Amazonian Tortoise Myth

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AMAZONIANT O R T O I S E M Y T H S

' B Y

G i l . I K C I ) . H A R T T , \ . MPROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY

I N

CORNELL UNIVERSITYI T H A C A , N . V

R I O O E J A N E I R OW I L L I A M S C U L L Y , 1' U B L 1 S II E It

TypographiaAcadeniicarua Sete de Setembro n. 731 8 7 5


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TO MY ESTEEMED FRIEND

I V T A - J O U O L I V E R C R O M W E L L J A M E S

THIS LITTLE PAPERi s

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

Ten years ago to-day, on placing foot for the firsttime on Brazilian soil, at the Palace Square of Rio deJane iro , I directed myself to the first person I met,and asked the way to the office of the "T haye r Exped it io n ." It was an incident apparently of no importance, but it has nevertheless deeply influenced thecourse of my subsequent scientific life.

As if providentially, and jus t at the fortunate moment, I met one, not only well acquainted withBrazil and it people, but who, as the result of severalyears of expeditionary work in the "F ar West" inthe service of the United States Government, togetherwill a long,and intimate acquaintance with the miningindustries of Pennsylvania, was fitted to take a deep,and intelligent interest in my own scientific work.

To the aid and sound advice of this friend, I owemuch of the success of my journey , as an attachi of the"Thayer Expedition" in 1865 and 1866.


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After my return to the United States, I planned withhim my Expedition to the Brazilian coast in 1867, theaccomplishment of which would not have been possiblebut for his generous pecuniary aid.

In the preparation of a volume on the "Geology andPhysical Geography of Brazil", I was helped in manyways by the same friend, who even went so far as tomake, under my direction, a journey in the Provinceof Sao Paulo , for the purpose of ascertaining the general geological structure of this part of the Brazilianplateau . His carefully made observations have sincebeen verified.

The same friend acted as my agent in connectionwill the two "Morgan Expeditions" to the Amazonas in1870 and 1871, and to his judicious management waslargely due the success of these two Expeditions, aswell as the safety of the collections. But for hisconstant assistance and encouragement I would not beiu Brazil to day ; indeed, but for Major 0. C. James,I should long ago have been forced to abandon Brazilas a field for research.

In deference to his express wish, 1 have hithertoreluctantly refrained from m aking a full acknow ledgement of my indebtedness; but to day, with itbrought freshly to mind, I cannot refrain from givingthis expression to the feelings of my heart.

CH. FRED. HARTT.Rio dc Janeiro, April -23rd. 1875.


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A M A Z O N I A N T O R T O I S E M Y T H S

The Geologist on the Amazonas who is not interestedin some other branch of science, must lose much time,because geological localities are so widely separated,that he must often travel, for days together, withoutbeing able to make an observation of importance.

In 1870,1 found myself on the great River, reviewing the work of Professor Agassiz, and occupied in asearch for evidence to establish or disprove his hypothesis of the glacial origin of the Amazonian valley.

Brought into very intimate contact with the Indianpopulation of the country, I became interested in theLingua Geral, or modern Tupi, as spoken at Erere,Santarem, and on the Tapajos River, and I employedmy leisure time in its acquirement, making fair pro gress in collecting material to illustrate its structure.

Mr. Henry Walter Bates, in his charming sketch ofhis life on the Amazonas, and Madame Agassiz, in her"Journey in Brazil," had called attention to the number of myths existing among the Amazonian Indians.These myths had never been studied, and, being aware


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2 of their great value, I set myself to work to collectthem.

For a long time I was baffled, for the whites, as ageneral rule, were unacquainted with the Indian folklore, and neither by coaxing, nor by offers of money,could I persuade an Indian to relate a m yth . Thestory-teller of the locality was always represented tobe an old woman, who could make one split his sideswith laughter at odd stories about the Kurupira andthe Yurupari, and all sorts of animals, that used totalk and play pranks on one another, in the oldentime when speech was not the exclusive possession ofman. But quite invariably, this old woman was absent,or inaccessible. Once only, at Erere, did I find anancient squaw, said to be a wonderful repository oflendas, but nothing could I obtain from her.

One night, while wearily paddling up the parand-rnirim of the Itu ki , near Santarem, my faithful steersman, Maciel, began to talk to the Indian boatmen inTupi to keep them from going to sleep. I listenedwith all my ears, and, to my great delight, found himrecounting a story of the Kurupira. I followed himas best I could, jotting down in my note-book theleading points in the story, meanwhile joining heartily in the laughter of the men to encourage the narrator. The next day, I took the first opportunity to tellMaciel how much I had enjoyed his story, and to beg


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3 that he would dictate it to me in Lingua Geral. Hehad already received a long training in dictation, andmy first Tupi myth was soon recorded; but, for a longtime it was all in vain that 1 coaxed him to tell meanother.

I soon found that the Indian myth was always recited without m ental effort, its function being simply toplease, like a ballad, and not to communicate information, and that when the Indian, unsurrounded by theevening circle of listeners about the camp-fire, and byall those circumstances that make story-telling pro per and enjoyable, is soberly asked to relate a mythicaltale, he is incapable of the mental effort required toto recall it, and, for that reason, he promptly andstoutly pleads ignorance. So, the myth collector willusually go empty away, if he attempts to gather a harvest simply by asking. The only way is to seek for,and create occasions when story-telling would be natural, and, if necessary, to set the ball rolling by recounting some native myth, with which those presentare known to be well acquainted, taking care not toshow too^much curiosity in the stories it elicits.

"Ce nest que le premier pas qui coute." After onehas obtained his first myth, and has learned to reciteit accurately and spiritedly, the rest is easy. I mayhi'te remark, in passing, tha t one must be on his guardon the Amazonas, and elsewhere, for that matter,


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4 among savages or people of low culture, not to ask aleading question, for an Indian will always uncon-ciously acquiesce with the interrogator, who is thuslikely to be misled. On one occasion, talking of thispeculiarity with the captain of my little steamer, hesuddenly stepped up to the Indian pilot, who stood bythe rail gazing stolidly ahead, and, pointing out a palmby the riverside, said : "That palm is called Urubii,,*is it not , " "S im , Senhor !" answered the Ind iangravely, without moving a muscle. The question wasrepeated with the same result. The captain then asked : "W ha t is the name of that p a lm ? " when hepromptly answered "Jauari"

If the myth collector wishes to obtain the myth inits purity, and prevent his own personality enteringinto it, he must, above all, avoid asking of his pundita leading question, either in writing out the myth forthe first time, or in its after revision.

