The Moon Boat
(The forest people legend)
LEGENDS
Maria Piaguaje, sitting on a trunk, kicked the water of the river while she thought. Her abrupt movements showed that she was furious. In her eleven years never she had felt so displeased. Of late they had announced it, the greater ones: her people had to leave. They said to them that the earth no longer belonged to the Sequoia. Strange people had destroyed her forest and soiled waters of her rivers. That was the last night that Maria would happen to be there. The last time that she would see the river. The girl looked around, including everything, as if she wanted to take the landscape with the glance, and sighed dreamingly. The noise of a frog that jumped within the water made her return to the reality. It had already grown dark. A New Moon horn was reflected on the water.
- Oh, Ñañé, Ñañé! What will become of us? - Maria shouted very impulsively, watching at the Moon and calling it by the name that her people knew. Soon she rise herself on foot and she extended the arms to balance, thus walked on the trunk until she arrived at the edge. She gave a small jump and her feet sank, it moved them within mud and it felt the pleasant humid Earth sensation between the fingers.
- I also like to do that - the voice of a boy said.
Maria Piaguaje returned surprised. In middle of the river a small boy, adorned with a cushma or crown of feathers, smiled.
- To do that… - she asked without moving from the place where she was.
- That - the boy indicated to the feet of Maria - To play with feet in the mud. Although what I like more is to reflect me in the water.
Maria also smiled. - Who you are?
- I am Ñañé, the son of Rebao, - the boy answered approaching the girl.
- Yes sure if you are the son of Rebao, I am the spirit of the water, - Maria made fun of him, talking about the myth of the Sequoia that says that the Moon is a boy called Ñañé, son of Rebao, the spirit of the creation.
The boy stopped. His eyes had a strange light and the colour of his skin was grey-bluish. When seeing it close, Maria was scared and run towards the bushes.
- Hold on! Do not go away - the boy requested extending the hands. The nails shone like precious stones.
- Do not approach! - Maria shouted, taking a stone and throwing it with force at him. The stone reached him and when stroke him a luminous rain appeared of his body.
Maria covered the mouth with her hands.
- Do not be scared of me. I always have been a friend of your people, - he explained.
- Why you have come? - Maria asked.
- Because you called to me.
Maria raised the glance to the sky. The piece of Moon in horn form had disappeared. - The clouds covered Ñañé - she said.
The boy followed her glance. - How strange to see me there above if I am with you here? - he insisted.
- In truth you are Ñañe?
- Naturally. But I do not see why you are surprised, you know me all the life, that is to say, you have seen me since you are little, - the boy reproached to her.
- Good, I have seen you there above, but here… it is already another thing.
- Trivialities, there, here, I am the same one, no?
Maria Piaguaje wanted to say to him that it was not exactly thus, but did not want to begin a discussion with this important personage.
- How you are called?
- Maria, Maria Piaguaje.
- And why you are sad?
- Because they force to us to leave this earth. They say that she is not ours that now belongs to others.
- What triviality! I know your people came long ago from the sky. They arrived at the earth and they settled in the Guajoyá River. Your celestial relatives arrived there. It seems I see them with multicolour s tunics. They brought plants of adornments, maize, sugar cane, guaduas to make lances and brave cane, of where the blue birds are born of whose feathers the men make necklaces and crowns.
The girl listened to it kindly. And continued Ñañé:
- Mmmmm, this will not please Rebao, because he loves your people. And you already know that it is him who rests in his hammock hung on the wood columns, which support the Earth. If he gets upset, it is going to cause a great earthquake - he concluded agreeing with the head, and continuing: - but that it we will not be able to avoid, so, I will take you in my boat and we will sail by the celestial river until Mátemo, the superior sky, where it is my dwelling. - But, how I am going to go with you away? And my family? - Maria asked.
The boy remained silent.
-Ñañé, I cannot go without my family - she insisted.
- Good, then I will take them all.
- All! We are many. We occupied twelve huts and we have several animals that we cannot leave back.
- Pff, my boat is very big. It begins to grow in a month and finishes in a month to begin to grow again.
- Really? We could all go with you? And what we would do?
- They could help Ocome, the head of all the fish of the river, to distribute them on the Earth.
- That we would like much! - happy Maria exclaimed. But now it is late, nobody will be ready still and the preparations take some time. We could be tomorrow with you at night?
- It is well, Maria. Tomorrow at night and in this place. - agreed Ñañé.
They took leave and the girl went away running to tell her people about this encounter. She arrived shouting in such way, that all they surrounded her in minutes thinking that something bad happened to her. When they managed to understand her, they were marvelled. They looked for shaman because they thought that he had to guide them in which they had to do. They shaman listened to the story with great calm, prepared two containers of yagé, the magical concoction, and drank everything before speaking. He raised the hand to request silence from the small group that surrounded him and said:
- If Ñañé wants to take us, we go with Ñañé.
This caused frenzy between the people who immediately put themselves to pack everything they wanted to take. Everybody worked all the night, all the following morning and afternoon. When arrived the night they were ready.
They walked quiet until the river. The normally boisterous children got serious and quiet.
They looked for the Moon in the sky anxiously, but the night was completely dark, covered by dense clouds. Maria felt scared. What would happen if Ñañé forgot its offer?
They spent the minutes and the hours without anything happening. The girl had stomach ache and the head burned her. People began to move and to murmur. It began to rain torrentially. All were bunched without moving away. It rained during one hour and stopped as fast as it had begun. The clouds ran and left space sufficient by where it appeared a piece of Moon.
The expectation grew within the group. Nobody almost dared to breathe. They hoped and they hoped…
Somebody spit, and as if this had been a signal, the group began to disperse. The women again loaded their children; the men took the great bulks of baggage and began to move away.
Maria climbed on the trunk where she has been the previous night and she watched black waters of the river; there, in the middle, it appeared the figure of horn of the Moon. The reflection went away enlarging and enlarging until the entire river seemed of silver. The clarity was so intense that it illuminated the entire border. The trees covered themselves with stars. A silver-plated boat lowered by the river.
Maria Piaguaje was first in rising, soon the others raised and the boat moved away leaving a light wake on the forest.