Karajá (Caraya)

(map)

The Carayas, hunting pigs, drove them into their dens and began pulling them out and killing them. In doing so, they also came upon a deer, a tapir, a white deer, and finally the feet of a man. They fetched a magician, who drew the man from the earth. This man was Anatiua; he had a thin body but fat paunch. He sang that he wanted tobacco, but the Carayas did not understand him and offered him all kinds of flowers and fruits until Anatiua pointed at a man smoking. Then they gave him tobacco. He smoked it until he fell senseless. They took him back to their village, where he awoke and began to dance and sing. But his behavior and unintelligible speech so alarmed the Carayas that they packed up and left. This angered Anatiua, and he turned himself into a giant piranha and followed them, carrying many calabashes full of water. The Carayas did not heed his calls to stop, so he smashed his calabashes one at a time, making the water rise until only the mountains at the mouth of the Tapirape River were exposed. The Carayas took refuge on the two peaks of those mountains. Anatiua called on the fish to drag the people into the water. The jahu, pintado, and pacu failed, but the bicudo managed to scale the mountain from behind and pull the people from the summit; a lagoon still marks where they fell. Only a few people survived, who descended when the flood had gone.

Frazer, 1919, 257-258.