I
MAI PITUNA OIUQUAU ÃNA
How the night appeared
Native-south-american tupi nhehengatu legend

Couto de Magalhães
From O Selvagem, http://biblio.etnolinguistica.org/magalhaes-1876-selvagem , https://archive.org/details/O_Selvagem .
Translation from Brazilian Portuguese version by
Herculano de Lima Einloft Neto.
Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, 2014.

'This legend is probably a fragment of the 'Genesis' of the ancient south-american savages. It is perhaps the degraded and corrupted echo of the beliefs they had, of how was formed this order of things in the midst of which we live, and, undressed of the coarse forms with which probably dressed it the grandparents and the foster nurses, it shows that everywhere man has proposed to solve this problem -- where is it that we come from? Here, as in the 'Vedas', as in the 'Genesis', the question is in the deep solved in the same way, that is: in the beginning everyone was happy; a disobedience in a love episode, a forbidden fruit, brought the degradation. The legend is in short as follows: in the beginning there was no distinction between animals, man and plants; everything spoke[1]. There was also no darkness. Having the daughter of the Great Snake married, she didn't want to cohabit with her husband while there was not night over the world, such as there was in the deep of the waters. The husband sent for the night, which was sent to him enclosed in a pit of tucumã, well shut, with express prohibition to the conductors of opening it, penalty of losing themselves and their descendents, and all the things. At first they resist the temptation, but afterwards, the curiosity of knowing what was there inside the fruit made them violate the prohibition, and thus they lost themselves. Substituting the fruit of tucumã for the forbidden tree, the curiosity of knowing for the temptation of the evil spirit; it seems to me there is at the bottom of the episode so much resemblance with the asian thought that I hesitate and ask if it will not be a degraded and transformed echo of that thought?'


In the beginning there was no night -- day only there was in all time. The night was asleep at the bottom of the waters. There were no animals; all the things spoke[1].

The daughter of the Great Snake, they tell, had married a young man.

This young man had three faithful servants. One day he called the three servants and told them: -- go walk because my wife does not want to sleep with me.

The servants left, and then he called his wife to sleep with him. The daughter of the Great Snake answered him:

-- It is still not night.

The young man told her: -- There is no night; there is only day.
The young woman said: -- My father has night. If you want to sleep with me send for it there, by the great river.

The young man called the three servants; the young woman sent them to house of her father in order to bring a pit of tucumã (*).

The servants left, reached the house of the Great Snake, who delivered to them a pit of tucumã very well shut, and said to them: --- Here it is; take it. Eia! do not open it, or else all the things will be lost.

The servants left, and they were hearing noise inside the tucuman coconut, thus: tem, ten, ten... xi... (*) it was the noise of the crickets and small frogs which sing in the night.

When they were already far, one of the servants said to his fellowmen: -- Let us see what noise this will be?

The pilot said: -- No; otherwise we will lose ourselves. Let us go, eia, row!

They went and continued to hear that noise inside the tucuman coconut, and they did not know what noise it was.

When they were already very far, they gathered in the middle of the canoe, lit fire, melted the darkness which enclosed the coconut and opened it. Suddenly everything became dark.

The pilot then said: -- We are lost; and the young woman, in her house, already knows that we opened the coconut of tucuman! They continued the trip.

The young woman, at her house, told then her husband: -- They have released the night; let us wait for the morning.

Then all the things which were scattered by the woods transformed into animals and birds.

The things which were scattered through the river transformed into ducks, and into fishes. From the pannier was generated the jaguar[2]; the fisherman and his canoe transformed into duck; from his head were born the head and the beak of the duck; from the canoe the body of the duck; from the oars the legs of the duck.

The daughter of the Great Snake, when she saw the morning star, told her husband:

-- The dawn comes breaking. I will divide the day and the night.

Then she coiled the string, and told him: -- You shall be cujubin. Thus she made the cujubim; she painted the head of the cujubin white, with tabatinga; she painted him the legs red with urucú, and then told him: -- You shall sing for all eternity when the morning comes breaking.

She coiled the string, shook grey above it, and said: you shall be inambú, to sing in the various times of the night, and at dawn[3].

Since then all birds have sang in its times, and at dawn in order to joy the beginning of the day.

When the three servants arrived the young man said to them:

-- You have not been faithful -- you have opened the pit of tucumã, you have released night and all the things have been lost, and you too that have metamorphosed yourselves into monkeys, shall walk for all eternity by the branches of the woods.

(The black mouth, and the yellow line that they have in the arm they say that is still the sign of the darkness which enclosed the pit of tucumã which dripped over them when they melted it.)

(*) The 'tucumã' is a very beautiful thorny palm tree that grows in the valleys of the Amazonas and Prata. Its coconut, of a very shiny orange coloured red, serves as food for the savages, which with its pulp prepare a juicy porridge, of pleasant savor, but indigest.

(*) When the savages narrate this part they imitate the humming of the insects which sing in the night.

Tr. Notes:

[1] falavam, spoke, talked.
[2] onça, jaguar, Panthera onca.
[3] madrugada, dawn, early hours.

Cf. Houaiss, Avery, Barsa.