Genesis

by Eduardo Galeano

  The wasp arrived in a great hurry. He left toads and men without tails and then rested.

  (174)

  The Cedar

  The First Father conjured the world to birth with the tip of his wand and covered it with down.

  Out of the down rose the cedar, the sacred tree from which flows the word. Then the First Father told the Mby’a-guaranís to hollow out the trunk and listen to what it had in it. He said that whoever could listen to the cedar, the casket of words, would know where to establish his hearth. Whoever couldn’t would return to despised dust.

  (192)

  The Guaiacum Tree

  A young woman of the Nivakle people was going in search of water when she came upon a leafy tree, Nasuk, the guaiacum, and felt its call. She embraced its firm trunk, pressing her whole body against it, and dug her nails into its bark. The tree bled.

  Leaving it, she said, “How I wish, Nasuk, that you were a man!”

  And the guaiacum turned into a man and ran after her. When he found her, he showed her his scratched shoulder and stretched out by her side.

  (192)

  Colors

  White were once the feathers of birds, and white the skin of animals.

  Blue now are those that bathed in a lake into which no river emptied and from which none was born. Red, those that dipped in the lake of blood shed by a child of the Kadiueu tribe. Earth-color, those that rolled in the mud, and ashen those that sought warmth in extinguished campfires. Green, those that rubbed their bodies in the foliage, white those that stayed still.

  (174)

  Love

  In the Amazonian jungle, the first woman and the first man looked at each other with curiosity. It was odd what they had between their legs.

  “Did they cut yours off?” asked the man.

  “No,” she said, “I’ve always been like that.”

  He examined her close up. He scratched his head. There was an open wound there. He said: “Better not eat any cassava or bananas or any fruit that splits when it ripens. I’ll cure you. Get in the hammock and rest.”

  She obeyed. Patiently she swallowed herb teas and let him rub on pomades and unguents. She had to grit her teeth to keep from laughing when he said to her, “Don’t worry.”

  She enjoyed the game, although she was beginning to tire of fasting in a hammock. The memory of fruit made her mouth water.

  One evening the man came running through the glade. He jumped with excitement and cried, “I found it!”

  He had just seen the male monkey curing the female monkey in the arm of a tree.

  “That’s how it’s done,” said the man, approaching the woman.

  When the long embrace ended, a dense aroma of flowers and fruit filled the air. From the bodies lying together came unheard of vapors and glowings, and it was all so beautiful that the suns and the gods died of embarrassment.

  (59)

  The Rivers and the Sea

  There was no water in the forest of the Chocos. God knew that the ant had it and asked her for some. She didn’t want to listen. God tightened her waist, making it permanently slim, and the ant exuded the water she kept in her belly.

  “Now tell me where you got it.”

  The ant led God to a tree that had nothing unusual about it.

  Frogs and men with axes worked on it for four days and four nights, but the tree wouldn’t fall. A liana kept it from touching the ground.

  God ordered the toucan, “Cut it.”

  The toucan couldn’t, and for that was sentenced to eat fruit whole.

  The macaw cut the liana with his hard, sharp beak.

  When the water tree fell, the sea was born from its trunk and the rivers from its branches.

  All of the water was sweet. It was the Devil that kept chucking fistfuls of salt into it.

  (174)

  The Tides

  In olden times, winds blew unremittingly on Vancouver Island. Good weather didn’t exist, and there was no low tide.

  Men decided to kill the winds. They sent in spies. The winter blackbird failed; so did the sardine. Despite his bad vision and broken arms, it was the sea gull that managed to dodge the hurricanes mounting guard on the house of the winds.

  Then men sent in an army of fish led by the sea gull. The fish hurled themselves in a body against the door. The winds, rushing out, trod on them, slipping and falling one after another on the stingray, which pierced them with his tail and devoured them.

  The west wind was captured alive. Imprisoned by the men, it promised that it would not blow continuously, that there would be soft air and light breezes, and that the waters would recede a couple of times a day so that shellfish could be gathered at low tide. They spared its life.

  The west wind has kept its word.

  (114)

  Snow

  “I want you to fly!” said the master of the house, and the house took off and flew. It moved through the air in the darkness, whistling as it went, until the master ordered, “I want you to stop here!” And the house stopped, suspended in the night and the falling snow.

  There was no whale blubber to light the lamps, so the master gathered a fistful of fresh snow, and the snow gave him light.

  The house landed in an Iglulik village. Someone came over to greet it, and when he saw the lamp lit with snow, exclaimed, “The snow is burning!” and the lamps went out.

  (174)

  The Flood

  At the foot of the Andes, the heads of communities had a meeting. They smoked and discussed.

  The tree of abundance reared its rich crown far above the roof of the world. From below could be seen the high branches bent by the weight of fruit, luxuriant with pineapples, coconuts, papayas, guanábanas, corn, cassava, beans …

  Mice and birds enjoyed the feast. People, no. The fox went up and down giving himself banquets, sharing with no one. Men who tried to make the climb crashed to the ground.

  “What shall we do?”

