Many myths deal with characteristics of the sky, and not a
few with those of the underworld. There are also many sto-
ries about the origin of night. Even more abundant than
myths of world creation are those about the destruction of
the world, the recurrent agents of destruction being water or
fire or both.
Creation of the world. The Piaroa, who live on the
south bank of the Orinoco and speak a language of the Sáli-
va-Piaroan family, believe that everything was created by the
powers of imagination. In the beginning, they say, there was
nothing at all. The first thing to appear was the sky, and then
the air and the wind. With the wind, words of song were
born. The words of song are the creative powers that produce
thoughts and visions. Out of nothing they imagined and cre-
ated Buoko, the first being, who developed in the words of
song. Then Buoko imagined his sister Chejaru, and Chejaru
was born. Because of this, humankind also has the power of
imagination. The Piaroa say that thought is actually the only
thing humans have.
The Koghi, speakers of a Macro-Chibchan language
who live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, have a creation
story that also underscores the spiritual nature both of the
first beings and of the essence of the universe. According to
this myth, creation took place in nine stages, from the bot-
tom up. Each stage is both a cosmic level and a spiritual
being called the Mother, who is sometimes accompanied by
a Father or another spiritual being. The first level, which lies
in darkness, is also the Sea; the second, the spiritual Tiger;
the fifth, the first House of Spirit. Finally, the Fathers of the
World find a huge tree and make a temple in the sky above
the water. They call it the House of Spirit.
The Muisca (Chibcha) lived in the highlands of Colom-
bia at the time of the arrival of the Spanish, and spoke a lan-
guage of the Macro-Chibchan family. According to their cre-
ation myth, before there was anything in the world, it was
night, and light was kept inside a great thing that, according
to the Spanish chronicler who recorded the story, is the same
that Europeans call God—an omnipotent, universal, ever-
good lord and maker of all things. The great being began to
dawn, showing the light that he had in himself, and he com-
menced, in that primordial light, to create. His first creations
were some black birds that he commanded to go everywhere
in the world blowing their breath from their beaks. That
breath was luminous and transparent, and, the birds’ mission
accomplished, the whole world remained clear and illumined
as it is now.
Cosmic levels. In many South American myths, the
universe is conceived as a series of layered planes—three or
four in many cases, but sometimes more. The Mataco, whose
language is a member of the Mataco-Mataguayo family and
who live in the Gran Chaco between the Pilcomayo and Ber-
mejo rivers, distinguish the levels of earth, sky, underworld,
and (according to some) that of another earth farther down.
Originally the sky had been joined to the earth, but the
Owner of the Sky separated them. Afterward, a tree grew to
connect the sky and the earth. People of the earth used to
climb the tree and hunt in the sky, but an old man who had
been given a miserable portion of the game meat avenged
himself by burning the tree. The hunters could not return;
they became the Pleiades. The children of the hunters, who
remained on earth, received from their mother, who was also
stranded in the sky, a deerskin full of honey that she dropped
from above. They grew up and became the ancestors of the
present-day Mataco.
The Macuna of the Lower Pira-Parana River in the Vau-
pés region of Colombia, who speak a language of the Tu-
canoan family, think that the earth is the shape of a disk. A
subterranean river is united with the earth by a whirlpool.
The river is inhabited by monsters and bad spirits. Over the
earth is a hot-water lake on which the sun sails from east to
west in his boat every day. Over Sun Lake there is a house
where the Lord of the Jaguars lives, a place that only sha-
mans, in their flights to heaven, can reach. On top of the cos-
mos is a layer that covers all others like a lid. Nothing beyond
it is known. The earth disk consists of several concentric
zones, the innermost being the Macuna homeland. At the
center, just below Sun Lake, stands a sacred mountain, which
supports the firmament. No stone is taken from this moun-
tain lest it fall, taking the sky with it. At a certain point on
the earth’s level is the House of the Dead. The outer zones
are occupied by other Indian tribes, whites, and blacks.
Sky and underworld. The sky and the underworld are
cosmic levels of special interest. They appear in myths influ-
enced by the shamans’ narratives of their ecstatic trips to the
upper and lower worlds. The Marikitari, a Carib-speaking
people living in the Upper Orinoco area, say that in the be-
ginning the whole world was sky. There was no separation
between heaven and earth. There was only light. In the sky
dwelled good, wise people who never died; nor did they
work: Food was always available. In the highest sky was
Wanadi, who is still there. He gave his light to the people
and they were happy. One day he said that he wanted to
make people on that part of the sky called “earth.” He sent
a spirit who made the first people and brought them knowl-
edge, tobacco, the maraca, and the shaman’s quartz power
stones. Later, an evil spirit called Orosha introduced hunger,
sickness, war, and death.
The sky and the cosmic tree. Some of the myths so far
recounted show a close connection between the cosmic levels
and the axis mundi, often represented by a gigantic tree. In
the Mataco myth the danger of the sky falling down is clearly
pointed out. The same motif appears in many other myths
of tropical forest tribes. The Ge-speaking Kayapó of central
Brazil say that in the east there was a gigantic tree called End
of the Sky. It supported the heavens, which in those days
were parallel to the earth. After several tries, a tapir succeeded
in gnawing the trunk until it broke. Then the sky drooped
down at the edges, forming the celestial vault. At the place
where the tree has its roots all kinds of strange beings live.
When a group of people went to explore the east, they foundSOUTH AMERICAN INDIAN RELIGIONS: MYTHIC THEMES 8587