The Indian myths are , so far as my experience goes,rarely ever heard in Portuguese, those of the Tupispeaking population being quite invariably related inthe Lingua Geral. Their form is a stereotyped one,and the same myth may be found, with but little variation, from near the mouth of the Amazonas, to Taba-tfnga, on the frontier of Peru.

While some of the myths have clearly been intro-* Urubu is the name of the common Brazilian vulture.


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5 duced, and others, with th e advent of civilization, havesuffered more or less modification, th e great body ofthose still preserved in the Tupi are, I believe, of native origin.

The question has arisen, whether many of the stories I have given that bear so close a resemblance to OldWorld fables, may not have been introduced by thenegroes,but I see no reason for entertaining this suspicion, for they are too widely spread, their form isloo thoroughly Brazilian, they are most numerousin jus t those regions where negroes are not, and havenot been abundant, and moreover, they occur, notin Portuguese, but in the Lingua Geral.Among the myths that I nave collected are those inwhich figure the Paituna, the wonder-working son ofwoman belonging to a tribe of females with only onehusband, a legend from which, not unlikely, o riginated the story of the Amazonas ; the wood-devil or Kurupira''- ; the evil Yurupari, a sort of were-wolf;the Oiclra or water sprite, and other anthropom orphous beings. But the most interesting of all are theanimal stories, in which are recounted the exploits ofmonkeys, tapirs, tortoises, buzzards, and a host ofother animals.

I have published a little paper in Portuguese, on the Kurupiraentitled "0 Mytho do Kurupira," "Aurora Brazileira," Ithaca, N. Y.Vol. I .


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6 In this paper I propose to treat of one class of theseanimal stories, of which the Indians are very fond,

namely : those relating to the Brazilian land-tor toise.The Jabu ti, as it is called by the Portuguese,

or Yauti, as it is termed in Lingua Geral, is a smallspecies of tortoise* very common in Brazil, and muchesteemed for food. It is short-legged and slow, weak,,and silent, yet it plays the same part in Amazonianmythology that the fox does in that of the Old World.Inoffensive and retiring, the Jabuti, nevertheless, appears in the myths of the Lingua Geral as vindictive,cunning, active, full of humor and fond of discussion."E verdade!" said an Indian at Itaituba to me on hisfinishing a tortoise myth, "E o diabo ; e tern feito es-trago I" (He is the very devil, and has worked havoc I)

In 1870, my guide, Lourenco Maciel Parente,dictatedto me at Santarem, in Lingua Geral, the followingstory of "The Tortoise that outran the Deer." Of thisI published in the "Cornell Era" of Ithaca, New York,a version that attracted the attention of a writer inthe "Nation" of New York, who gave a variant ofthe same myth found among the negroes of one ofthe Carolinas.

In 18 71 , when I revisited the Amazonas, I took* "Testudo ten-critris, labulata, Schocff. Emys faveolata, Mifc.. de-

press a, M err ." v. Martius, W oertersamm lung etc . S. 455, subvoce Jaboti.


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- 7 -especial pains to inquire for this myth, being rew arded by hearing it related by the Indians whereverI went. My friend Dr. Joaquim Xavier de OliveiraPim entel, Captain of Engineers in the Brazilian arm y,has sent me a variant of the same story fromTabatinga, and Dr. Couto de Magalhaes has recentlyfound the same myth in Pard, so tha t it appears to becurrent wherever the Lingua Geral is spoken. I wastold in Santarem in 1870 that the myth was of Mun-durucu origin, but this I now doubt, as it appears tobe inseparably connected with the Lingua Geral.

The story runs as follows : H O W T H E T O R T O IS E O UT - R A N T H E DE E R

A Jabuti met a deer and asked : "O h deer I whatare you seek ing !" The deer answ ered: " I amout for a walk, to see if I cannot find something to ea t; and, pray, where are you going,tortoise.""I am also out walking; I am looking for water todr ink?"

"And when do you expect to reach the water?" demanded the deer.

"W hy do you ask that question ?" returned thetortoise."Because your legs are so short."

"W ell I" answered the tortoise, " I can run


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- 8 -faster than you can . If you are long-legged you cannot run so fast as I."

"Then let us run a race I" said the deer."W ell I" answered the tortoise, "w he n shall we

run ?""To-morrow.""At what time ?""Very early in the morning."liEng-6ng !" {*) assented the tortoise , who then

went into the forest and called together his relations,the other tortoises, saying : "Com e, let us kill thedeer !"

"B ut how are you going to kill him ?" inquiredthey." I said to the dee r," answered the tortoise, "l et

us run a race ! I want to see who can run the faster."Now I am going to cheat tha t deer. Do you scatteryourselves along the edge of thec am po , in the forest,keeping not very far from one another, and see thatyou keep perfectly still, each in his place! To-morrow,when we begin the race, the deer will run in thecampo, but I will remain quietly in my place. Whenhe calls out to me, if you are ahead of him , answer,but take care not to respond if he has passed you ."

So, early the next morning , the deer went out tomeet the tortoise.

(*) Yes! The ng represents a nasal.


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9 "Come, I" said the former, "L et us run I""W ait a bit I" said the tortoise, " I am going to

run in the woods.""A nd how are you, a little , shortlegged fellow,

going to run in the forest ?" asked the deer surprised.The jabuti insisted that he could not run in the

ca m po,but that he was accustomed to run in theforest, so the deer assented and the tortoise enteredthe wood, saying : "W hen I take my position I willmake a noise with a little stick so that you may knowthat I am ready."

When the tortoise, having reached his place, gavethe signal, the deer started off leisurely, laughing tohimself, and not thinking it worth his while to run.The tortoise remained quietly behind . After the deerhad walked a little distance, he turned around andcalled out: "U'i yautil" * when, to his astonishmenta tortoise a little way ahead cried o u t, ' 'U'i suastil" **"Well," said the deer to himself, "that jabuti doesrun fast 1" whereupon he walked brisk ly for a littledistance and then cried out again, but the voice of atortoise still responded far in advance.