  One of the chiefs conjured up an ax in his sleep. He awoke with a toad in his hand and struck it against the enormous trunk of the tree of abundance, but the little creature merely vomited up its liver.

  “That dream was lying.”

  Another chief, in a dream, begged the Father of all for an ax. The Father warned that the tree would get its own back but sent a red parrot. Grasping the parrot, the chief struck the tree of abundance. A rain of food fell to the ground, and the earth was deafened by the noise. Then the most unusual storm burst from the depths of the rivers. The waters rose, covering the world.

  Only one man survived. He swam and swam for days and nights, until he could cling to the top of a palm tree that stuck out of the water.

  (174)

  The Tortoise

  When the Flood receded, the Oaxaca Valley was a quagmire.

  A handful of mud took on life and started walking. The tortoise walked very, very slowly. He moved with his head stretched out and his eyes very open, discovering the world that the sun was bringing back to life.

  In a place that stank, the tortoise saw the vulture devouring corpses.

  “Take me to heaven,” he said. “I want to meet God.”

  The vulture made him keep asking. The corpses were tasty. The tortoise stuck out his head in entreaty, then pulled it back under his shell, unable to stand the stench.

  “You who have wings, take me,” he begged.

  Bored by his persistence, the vulture opened his huge black wings and flew off with the tortoise on his back. They flew through clouds, and the tortoise, his head tucked in, complained, “How disgusting you smell!”

  The vulture pretended not to hear.

  “What a stink of putrefaction!” the tortoise repeated.

  He kept it up until the hideous bird lost patience, leaned over brusquely, and threw him down to earth.

  God came down from heaven and put the bits together.

  The shell shows where the mends were.

  (92)

  The Parrot

  After
the Flood, the forest was green but empty. The survivor shot his arrows through the trees, and the arrows hit nothing but shadows and foliage.

  One evening, after much walking and searching, the survivor returned to his refuge and found roast meat and cassava cakes. The same happened the next day, and the next. From desperate hunger and loneliness, he turned to wondering whom he had to thank for his good fortune. In the morning, he hid and waited.

  Two parrots appeared out of the sky. No sooner had they alit on the ground than they turned into women. They lit a fire and started cooking.

  The only man chose the one with the longest hair and the finest and brightest feathers. The other woman, scorned, flew off.

  The Mayna Indians, descendants of this couple, curse their ancestor when their women turn lazy or grouchy. They say it’s all his fault because he chose the useless one. The other was mother and father of all the parrots living in the forest.

  (191)

  The Hummingbird

  At dawn he greets the sun. Night falls and he’s still at work. He goes buzzing from branch to branch, from flower to flower, quick and necessary like light itself. At times he’s doubtful and pauses suspended in the air; at times he flies backward as no one else can. At times he’s a little drunk from all the honey he has sucked. As he flies, he emits flashes of color.

  He brings messages from the gods, becomes a bolt of lightning to carry out their vengeance, blows prophecies in the ears of the soothsayers. When a Guaraní child dies, he rescues its soul, which lies in the calyx of a flower, and takes it in his long needle beak to the Land Without Evil. He has known the way there since the beginning of time. Before the world was born, he already existed; he freshened the mouth of the First Father with drops of dew and assuaged his hunger with the nectar of flowers.

  He led the long pilgrimage of the Toltecs to the sacred city of Tula before bringing the warmth of the sun to the Aztecs.

  As captain of the Chontals, he glides over the camps of the enemy, assesses their strength, dive-bombs them, and kills their chief in his sleep. As the sun of the Kekchis, he flies to the moon, takes her by surprise in her chamber, and makes love to her.

  His body is the size of an almond. He is born from an egg no bigger than a bean, in a nest that fits inside a nut. He sleeps with a little leaf as covering.

  (40, 206, and 210)

  The Night Bird (Urutaú)

  “I am the daughter of misfortune,” said the chief’s daughter Ñeambiú, when her father forbade her love for a man of an enemy community.

  She said it and fled.

  After a while they found her in the Iguazú Mountains. They found a statue. Ñeambiú looked without seeing; her mouth was still and her heart asleep.

  The chief sent for the one who deciphers mysteries and heals sicknesses. The whole community came out to witness the resurrection.

  The shaman sought advice from mate tea and cassava wine. He went up to Ñeambiú and lied right into her ear:

  “The man you love has just died.”

  Ñeambiú’s scream turned all the people into weeping willows. She flew off, turned into a bird.

  The screams of the urutaú, which shake the mountains at nighttime, can be heard more than half a league away. It’s difficult to see the urutaú, impossible to hunt him. No one can catch up with the phantom bird.

  (86)

  The Ovenbird

  When he reached the age for the three manhood tests, this boy ran and swam better than anyone and spent nine days without food, stretched out by leather thongs, without moving or complaining. During the tests he heard a woman’s voice singing to him from far away, which helped him to endure.

  The chief of the community decided that the boy should marry his daughter, but he took flight and got lost in the woods of the Paraguay River, searching for the singer.

