Cashinahua (Kachinaua)

(map)

One day, the rain began to fall. For a month, it continued to fall, day and night, without letup. The rivers overflowed their banks and covered everything. Only one woman, observing the increasing waters, had the presence of mind to improvise a raft. This woman was named Nete. She got onto a large fallen tree, stowed some provisions as best she could among its roots, and let the current carry her where it would.

Another man named Rokawan also was struggling to survive. He climbed the tallest tree in the land. As the waters rose higher, he climbed higher, until he reached the highest branch that could support his weight. The water kept rising until only his forearms and face were exposed; his mouth, nose, and eyes were fringed by the foam of the flood. He had resigned himself to being drowned when suddenly, inexplicably, the waters started to lower. Rokawan's life was saved, but he was forever changed. He turned into a Saki monkey (Pithesia monachus), which still has whitish forearms and a white line about its face from the foam.

Meanwhile, Nete rode on her raft, floating on waters that went all directions. Finally the raft came aground at an unknown spot. A great many bees and wasps flew around. Nete realized the magnitude of her misfortune and began crying. She continued crying day and night.

One day Nete found four gourds. She cut off the top of one, emptied it of its pulp, and filled it with her tears, mucus, and saliva. When it was full, she caught a large black bee and shut it inside the gourd, too. She did the same with the four other gourds, putting a brown wasp in the second gourd, a tiny bee in the third, and a much larger wasp in the fourth.

Scarcely had she finished filling them all than the first gourd burst, revealing a baby boy. Nete named it Inobake. Soon the second gourd burst, giving a baby girl whom Nete named Banobake. Finally from the third and fourth gourds came, respectively, a girl and a boy, named Inanibake and Roabake. All of the children grew at an amazing rate, and soon they were adolescents.

Nevertheless, Nete had become blind from all her crying. Thereafter she took the name Netebuekon, or Blind Nete.

One day Nete told her children that she wanted to look for her brother. Her children supported and guided her as they went upriver. Along the way, the children brought her leaves of banana, yuca, papaya, sweet potato, corn, and other plants, and Nete named the plants for them and explained how to cultivate and cook them. The children gathered seeds and shoots from the plants as they went.

They came to one place where there were many huge bones in the ground. Netebuekon began to cry and explained that they are the bones of her ancestors. (Actually they are fossils from the Tertiary and Quaternary, which may still be seen not far from today's Cashinahua.)

Finally they came to the place where Netebuekon used to live. There she told her children how to build a house and start a farm, and they settled. Inobake took Banobake as a wife, and Roabake married Inanibake.

Netebuekon's brother, Nawapaketawan, was still alive. Long before the deluge, he had been attracted by lust to his sister, who was already married. Nevertheless, he ran off with her and had married her. To escape pursuit, they had climbed to the top of a high cliff above a ravine, and we suppose that the flood did not reach them there.

Netebuekon said one day that the time to visit him had come. "I can hear him chopping firewood every morning. Let's go."

But when they reached the brother, Nawapaketawan was not happy to have visitors. In a fury, he armed himself with a club and bow, and only with difficulty did his wife dissuade him from attacking. Still, his anger was not diminished, and he told Netebuekon, "In three days you shall die!" He beat on his temple with his hand until he opened a wound which, surprisingly, did not bleed, and then he took to his hammock and did not stir from it for three days.

Netebuekon and her children camped as far away from Nawapaketawan as they could. Nevertheless, when Nawapaketawan got up after three days, Netebuekon was dead.

Her children decided to take revenge. The eldest, Inobake, took a small play-arrow and poisoned its tip. Then he gave it to the youngest daughter, Inanibake, with instructions to shoot him in the testicles with it. She pretended to play with her little bow and arrows until she neared her uncle. Nawapaketawan had huge testicles which drug on the ground behind him, and it was easy for Inanibake to shoot them with the poisoned arrow. Nawapaketawan, thinking he had been stung by an insect, went to lie down and died soon after. Since then, Netebuekon's children lived in peace and grew in number, up to today.

Andre-Marcel d'Ans, La Verdadera Biblia de los Cashinahua (Mitos, leyendas y tradiciones de la Selva peruana) (Lima: Mosca Azul Editores, 1975), 94-106.