"How 's th is ? " exclaimed the deer, and he ran alittle way, until th ink ing that he surely must havepassed the tortoise , he stopped, turned about, and

* Hullo Tortoise! The Indians always prefix U'i! in calling. Suatti, deer.


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- 1 0 -called again ; but "U'i suasul" came from the edgepf the fores,! just ahead.

Then the deer began to be alarmed and ran swiftly until he felt surely that he had passed the tortoisewhen he stopped and called ; but a jab ut i still an swered in advance.

On this the deer set off at full speed, and , after alittle, without stoppingjcalled to the tortoise, who stillfrom ahead cried: "U'i suasuI" He then he redoubledhis forces,but with no better success,and at last, tiredand bewildered, he ran against a tree and fell dead.

The noise made by the feet of the deer havingceased, the first tortoise listened. Not a sound washeard . Then he called to the deer, but received noresponse. So he went out of the forest and found thedeer lying dead. Then he gathered together all hisfriends and rejoiced over the victory.

The myth as found in Tabatinga, appears to havethe same form as that which I have just related. I giveit below in Dr. Pim entel's u.m words (*).

() "Um jabuti apostou com urn veado a ver quern corria mais.Marcado o dia, o jabuti empregou o seguintc meio para veneer :Reunio muitos jabutis e os foi collocar pelo matto, beirando ocampo designado para o lugar da corrida. Chegado o veado, s


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11 -Dr. Pimentel informs me that there is found

on the Amazonas a variant of the same myth, in whichthe race was between a deer and a carapato (*). Thelatter at the beginning of the race laid hold of the tailof the deer (**). During the contest, when the deercalled out to the insect, the answer came from sonear, that the deer, exerting himself more and more,died at last of fatigue.

The myth of the race between the tortoise and the0 veado acceitou, e collocados, um na beira do matto e o outrono campo, partirao ao signal dado. 0 veado correu a toda a forcae o jabuti deixou-se Dear.0 veado no meio da carreira gritou pelo jabuti para saber ondeestava. A resposta foi Hie dada um pouco adiante, por um dosjabutis collocados de vedeta no matto. 0 veado redobrou de esfor"cos e de vez em quando gritava pelo seu competidor e tinha aresposta semprc adiante. Aflnal o veado cahio morto de cansaco eo jabuti flcou vencedor.() Yaliyuka, Lingua Geral. A species of Ixodes very common inBrazil, infesting especially the grass and bushes of the Campos. It

attacks all animals, even the jabuti, and burying its proboscis in theflesli, soon swells to the size of a large castor bean, which itremarkably resembles, both in shape and coloration.(") This reminds one of the Little Tailor who pretended to helpthe giant carry the big tree, but who, instead of lifting his share,seated himself on one of the branches, and was carried by thegian t. The Valiant Tailor. Grimm.


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12 deer as found among the negroes of South (1) Carolinais as follows : (2)

"Once upon a tim e," so the story runs , "BrudderDeer and Br. Coutah (3) was courtin,' and de lady binlub Br. Deer more so dan Br. Coutah. She did binlub Br. Coutah, but she lub Br. Deer de morest. Sode noung lady say to Br. Deer and Br. Coutah both,dey mus hab a ten mile race, and de one dat beats,she will marry him.

"S o Br. Coutah say to Br. D eer: 'You has gotlonger legs dan I has, but I will run you . You runten miles on land, and I will run ten miles on water I'

"S o Br. Coutah went an ' git nine of his family,anv put one at ebery mile post, and he himself, whatwas to run wid Br. Deer, was right in front of deyoung lady's door, in de broom grass.

"D at morning at nine o'clock, Br. Deer met Br.(1) I do not remember whether the story was found in North or

South Carolina and I am unable to settle the question here, (atRio).(2) "Riverside Magazine." November 1868; "Nation" February23d 1871, p. 127. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the dialect, asthe story appears to me to have been wrilten out by a Northernerbut little familiar with "negro talk."(3) A terrapin, a species of turtle abundant in the Southern UnitedStates. The terrapin proper, (Malacochlemys paluslris), is a wateror swamp species. The form meant is probably the "wood terrapin" (Glyptemys insculpta) whichJs often found in the grass. Theword Coutah appears to be of African or igin .


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13 Coutah at de first mile post, wha de wos to start from.So he call : 'W ell, Br. Coutah, Is you ready ? Golong I' As he git on to de next mile post, he say :'Br. Cou tah!' Br. Coutah say 'H u ll o !' Br. Deersay : 'You dere f Br. Coutah say: 'Yes, Br. Coutah,I dere too.'

"Next mile post he jum p, Br. Deer say : 'Hulloo,Br. Coutah !' Br. Coutah say : 'Hulloo, Br. Deer youdere too ?' Br. Deer say : 'Ki I It look you gwinefor tie me ; it look like we gwine for de gal tie I'

"W hen he gits to de nine mile post he tought hegit dere first, cause he mek two jum p ; so he holler :'Br. Coutah I' Br. Coutah answer : 'You dere too?'Br. Deer say: 'It look like you gwine tie me.'Br. Coutah say : 'Go 'long, Brudder, I git dere in dueseason time,' which he does, the deer being beaten inthe race."

Grimm gives a similar story of a race between ahare and a hedgehog. The latter places his wife atthe end of a furrow in a plowed field, while he him self takes up his position at the other end. The h are,mistaking one for thu other, acknowledges himselfbeaten. In Northamptonshire (1) the fox is substitutedfor the hare , but, in other details, the myth is identical with the German.

Sometimes, in Old World mythology, it is a hare(1) "Notes and Queries,'' January 4th '851, p. 3.


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14 that runs a race with a tortoise (1) but who, confidingin his swiftness, goes to sleep, while the torto ise,persevering slowly, first reaches the goal.

In Siam the myth takes the following form : (2)"The bird Kruth, no doubt a limited and particular

form of Garudas, wishes to eat a tortoise (here perhaps the moon) which lies upon the shores of a lake.The tortoise consents to be eaten under the conditionthat the Kruth accepts a challenge to a trial of speed,and arrives soonest on the other side of the lake, thebird to go through the air and the tortoise throughthe water.

