he advises a young woman who has tended him and won his
friendship to take refuge on a high mountain nearby. Soon
afterward, heavy rain carries the village away, leaving no one
alive. Among the Kaueskar-speaking Alacaluf of southern
Chile, who were once supposed to have preserved no mythol-
ogy, an increasing collection of mythic tales has been gath-
ered since the late 1970s. Among these stories is one about
a devastating flood caused by the breaking of a taboo forbid-
ding the killing of an otter. Only a young couple is saved,
again by climbing a mountain.
The World Fire. The Carib-speaking Taulipáng of
Venezuela connect the deluge with the world fire. They say
that after the great flood, when everything had dried up,
there was a great fire. All the game animals hid in an under-
ground pit. Fire consumed everything: people, mountains,
stones. That is why big chunks of coal are sometimes found
in the earth. The Zapiteri, of the Mashco ethnic group of
the southwestern Amazon, say that in the beginning of time
it rained blood, but later the sun began to heat up and there
was a great fire. The tribes of the Gran Chaco have a rich
repertoire of myths about the world fire. One of these myths,
from the Mataco, says that long ago the Mataco lived in great
disorder. One day black clouds broke into lightning and rain
began to fall. The drops were not water but fire, which
spread everywhere. There were only a few survivors, among
them Tokhuah the trickster, who went underground for the
duration of the fire.
Many fragments have been collected of what is thought
to have been a widely diffused myth of the destruction of the
world by fire. According to the Tupi-speaking Apocacuva
Guaraní, the World Fire was the first of four cataclysms that
annihilated almost all creatures, and it will be repeated when
the creator removes from under the earth the crossed beams
that hold it in place. Then the earth will catch fire, a long-
lasting night will set in, and a blue tiger will devour human-
kind.
Such Ge-speaking tribes as the Apanyekra, Apinagé,
Craho, and Ramkokamekra tell stories about the beginnings,
when only two persons existed, Sun and Moon, both of them
male. One day Sun obtained a beautiful plumed headdress
that looked like fire. Because Moon also wanted one for him-
self, Sun got another and threw it to Moon, warning him not
to let it touch the ground; but Moon was afraid to grab it
and let it fall to earth, and it immediately started to burn,
consuming all the sand and many animals.
MYTHIC ANCESTORS. Different South American myths place
the origin of humans at distinct levels of the universe and
variously depict the human race as being born from minerals,
plants, or animals. Women are sometimes assigned a separate
origin. The Urus of Lake Titicaca, speakers of a language of
the Uro-Chipaya family, relate that in the time of darkness
the universal creator made the Chullpas, who were the first
men. They were destroyed by a cataclysm when the Sun ap-
peared, and their survivors became the ancestors of those
who now call themselves Kotsuns (“people of the lake”), but
are more commonly known by the name of Urus (“wild ani-
mals”), as they are called by their Aymara neighbors. The
Carib-speaking Waiwai of Guyana say that before human-
kind existed there were on earth sky spirits, which now have
the form of birds and which fly in the second heavenly layer.
Some of them, however, have human form. Present-day hu-
mankind descends from the children of a woman who was
one of these spirits and who, surprised while alone in the for-
est, was impregnated by a grasshopper-man.
The Quechua-speaking Inca of Peru had several myths
of their origins that were recorded by Spanish chroniclers.
According to one of these stories, the high god Vi-racocha
created Alcaviza, a chieftain; and told him that after his
(Viracocha’s) departure the Inca noble would be born. Alcav-
iza resided at the place that would later become the main
square of Cuzco, the capital of the Inca empire. Seven miles
away, at a place called Paccaritambo (“lodge of dawn”), the
earth opened to form a cave, from which the four Ayar
brothers emerged, dressed in fine clothing and gold. Fearing
the colossal strength of the one who had come out of the cave
first, his brothers asked him to go back into the cave and
fetch some golden objects that had been left behind. While
he was inside, the others immured him there forever. Ayar
Manco, who had come out last, took the prisoner’s wife for
himself. Another brother displayed big wings, flew to the sky,
and from high above told Ayar Manco that the sun had or-
dered that he should change his name to Manco Capac
(“Manco the Magnificent”) and take the winged man’s wife
for himself. Finally the winged man turned into a stone. In
the company of his only remaining brother and their wives,
Manco Capac walked to Cuzco, where Alcaviza recognized
from their garments that they were indeed the children of
the Sun and told them to settle at whatever place they liked
best. Manco Capac, the first Inca ruler, chose the site where
later the Coricancha, or court of the sun, would be built. His
brother went away to settle another village.
HIGH GOD. The belief in a high god conceived as omni-
scient and benevolent to humans rather than as an omnipo-
tent and perfect creator (which in some cases he also is) is
documented in many South American myths. It was first re-
ported by Fray Ramón Pané in the earliest ethnological study
of American Indians. He wrote that the Taino of Haiti be-
lieved in the existence of an immortal being in the sky whom
no one can see and who has a mother but no beginning. At
the the southernmost extreme of South America, the belief
in the existence of a high god has been acknowledged among
the tribes of Tierra del Fuego. The Tehuelche of Patagonia
seem to have believed in a supreme being conceived as a good
spirit who was also the lord of the dead. From the Araucani-
ans (Mapuche) come testimonies of a belief, possibly autoch-
thonous, in a supreme celestial being, Nguenechen. Very
early reports say that the Tupí believed in a being they called
Monan, and that they attributed to him the same perfections
that Christians attribute to their God: He is eternal, and he
created the heavens and the earth as well as the birds and
animals.SOUTH AMERICAN INDIAN RELIGIONS: MYTHIC THEMES 8589