Canelos Quichua

(map)

Quilla, the moon, had sex with his bird sister, Jilucu. From this union came the stars, as people. Quilla always came unseen at night. One night Jilucu smeared genipa juice on his face, telling him it would make him feel fresh. By morning the juice turned dark, and Jilucu saw that her lover was the moon. The stars also knew from the moon's spotted face that they were descended from an incestuous relationship. They all cried, and their crying produced rain, earthquake, and flood. Volcanoes erupted, new hills formed, rivers swelled; the earth people were swept eastward by a great river into the sea. From this river came the sun, who began his regular course and brought an orderly axis to the world. The moon and stars lost much of their power because of the incestuous relationship, making night lose most of its light. The people were separated from one another and had to work their way westward, having many adventures along the way.

Norman E. Whitten, Jr., Sacha Runa: Ethnicity and Adaptation of Ecuadorian Jungle Quichua (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 51-52.