"T he bird Kruth accepts the wager ; and the tortoise calls together millions and millions of tortoises,and places them all in such a way that they surroundthe lake, each distant a few steps from the water.Then he gives the signal to the bird to commence therace. The Kruth rises up into the air and flies to theopposite bank ; wherever he essays to alight, he findsthe tortoise has been there before h im ." De Guber-natis suggests that the Siamese myth may representthe relation of the un to the lunations.

In the East Indian "fa ble of the ant and thegrasshopper," (3) of which the former represents "the

(1) De G ube rnatis, Zoo logical Mythology, Vol. II, p . 369.(2) De Gub ernatis, o p . cit. Vol. II, p . 369.(3) De G ube rnatis. o p . cit. V ol. I, p . 244.


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- 15 -cloud or the night, or Indras or the Aurora in thecloud of night, or the earth, and the latter the leapingone the moon ; the ant passes the grasshopper in therace, not because it walks faster, but because the tworunners must necessarily meet, and therefore onemust pass the other."

In Old World mythology, the myths of the race between the tortoise and some swift animal,as well as between the hare and the hedgehog, etc., have been explained as referring to the race between the slow one,the sun, and the swift one, the moon, audit seems to meeminently probable that the similar Amazonian mythmay have the same signification. (1) Perhaps onereason why the moon is called a deer may be owingto her being horned. In Sanskrit myths she is represented by a stag or a gazelle.

Dr.Couto de Magalhaes gives me the following story,which I will entitle

THE JABUTI THAT CHEATED THE MAN.A jab ut i was dancing in a hole in the ground, when

(1) I would suggest the comparison of the myth of the "Tortoiseand the Deer" with the story, in the Hidopadesa, of "Drama and theGoat" and also with the "Red Swan" in the Hiawatha legends.Since the above was in type Col. Joaquim Jose Fulgencio Carlosde Castro has given me a variant of the myth of the deer and tortoise, in which a toad is substituted for the tortoise. This variantwas obtained on the Amazonas.


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16 he was found by a man and caught. The man carried him to his house, put him in a box, andwent out. By and by the jabuti began to sing.The man's children listened, and the jabuti stopped.The children begged him to continue when he said :-"I f you are pleased with my singing, how much m orewould \o u be pleased if you could see me dance I"So the children put him in the middle of the house,where he danced, to their great deligh t. Presently,however, he made an excuse to go ou t, and fled.The children, frightened, procured a stone, painted itlike the tortoise , and placed it in the box. By andby the man returned , and, wishing to cook the jabu ti,took out the painted stone, and put it on the fire,where it soon became heated and burst.

Meanwhile, the tortoise had hidden himself in athicket, in a burrow having two openings. While theman was looking in at one hole, the jabu ti would ap pear at the other, and then when the man came to thisopening, he would quickly go to the first ; so thatwe have here, once more repeated, the story of the racebetween the slow tortoise or sun, and the swift moonor man. "We have already seen the tortoise escapefrom the jaguar by going into a burrow by one opening and retiring by another, just as the sun appears togo into its burrow in the west, and come out in theeast.


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- 17 -The following tale was related to me in Santarem

by Lourenco Maciel : H OW A T O R T O IS E K ILL ED T WO JA G UA R S . ( 1 )

One day a jab uti tortoise was amusing himself byclimbing a hill, drawing into his shell his head andlegs, and allowing himself to roll down to the bottom,which was reached in safety.

A jaguar, happening to pass by, observed the proceeding and inquired :

"What arc you doing, jabuti ? "" O h , I am playing, jaguar, " answered the tor

toise."Let ni" see how you play," said the jaguar.The jabuti then ascended the hill, and, as before,

came rolling down. The jaguar was much pleased andsaid :

"I am going to play also.""W el l" , returned the torto ise," climb the hill and

then come rolling down as I did."The jaguar attempted to imitate the jab ut i, but, at

the foot of the hill, struck his head against a tree andwas k illed.

By and by, there came along anothe r jagu ar,to whom the tortoise remarked that he was going toplay. So the jabu ti said to a tree : "O p en !" and the

ll) In Tupi it is Yauarete.


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18 tree obeyed. Then the jabuti, entering into the trunk ,said : "S hu t tree 1" and the trunk closed u p, imprisoning the jabuti, bu t when the latter commanded itto open, it obeyed, and he walked out. The jagu ar,who had been watching, then said :

"J ab ut i, I want also to play as you have do ne ."So he said : "Open tree I" The trunk opened and thejaguar entered in. He then commanded it to close uponhim and it obeyed, and when he said : "Open tree !"he walked out much pleased. But this did not satisfyhim , and he said to the tortoise : " I want to playaga in." So the jaguar repeated the experim ent; but,when he had entered into the tree, the jabuti said :"Shut tree for ever !" and the jaguar being imprisoned, died.

Both parts of this story appear to have the samemeaning, and represent the victory of the sun overthe moon during the lunations. In the first part of thestory, the sun rolls down the western sky to appearagain un hu rt, but the moon in attempting to followthe example is extinguished. The myth, if this be thetrue explanation, seems incom plete, and I wouldsuggest that perhaps, on search, the perfect formmight be found, which would probably be asfollows:

The jaguar,or new moon,meets the sun,or jabuti,ashe has just rolled down the western sky and desires to


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- 19 follow his exam ple. Next day, and for many days, heis successful, but by and by, after losing his strengthgradually, the jaguar (the old moon) descends and isextinguished.

In the second part, the setting sun, or torto ise,cleaves the forest in the evening and disappears in it,to issue again safely on the morrow. The moon, orjaguar, follows his example safely, but on repeatingthe experiment is destroyed, the extinction of theold moon probably appearing to the Indian a destruction, the new moon being another moon, or a secondonca.

That the tortoise should enter into, be imprisonedin, and issue unharmed from the forest, is a most natural form for the myth ; for, in a forest-clothedcountry like the Amazonas, the sun ordinarily seems toset among, and rise out of the trees. The sun also hasthe power of splitting the trunk s of trees ; in whichlatter case he performs the action from a distance, asif by command.

The splitting of the earth , and of rocks and treesby solar heroes is common in mythological tales, theworld over, and the second part of the story justrelated has many parallels.

In Bleek s Hottentot fables, (1) the Nama womanand her bro thers , when pursued by the elephant,(I ) p. 64.