  There you still meet the ovenbird. He flaps his wings powerfully and utters glad sounds when he thinks the sought-after voice is flying his way. Waiting for the one who doesn’t come, he has built a house of mud, with the door open to the northern breeze, in a place secure from lightning.

  Everyone respects him. He who kills the ovenbird or breaks his house draws the storm upon himself.

  (144)

  The Crow

  The lakes were dry, the riverbeds empty. The Takelma Indians, dying of thirst, sent the male and the female crow to look for water.

  The male crow got tired right away. He urinated in a bowl and said that was the water he was bringing from a far place.

  The female kept on flying. She returned much later with a load of fresh water and saved the Takelma people from the drought.

  As a punishment the male crow was sentenced to suffer thirst through the summers. Unable to moisten his throat, he talks in a very raucous voice while the weather is hot.

  (114)

  The Condor

  Cauillaca was weaving cloth in the shade of a tree, and overhead soared Coniraya, who had turned into a bird. The girl paid absolutely no attention to his warblings and flutterings.

  Coniraya knew that other, older, more important gods burned with desire for Cauillaca. However, he sent his seed down to her from up there, in the form of a ripe fruit. When she saw the fleshy fruit at her feet, she picked it up and bit into it. She felt a strange pleasure and became pregnant.

  Afterward he turned into a person—a ragged, sad sack of a man—and pursued her all over Peru. Cauillaca fled toward the ocean with her little son on her back, and behind trekked Coniraya, furiously hunting her.

  He made inquiries of a skunk. The skunk, noticing his bleeding feet and general distress, answered, “Idiot. Can’t you see there’s no point in following her?”

  So Coniraya cursed him, “You shall wander about by night, leaving a bad smell wherever you go. When you die, no one will pick you up off the ground.”

  But the condor put spirit into the hunter. “Run!” he called to him. “Run and you’ll catch her!”

  So Coniraya blessed him, “You shall fly wherever you want. There won’t be any place in the sky or on earth where you can’t go. No one will get to where you build your nest. You’ll never lack for food; and he who kills you will die.”

  After climbing a lot of mountains, Coniraya reached the coast. He was too late. The girl and her son were already an island, carved in rock, out in midocean.

  (100)

  The Jaguar

  The jaguar was out hunting with bow and arrows when he met a shadow. He tried to catch it and couldn’t. He lifted his head. The master of the shadow was young Botoque of the Kayapó tribe, who was near death from hunger on top of a rock.

  Botoque had no strength to move and could only just stammer a few words. The jaguar lowered his bow and invited him to a roast meat dinner in his house. Although the lad didn’t know what “roast” meant, he accepted and dropped on to the hunter’s back.

  “You’re carrying some stranger’s child,” said the jaguar’s wife.

  “He’s mine now,” said the jaguar.

  Botoque saw fire for the first time. He got acquainted with the stone oven and the smell of roast tapir and venison. He learned that fire illuminates and warms. The jaguar gave him a bow and arrows and taught him to defend himself.

  One day Botoque fled. He had killed the jaguar’s wife.

  He ran desperately for a long time and didn’t stop till he reached his village. There he told his story and displayed the secrets: the new weapon and the roast meat. The Kayapós decided to appropriate fire, and he led them to the remote house. Nothing was left to the jaguar of the fire except its reflection shining in his eyes.

  Ever since then, the jaguar has hated men. For hunting, all he has are his fangs and claws, and he eats the flesh of his victims raw.

  (111)

  The Bear

  The day animals and the night animals got together to decide what they would do about the sun, which then came and went whenever it liked. The animals resolved to leave the problem to fate. The winning group in th
e game of riddles would decide how long the world would have sunlight in the future.

  They were still talking when the sun approached, intrigued by the discussion. The sun came so close that the night animals had to scatter. The bear was a victim of the general flurry. He put his right foot into his left moccasin and his left foot into his right moccasin, and took off on the run as best he could.

  According to the Comanches, since then the bear walks with a lurch.

  (132)

  The Crocodile

  The sun of the Macusi people was worried. Every day there were fewer fish in their ponds.

  He put the crocodile in charge of security. The ponds got emptier. The crocodile, security guard and thief, invented a good story about invisible assailants, but the sun didn’t believe it, took a machete, and left the crocodile’s body all crisscrossed with cuts.

  To calm him down, the crocodile offered his beautiful daughter in marriage.

  “I’ll be expecting her,” said the sun.

  As the crocodile had no daughter, he sculpted a woman in the trunk of a wild plum tree.

  “Here she is,” he said, and plunged into the water, looking out of the corner of his eye, the way he always looks.

  It was the woodpecker who saved his life. Before the sun arrived, the woodpecker pecked at the wooden girl below the belly. Thus she, who was incomplete, was open for the sun to enter.

  (112)

  The Armadillo

  A big fiesta was announced on Lake Titicaca, and the armadillo, who was a very superior creature, wanted to dazzle everybody.

  Long beforehand, he set to weaving a cloak of such elegance that it would knock all eyes out.

  The fox noticed him at work. “Are you in a bad mood?”