#book: shamans of the foye tree

[lostmachil]

Mapuche Creation Story

"The big spirit lived with a number of little spirits [children], who wanted power and rebelled, so the big spirit spat on them and their bodies turned to stone. They fell to the earth and became mountains. Some spirits stayed trapped inside the earth..."

"... and turned the mountains into smoking, erupting volcanoes. They were the big spirit's sons, who became the first male warrior spirits in the form of thunder, lightning, volcanoes, and stones. Our ancestors came from these spirits, called püllüam. Other spirits were loyal to the big spirit and cried copiously over the mountains and ashes. These were the big spirit's daughters, who were transformed into stars that mourned their brothers. Their tears formed lakes and rivers. The earth was created from the mixture of water [daughter's tears] and ash from the volcanoes [brother's anger] and was therefore both male and female. The big spirit then became Elchen or Chaw Elchefe, the creator of humanmankind, and divided itself into male sun and husband/father [antü] and female moon and wife/mother [küyen]... "The moon and the sun took turns looking over their children, thereby creating the balanced relationship between day and night." - Edited excerpt from Armando Marileo's narration of the Mapuche Creation Myth, January 5, 1995 (Shamans of the Foye Tree, Bacigalupo, 2007)

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