they paddled around. |
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