Ciboney (Siboney)

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This myth, collected in the region of Cienfuegos, Cuba, in the late 19th or early 20th century, is attributed to the Ciboneys, a Caribbean group in conflict with the Tainos when Europeans encountered them and now extinct.

In ancient times, Huión, the sun, wanted someone to admire and worship him, so he created Hamao, the first man. Huion was now satisfied, but Hamao, alone midst a lush and resplendent nature, felt lonely, and he grieved the uselessness of his solitary life.

Sensitive and sweet Maroya, the moon, felt sorry for Hamao and created for him Guanaroca, the first woman. The two loved each other with unending passion. From their union Imao was born. Guanaroca, ever a mother, gave all her attention to her son, and the father, feeling ignored, conceived in jealousy the idea to take him away. One night while Guanaroca slept, Hamao took the tender infant to the mountains, where the excessive heat and lack of food killed the weak creature. Then the father, to conceal his crime, hollowed out a large gourd, placed the body of the infant inside, and hung it from the branch of a tree.

Guanaroca, on awakening, saw that her husband and son were missing and hastily went searching for them. She wandered through the woods calling for them and was ready to drop from exhaustion when the screech of a black bird caused her to raise her head and notice a gourd hanging from a tree. Whether from an innate curiosity or a foreboding, she felt compelled to climb the tree and take the gourd. Then she noticed the hole and with fright realized that the corpse of her son was inside. In her grief, the gourd dropped from her hands and fell to the ground. When it burst, she saw with amazement, fish came from it, and turtles of all sizes, and an endless flood of water covered the hills below. The fish formed the rivers of that region, the largest turtle turned into the peninsula of Majagua, and the other turtles, according to their size, became other islets. The warm and salty tears of the unhappy mother, weeping without consolation for the death of her son, formed the lagoon that bears her name: Guanaroca.

Samuel Feijóo, Mitos y Leyendas en Las Villas (La Habana, Cuba: Universidad Central de Las Villas, 1965), 33-34; Samuel Feijóo, Mitología Cubana (La Habana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1986), 11-14.