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- 20 -address a rock with these words : "Stone of my ancestors, divide for u s ! " The rock divides and theypass through, but when the elephant addresses it inthe same manner, the rock opens, only to close uponhim and kill him.

The rock-hou se, Itohe-likantum-jambali, opens andshuts at the voice of its master. (1) So also when Kur-angutuku said to the rock : "Open for me, open !"it obeyed, and he hid himself in it.

Afanasieffin the observations to th^ firs t book of hisRussian Stories, refers to a Slavonic tale, in which ahare shuts up a bear in the trunk of a tree (2).

The following is one of the most interesting of theJabuti stories, and the Indians always relate it withmuch gusto :HOW THE TORTOISE PROVOKED A CONTEST OF STRENGTH

BETWEEN THE TAPIR AND THE WHALE.

One day a jab ut i went down to the sea to d rink. Awhale saw him and called out;"What are you doing, jaboti ?" To which the latter responded :

"I am drinking, because I am thirsty."(1) Callow ay. Zulu N ursu ry (a les, Vol. I, p. 143.(2) Grey. Polynesian Mythology, p . 188. Long fellow re lat es ho w

the Manito of I he mountain"Opened wide his rocky doorwaysGiving Pawpukkeewis shelter."


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- 21 Then the whale made sport of the tortoise because ofhis sh or t legs, bu t the latter replied :"If my legsare sh or t, I am stron ger th an you, and can pull youon shore . "

The whale laughed, and said : "Let me see youd o i t ! "

" W e ll ," said the jab ut i , "ju st wait until I go intothe forest and pull a sipo*!"

Away went the tortoise into the forest, and their heencountered a tapir who dem anded, "W h at are youlooking after, jabuti ?"

"I am looking after a sipo.""And what are you goinjj; l;> do with the sipo r' a s k ed the tapir." I want it to pull you down to the s e a ."* T /" exclaimed the, tapir , surprised, " I ' l l pull

you into the forest, and , w hat's m or e, I ' l l kill you ;but never m ind , let 's try who may be the strong er !Go get yo ur sipo !" Th e torto ise went off, and presentlycame back with a very long sipo, one end of which hetied around the body of the tapir.

"N o w ," said the jab uti , "w ait here unti l I go downto the sea. W hen I sh ak e the sip6 , run with all yourm ight into th " forest." Having attached one end to thetapir, he dragged the other down to the sea, and fasten,ed it to the tail of the w ha le. Th is acco m plishe d, h e

A lliana, or aerial root.


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22 said, " I will go up into the forest, and when I shakethe sip6, pull as hard as you can, for I am going todraw you on shore."

The jabuti then went into the wood, midway betweenthe whale and the tapir, shook the sip6, and awaitedthe result. First the whale, swimming vigorously,dragged the tapir backward to the sea, but the latter,resisting with all his might, finally gained a firm foothold, and began to get the bettei of the whale,drawinghim in toward the shore. Then the whale made anothereffort, and, in this manner, they kept tugging againstone'another, each thinking the tortoise at the other endof the sip6, until at last, both gave up the strugglefrom sheer exhaustion.

The tortoise went down to the shore to see the whale,who said : "Well 1 you are strong, jabuti; I am verytired."

The tortoise then untied the sipo from the whale,and having dipped himself in the water, presented himself to the tapir, who thought the tortoise had beenpulling against him in the water.

"W ell tap ir," said the jabu ti, "you see that I amthe stronger."

The tortoise then released the tapir, who went offsaying : "It is true, jabuti, you are indeed stro ng ."

In the Lingua Geral, the word I have rendered"w hale," is pir.l-asa, literally, the big fish, this be-in^ the name applied by the Indians to the cetacean


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23 which is to them, the fish par excellence. It cannotbe the Amazonian dolphin, because this bears thename plra-yaadra,*, or tiger-fish. The word pumiui,which I have translated "sea," is applied also to ariver. Maciel assured me that the big fish was a"balea do mar grunde"a whale of the ocean.

Dr. Pimentel has kindly sent me a variant of thismyth, which I give in a somewhat condensed form.A jabuti who had been surrounded by the rise of

the river, threw himself into the water to reach terrafirma. In the middle of the stream he met the cobrugrande, or mythical great serpent. "Adeos, coma-dre," said the to the snake."Adeos, compadre," replied the latter, "where areyou going ?"

" I am going," said the tortoise, " to cut down afruit-tree, to get something to eat."

"W ha t ? Are you strong enough for that ?" askedthe cobra astonished.

"Ora I Do you think so little of me as to doubtit? Let us see which is the stronger. But I shallhave to be on land, because in the water, I have nostrength."

Yaudra originally meant thv Brazilian tiger, and the Englishword jaguar is derived from it. To-day it is applied only to the dog,and the jaguar is called Yauaretc or the true Yaudra. Pird is fish.The accent is thrown back in this case.


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- 24 -"And I , " added the cobra grande ,"must remain in

the water, for on land I have no strength."The tortoise begged the cobra to carry him to land.

The snak e assented, and the jab ut i , cl imb ing on hisback, was quickly deposited on shore.

Th e day for the trial was set, and the ja b u ti wentaway, intending not to return.A few days after, a jaguar came across the tortoise,and was about to dash him to pieces against a tree anddevour him, but the jabuti did not forget himself, andsaid to the onca : " 0 jagu ar , you treat me in thisway beca use I am on lan d. If I were in th e water youwould not dare do so."Th e jag ua r was not very hun gry , and being curiousas to wh at the ja b u ti would do in the wa ter, carriedhim down to the river and threw him in.

As soon as the cobra gra nd e saw the torto ise, hetook him to task for not having kept his appointment.The jabuti excused himself as best he could, and saidthat he would immediately get a sipo, so that the twomight pull , one at one end, the other at the other, todeterm ine which was the stro ng er. Th en, going closein shore, he said to the jaguar :"Cut a long s ipo."

The jagu ar did so. Then the jabu t i said : "G iveme one end, and when I make a signal, pull with allyour m ig h t." But the ja bu ti gave his end of the sipoto the cobra grande, and told him to wait until he had


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- 25 -reached the lan d. The jab ut i then gave the signal,and hid hinisell ',and the cobra and jaguar began to tugat the sipo, each th in ki ng the tortoise at the otherend .

