Legend of Mani
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, Brasil, 2014.

One of the legends, to which I referred above, conserves the tradition that the use of mandioca[1], which performs so important a role in the life of the indians, was revealed to them through a supernatural way. Mandioca is not only the bread of our savage, as also the substance from which they draw diverse wines, like the 'kauin', the 'maniquera', the 'puchirum' and others. Its discovery was to them more important than the one of wheat was to the aryas.

Although this legend belongs more to the domain of poetry than to that of science, I can't deprive myself of the desire of inserting it here, as a curious specimen of the product of the imagination of our savages. Here you have it such as it was referred to me by the mother of Mr. colonel Miranda, ex-treasurer of public finances of Pará, respectable mistress of about 70 years of age, and who resides in Belem. The legend says that mandioca was discovered like this:

"In gone times appeared pregnant the daughter of a savage chief, which resided in the immediacies of the place where is today the city of Santarém. The chief wanted to punish in the author of the dishonour of his daughter, the offense which his pride had suffered and, in order to know who he was, employed in vain pleas, threats and at length severe punishment. Before the pleas as well as before the punishment the young woman remained inflexible, saying that she had never had relation with any man whatsoever. The chief had deliberated to kill her, when it appeared to him in a dream a white man, which told him not to kill the young woman, because she was effectively innocent, and had not had relation with man. After the nine months she gave birth to a very beautiful girl, and white, causing this last fact the surprise, not only of the tribe, as also of the neighbour nations, which came to visit the child, to see that new and unknown race. The child, which had the name of Mani, and which walked and talked precociously, died at the end of one year, without having gone ill, and without having shown signs of pain.

She was buried inside the house itself, uncovering it, and watering daily the sepulture, following the custom of the people. After some time a plant sprung from the grave which, for being entirely unknown, they refrained from pulling off. It grew, flourished, and bore fruit. The birds which ate the fruit became drunk, and this phenomenon, unknown by the indians, augmented in them the superstition for the plant. The land at length fissured itself; they digged it and judged to recognize in the fruit they found the body of Mani. They ate it, and thus learned to use of mandioca."

The fruit received the name of 'Mani oca', which means: house or transformation of Mani, name which we conserve corrupted in the word mandioca, but which the french conserve without corruption still.

This legend encloses two things common to all asian religions: 1.o the attributing to a god the teaching of the use of bread : 2.o the conception without losing virginity. Will this be a simple product of imagination, will it be a law to which the human understanding is subject, or will it be some recollection of old asian beliefs, conserved confusely by oral tradition? Any of these things is possible, but for now it is nothing but simple conjecture.

Tr. Notes:

[1] mandioca, cassava, manioc, etc.