Becoming Other

It was Omama who created the land and the forest, the wind that shakes its leaves, and the rivers whose water we drink. It is he who gave us life and made us many. Our elders have made us hear his name from the beginning. Omama and his brother Yoasi first came to existence alone. They did not have a father or a mother. Before them, in the beginning of time, only the people we call yarori existed. These ancestors were human beings with animal names. They constantly metamorphosed. Gradually, they became the game we arrow and eat today. Then it was Omama’s turn to come into being and to recreate the forest, for the one that existed before was fragile. It constantly became other until finally the sky fell on it. Its inhabitants were pushed underground and became the meat-hungry ancestors we call the aõpatari.

This is why Omama had to create a new, more solid forest, whose name is Hutukara. This is also the name of the ancient sky, which fell long ago. Omama set the image of this new land and carefully extended it little by little, like when one spreads clay to make a plate to bake a mahe cassava bread. Then he covered it with tight lines traced with annatto dye, like word drawings. He planted immense pieces of metal in its depths so it wouldn’t collapse. He also used them to root the sky’s feet. Without this, the land would have remained sandy and friable and the sky would not have stayed in place. Later Omama turned the remaining metal harmless and used it to make our ancestors’ first metal tools. Finally, he put the mountains down on the surface of the land so it would not shake in the storm winds and frighten human beings. He also drew a first sun to give us light. But it burned too hot and he had to get rid of it by destroying its image. Finally, he created the sun we still see in the sky, along with the clouds and the rain, so he could interpose them when it gets too hot. This is what I heard my elders say.

Omama also created the trees and the plants by sowing the pits of their fruit all over the ground. These seeds sprouted in the soil and gave rise to all the vegetation of the forest we have lived in ever since. And so the hoko si, maima si, and rioko si palms, the apia hi, komatima hi, makina hi, andoruxi hi trees, and all the other plants from which we get our food grew. At first their branches were bare. Then fruit formed on them. Finally, Omama created the bees that came to live on them and drink the nectar of the flowers with which they produce their honey.

At first, there weren’t any rivers either; the waters ran deep underground. All you could hear of them was a distant roar, like that of powerful rapids. They formed a great waterway the shamans call Motu uri u. One day Omama was working in his garden with his son when the boy started to cry because he was thirsty. To quench his son’s thirst, Omama made a hole in the ground with a metal bar. When he pulled it out, water leaped up to the sky. It pushed back his child, who had come to drink his fill, and shot all the fish, skates, and caimans into the sky. The stream rose so high that another river formed on the sky’s back, where the ghosts of our dead live. Then the waters accumulated on the earth and ran off in every direction to form the rivers, streams, and lakes of the forest.