The jabuti had st ipulated that the one who was vanqu ishe d in the strugg le, sho uld forfeit his life. Bothjaguar and cobra soon became fatigued, and abandoning th e co nte st, lied as fast as po ssible , wh ile thejabut i escaped.

Dr. Couto de M agalhacs ha s found th is same m ythin Para, bu t, for the tapir or jag ua r, is sub stitutedthe liuti-pura (the fores t-dw eller), a sort of m yth icalgiant of the woods.

This my th is , perh aps, susceptible of m ore than oneinter pre tation . The tortoise, or sun , has a tr ial ofstrength with the jaguar or tapir , the moon, and vanquishes by substi tuting another in his place, in whichease, we have simply a different form of the myth ofthe Tortoise and Deer. It ha s, how ever, suggested itself to me that th e tortoise, in this my th,m igh t perha psbe the sun or moon, provoking the everlast ing t idalcontest between the sea and the la n d .* It is worthnoting tha t Brazil is so situated geo grap hically, tha t

* Claude d'Abbcville says that the Indians of Maranhao knewthat, the flux and reflux of the tide was caused by the moon.Hisloire, do la mission des PP. Capuchins en I'Isle de Maragnan.Fol. 320.


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- 26 the sun and moon are rarely seen to set in the sea.On the Amazonas,however,the sight of their disappearance behind a water horizon is a familiar one to theInd ian. If this myth is really of native grow th, itwould be interesting to discover whether it originated on the Amazonas, or on the coast.

The following is a somewhat free translation ofanother story I obtained in the Lingua Geral, atSantarem :

HOW A TORTOISE KILLED A JAGUAR (1) AND MADE AWHISTLE OF ONE OF HIS BONES.

A monkey was high up in an Inaja tree (2) eatingthe fruit,when a jabuti came up underneath, and, seeing the monkey, asked :

"What are you doing, monkey 1""I am eating Inajd fruit," answered the monkey."Throw one down to me," said the tortoise."Climb up, jabuti," retorted the monkey."But 1 cannot climb.""Then I will descend and fetch you."Down went the monkey and carried the tortoise up

into the tree, placing him on a bunch of the fruit. He(') De G ub erna tis. Zoo logical My thology. Vol. II, p . 11 0. See

also p . 213 and Reineke Fu chs.(2) The palm Maximiliana.


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- 27 -then went away, leaving the torto ise , saying thathe would presently return.

The jabuti ate until he was satisfied, and waited forthe monkey,who did not return.He desired to descend,but was unable, and so he remained looking down,afraid to let himself fall, lest he might be killed.

By and by, a jaguar came along, and , looking upinto the tree, saw the jabutf."U'i yautt I" said he, calling to the tortoise,

"what are you doing up there ?"" I am eating Inajd fruit," answered the jabu ti."Throw me down one !" said the jaguar. The tor

toise plucked a fruit and threw it to the jaguar, who,having eaten it, said: "S6 reti I (1) Throw downanother!" The tortoise obeyed.

"W hy don't you come down ?" asked the jaguar.The tortoise answered that he was afraid lest he shouldbe killed.

Now the jaguar wanted to make a meal of the tortoise, so he said :

"D on 't be afraid ! Jum p ! I will catch you !"The tortoise leaped down, but the jaguar missed

his aim, and the tortoise, striking him on the head,killed him. The jabuti, unhurt, then went off to hishole.

(I ) In one variant, the tortoise is represented as throwing downonly empty shells.


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28 A month afterwards he came out and took a walk,to look at the rem ains of the jaguar, and finding the

skeleton, he carried away one of the bones, out ofwhich he made a sort of gaita or fife, on which hepiped, as he walked about : "Yauarete kaunguerasereny'my' ' I" The bone of the jaguar is my fife.

Now it happened that another jaguar, passing by,heard the sound,and stopped and listened. "YauareUkaunguera sereny'my," piped again the jab uti. Thejaguar, determined to investigate the matter, followedthe tortoise, who presently came to the mouth of hishole.

"U'i yauti I" cried the jaguar, "W ha t is that youarc saying ?""How is that ?" asked the tortoise,"Did 1 not hear you sayin g: "Yauarete kaung-

u6ra sereny'my' 'I" "'."No," said the tortoise, "I said "Suasu (2) kaung

uera sereny'my ' I" and immediately he entered hishole, from which he piped : "YauareU kaungue'rasereny'my' ' I"

The jaguar,on hearing this,turned towards the holeand said : "I am going to cat you, by and by, jabuti."

(2) Suasu, deer . He denies that he said that his fife was madeof a jaguar 's bone, but declares that he said that it was made ofthe bone of a deer.


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29 -The jaguar remained watching for the tortoise, but

the lat ter escaped by another hole, eluding the jaguar.A m onk ey in a tree, seeing the latter waiting, calledout to him and asked him wh at h e was doin g. TheJa gu ar answered : " I am wa iting for the jab uti tocome out that I may eat him."

The m on key laughed an d said : "Y ou arc a stupidfellow, the ja b u ti ha s gone aw ay. He will no t appe arunt i l i t ra ins ."

" W e ll , if that is the ca se ," rejoined the jag uar,"I will go and take a walk,"and he went away,cheated by the tortoise.

In ano the r version of this story, the jab uti is rep resented as spread ing out his tniiari, (1) to dry in thesun, before the mo uth of the ho le. The jag ua r causeda wind to blow the tatutri abou t, hop ing in this wayto entice out the tortoise, but the latter, too wary,sent out another animal to look after the tauarl andhimself escaped.

In a varia nt of this m yth ob tained by Dr. de Maga-lhaes th e jag ua r is represen ted as reach ing down intothe burrow and catchin g ho ld of the tortoise, wh o,resisting, cries ou t : " O h , you foolish fellow I Youth in k you ha ve cau gh t me when it is only the root of

(1) A thin, paper-like, inside bark of a large tree of the samename, a species of Coiintari. This bark is used by the Indiansas a wrapper in making cigarettes.


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- 30 -a tree that you have secured." The jaguar there uponrealises his hold.

Dr. Silva de Coutinho has found the same myth a-mong the Indians on the Rio Branco.Here,however,the

jaguar left a toad on guard at the mouth of the burrowof the tortoise. The jabuti seeing him asked why hiseyes were so red and swollen, and persuaded him torub them with a certain plant, which, being caustic,blinded him . The tortoise then escaped. The jaguarwished to kill the toad but the latter jumped into apond. The jaguar then called an alligator whichspeedily drank up the water, so tha t the jaguar wasable to catch and kill the toad.In this myth the jabuti is still the sun, who conquersand kills the jaguar moon. The taking of one of thebones of the latter,for a iife,naturally suggests itself tothe Indian, who is accustomed to make whistles ofthe bones of his enemies. Another jaguar, or anothermoon, gives chase to the jabu ti, who, entering hisburrow by one hole, escapes by another, as the sun,descending into the earth in the west, comes up out ofthe east.

TH E JABUTI AVENGES H IMSELF ON TH E T A PIRA tapir (1) metwithajabutf in a wet place, and step-(t) The English word "tapir" is derived from the Tupi Tapy'irathe y' having a sound somewhat like a guttural German u umlaut.


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31 -ping upon him , bui : .d him deep in the m ud , wh erethe tortoise remaine I two years before he could extricate himself. Win n, at last, he succeeded, he said tohimself : "Now 1 will ta k e my revenge on the tapir !"So off he starte d in sea rch of th at bea st. Pretty soonhe found a mass of the droppings of the tapir coveredwith grass, and inquired of i t : "0 Tepu ti I '!)Where is your m as te r? " The Teput i answered, "Mym aster left me here a long while ago . I know n oth ingof h im , bu t, wh en h e loft m e, he went off in this d irec tion . Go after him !" The tortoise followed inthe direction ind icated, and presently found an oth erheap,of which he asked as before : "0 Tcpuli! Whereis you r m aster ?" receiving ihe answer : "Mym aster left me he re ab ou t a year ago . Follow in histrac k, you will come up with hi m ." The tortoisecontinued his jou rne y, and , before Uma, met with another heap, which, on being interrogated as before,answered : "M y m aster is not fa ra w ay . If you willwalk rapidly you will come up with him to-morrow !"

The next day he found a perfectly fresh mass whichsaid, "My mas ter has just left me he re, I can he arthe bre ak ing of the bran che s as he trues thr ou gh theWhen the ox was introduced, the Indian applied the same name toit, and the tapir came to be called tapfira-laauara, or the forest-dwelling tap ir.

('!) Dung.


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32 forest. Go after him ! " Th e tortoise followed, andsoon came up to the tapir, whom he found lying fastasle ep . He looked at the tapir carefully, and thenvery quietly w ent up to him ,and fastened his jaws intohis thig h. The tapir awoke with a start and dashedinto the forest, the tortoise kee ping a firm ho ld, an d,mad dened with the pa in, he ran on un til , at last,ove rcom e by fatigue, he fell de ad . After a m ont h,the tortoise came bac k and found the sk ele ton , fromwhich he took a bone to show to his friends, as proofof his exploit .

In the Pa ntc ha tan tram , (1) a collection of Sansk ritstories, the re is one of the elep ha nt and ha res , tha tbears a close resem blan ce to tha t jus t relat ed . It runsas follows :

On the shores of th e lake Tc han drasa ras live thehare s in num erou s burro w s. The elep han ts, drivenby thirst, come down to the lake to d rin k , and bre akin the burrow s as they w alk, kil l ing and maim ing thehares . The hare, in the name of the moon, in whichis the palace of the ha re -k in g, remo nstra tes w ith theelep ha nt-kin g, saying th at the m oon is ang ry. Theha re shows him the reilection of the moo n in the water. The elep ha nt, distu rbin g th e water, causes thereilection to be m ultip lied. The ha re tells him that

(1) Rook III . Story I, vide de G ub ernatis' Zoolog ical MythologyVol. II. p. 76 . See also Atwar-i Suhaile. Chap. IV. story IV.


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- 33 -the moon is more angry still, whereupon the elephantking begs pardon and retires , leaving the hares inpeace.

According to Gubernatis,"1 the elephant is the sunwho goes down to drink at the lake of the moon :"thehare warns the elephant tha t, if he does not retire , ifho continues to crush the hares on the shores of thelake, the moon will take back his cold beams, andthen the elephants will die of hunger."

In the African Kanuri tale, an elephant sits downupon a cock, and the latter, in revenge, picks out oneof the elephant's eyes.

The Amazonian story seems susceptible of the following interpretation :The tapir is the sun, the tortoise the moon. The rising sun extinguishes the oldmoon, and buries her, but after a time, the new moonappears and begins the pursuit of the sun . The factthat the race continues day after day, and that the scentgrows constantly stronger suggests, however, that thepursuer may, after all, be the sun . May not the story, perhaps, have become confused through an interchange of characters ?TH E T OR TOISE K ILLS T H E OPOSSUM BY INDUCING HIM T O

BURY HIMSELF.A jabuti made a bet with a mu kura, or Amazonian

(aa) Z oo l . M yt h o l og y . Vo l. I I . p . 76 .


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34 opossum, to see which could the longer stay buried.The jabuti was first interred by the mukura, and cameout in good order. The jabu ti then buried the m u-kiira under a heap of dried leaves, and left him . Afew days after, when he came to look at him, he foundonly a swarm of flies.

Here the solar tortoise , who buries himself daily,without harm,induces the nocturnal mukura,or moon,to follow his example, resulting in the extinction of thelatter.T H E T O R T O IS E S ENDS T H E JA G UA R ON A FO O L'S E R R A ND

A jabuti and a spider entered into a sort of copartnership, and lived together. The jabuti had killed atapir, and was engaged in cutting up his flesh, when ajaguar came along.

"W ell jab uti" , said he to the tortoise, "w hat areyou doing ?"

" I have killed a tapir, and am dressing h im ," answered the jabu ti.

" I 'll help you ," said the jaguar, who immediatelyfell to and helped himself, much to the disgust of thejab uti. Presently the latter said to the jaguar : " Iam very thirsty , and am going to get some water.Spider, go on storing away the flesh in your house !"

The tortoise went off a short distance, wet himselfin the dew, and returned.


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35 "W here is the w ate r?" asked the jaguar, "for I

also am thirsty.""Go off in this direction," said the tortoise, poin

ting with his finger. "T he water is jus t beneath thesun. Go straight ahead, following the sun, and youwill find it" The jaguar walked and walked, butfound no water ; so, disgusted, he returned to finishthe cutting up of the tapir. But the jabuti and spiderhad worked diligently while the jaguar was gone, audhad stored all the flesh in the house of the spider,leaving only the bones for the jaguar.

This tale is exactly matched by the followingAfrican story given by Koelle : (*)A weasel and a hyena, wishing to cook an animalkilled in the chase, sent out the weasel to search forfire. The weasel went, but returned unsuccessful.The hyena, on seeing the sun set in the west, thoughtthat it was fire, arose,and said to the weasel:"Lookafter our meat, while I go and fetch"the fire."While the hyena was gone, the weasel hid the meatin a ho le. The sun set as the hyena was going towardit and he returned. The weasel said that two men hadstolen the meat and hidden it in the ho le. The weaselwent into the hole, promising to tie the meat to thehyena's tail ; but instead he tied the tail to a stick, sothat when he called out to th e hyena to pull, the

(*) African Native Literature, p . 166 .


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36 latter found himself fast, and in his struggle broke offhis tail.

I add also the following story of a conversationbetween a jabuti and a tapir, which however appearscondensed and incomplete.

A jabuti met a tapir in the forest, and asked himwhere he was going. The jabuti said : "I am goingto marry the daughter of a hum ming-b ird." The tapirlaughed, and told him that he had such shortlegs that he would never reach her house.

The jabuti then asked the tapir where he was going,when the latter replied that he was on his way to askthe daughter of the deer in marriage. The tortoiselaughed in turn, and answered:"Ya ! You willnever marry the deer's daughter." "Why not ?" askedthe tapir. "Because she will run away from you ," r eplied the jabuti. "W ell, " said the tapir " 1 also canrun. I break down the branches before me as I g o ."

Besides the jabuti stories, there are others found onthe Amazonas that seem to me to be solar myths, butthe limits of this article will not allow me to do muchmore than refer to them .

In one of these stories, the kingfisher marries thedaughter of the mukura, and with his wife goes ou tfishing. The uairirdmba or kingfisher, shakes his ma-rakd rattle;a big tukunaH fish comes up,and he pounces upon him, and brings him to land. The mukura is


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37 -jealous, and insists upon fishing also in the same way,So he borrows his son-in-law's rat t le and follows hisexa m ple, being speedily swallowed by the fish. Hiswife runs ho m e in distress and calls the son-in-law,who promptly rescues him, in rather a poor slate ofheal th.

In the continuation of this story, the kinglisher isrepresented as being obliged to flee from the mukur a ,who is angry because the kingfisher has laughed athis plight. The wife of the latter then takes for herhusband a carapato, and soon after the pair go out togather green Brazil-mils, the carapato climbing thet ree, plucking the fruit, and throwing it down to hiswife. After he has finished, he plucks a leaf, andholding on to it, comes safely to the ground. Then thejealous mukura must needs follow his example, butwhen he at tempts to descend by holding on to theleaf, he falls with a crash to the ground.

The myths 1 have placed on record in this littlepaper hav e, without dou bt, a wide currency on theAmazonas, but I have found them only among theIndian populat ion, and they were all collected in theLingua Geral. All my attempts to obtain myths fromthe negroes on the Amazonas proved failures.Dr. Couto de Magalhaes, who has recently followedme in these researches, has had the same experience.The probabil i ty, therefore, seems to be tha t the myths


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38 are indig eno us, bu t I do not yet consider the casepro ve n. W he the r of native or foreign orig in, the yexist and are curre nt am ong the Ind ian pop ulation ,and they deserve careful collection and critical study.

Fortunately we are not without historical evidenceas to the existence of celestial myths among theanc ient India ns . Claude d'Ab bev ille (*) tells us tha tthe Tupi Indians of Maranhao gave names to many ofth e stars and con stellation s. Th e evening star theycalled Pira-panem, the pilot of the m orn ing . Amongthe constellations were Ouegnonmoin, the crab;Yassatin, called after a bird of t h e sam e nam e ;Tuyaue, th e old m an ; C onomy manipoere ouare,the boy that eats m anipoy ; Yandoutin, the whiteostrich that eats the ouyra-oupia or birds ' eggs,two stars in the vicinity; Uipily, the hare ; Gnopou'eon,the man dioca oven, etc. etc. W hat is , how ever,most interesting is the statement that the name iaoudreor dog, (more prop erly jag ua r), was given to a largestar tha t follows close to the m oo n, and wh ich wassupposed by the Indian s to pu rsue h er in order todevour her. After the rains , w hen the moon mad e herappe arance , ruddy in color l ike blood, the Indianswent ou t, and facing he r, beat on the grou nd withsticks, saying : "Eyco be chera mom g0e goe ;

(') Ilistoire de la Mission des 1' P . Capu chins en l'ls le de Mara-gn an . Fol. 317319 ve rso .


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39 -Eycobd chera mom go6, b,au hau"My grand-father ,may you always be well !

In th e m yths I have given, I have interpreted thejaguar to be the moon, having been led to thisop inio n from analo gy . It may, how ever, be fairlyquestioned whether it may not, at least, in someinstance s, mean the star jus t nam ed. The questioncann ot be settled with the facts on ha nd . On ano theroccasion I shall discuss this who le m atter morethoroughly .

Since the above was in type, Dr. Silva deCoutinhohas informed me that the Indians of the Amazonas notonly give nam es to many of the heavenly bod ies, bu talso tell stories abou t th em . The two stars tha t formthe shou lde rs of Orion are said to be an old man anda boy in a can oe, c hasing a peixe boi, by which nameis designated a da rk spot in the sky near the aboveconstellation. The Indians say that originally theold m an, the large star, was in the bow, the boy,the sma ll star, bein g in ' th e stern , steering . Whenthe man cang ht sight of the peixe boi he became toom uch excited to shoo t, and so he exchanged placeswith the bo y. Th ere is a con stellation called by theInd ians, the pa lm trce , and near by is a line of starswhich they call m onk eys com ing to eat the fruit.Another constellation is called the jaburu crane (Cico-nia) and another the white crane.


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40 Dr. Coutinho has found on the Rio Branco and Sr.

Barbosa has reported from the Jamunda a myth, inwhich the moon is represented as a maiden who fellin love with her brother and visited him at night, butwho was finally betrayed by his passing his blackenedhand over her face.


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Amazonian Tortoise Myth