The first man caught by Dyai was Davi. After communication with the upper world was interrupted [see the following tale] he tried to reestablish it. He called together all the men for a work party in order to pile up earth so that from the top one could reach the upper world. For the feeding of all these people Davi had only two hummingbird eggs. The mountain of earth had already reached an enormous height when a certain Nyekaecha stole the two eggs and ate them himself. At once no one could understand the speech of his fellows.
When Davi discovered the theft and demanded in a loud voice who the thief was, no one understood him, and all cried out in different tongues. At the same time, the mountain of earth subsided, forming the various mountains that still exist today. Because of the lack of understanding among themselves, the men could not undertake the task again, and the tribes left, each in a different direction. Davi remained at the spot with the Tukuna, becoming their first chief.
Tapetine, Dyai’s grandmother, had a foster son whose face and body were all covered with warts, for which reason they called him “Father of Warts.” Dyai could not stand him and mocked him incessantly. For this reason Tapetine took Father-of-Warts and moved to the upper world, which was still linked to earth by a notched-log ladder whereby men could climb and descend at will.
Only Tapetine possessed fire. She took it with her to the upper world, and on earth there was none. Dyai resolved to steal it. While Father of Warts was sleeping in a partitioned space, Dyai assumed his shape, pretended to be very cold, and asked Tapetine to let him get warm at her fire. She consented, and as soon as she had gone out for some task, Dyai went to fetch the Father of Warts from his compartment. He waited until a great chunk of kindling was well ablaze, seized it, dealt the Father of Warts a blow in the belly, and fled with the fire. It was some time before the victim was able to call his foster mother. When she learned what had happened, she hunted for the ax in order to cut the log ladder leading to the earth, but, since she could not find the tool at once, Dyai had already reached the earth with his firebrand by the time she finally succeeded in cutting the lianas securing the ladder.
[Another version of the origin of fire is in the following legend.]
An olg woman lived alone and far away from other people. She had a hard time of it, since the Indians of that period did not yet know of sweet manioc. One day she observed some sauva ants carrying a white substance. She took a piece and smelled it. “What an agreeable smell!”, she said. She followed the ants until she came to the edge of a pool in the igarape, where on the bank was a large tree bearing all kinds of sweet manioc fruits. These fell into the water, where they got softened.
She took a piece, placed it in her armpit, and dried it by her own body heat. Afterward she tried the dried substance and liked it. She gathered a large quantity, dried it in the sun, and took it home. One day her grandchildren came to visit her and ate of it. They thought it delicious and asked their grandmother where she had gotten it. However, the old woman would not tell them; when they persisted, she only answered that it was a present from Ta-e. She had a crony, the nocturnal swallow, which had fire in its beak. The two no longer dried the sweet manioc in their armpits or in the sun, but secretly made fire and baked manioc flat cakes in the oven. Everyone who had a chance to try these found them excellent, but when people inquired about their preparation, the old woman merely answered that they were baked in the sun. When the swallow heard this lie from the old woman, she could not resist laughing, and the flames burst from her mouth. Seeing this, some of those present thought: “Has she fire in her mouth?”
One day a boy noticed the old woman take fire from the night swallow’s mouth and light the fire under the oven. When he told the others this, they decided to take the fire away from the swallow. But she, seeing so many people coming, quickly removed all the fire from under the oven and placed it in her mouth, which she stubbornly refused to open. Finally, the men pried open her beak by force and removed the fire. This is why swallows have such gaping beaks.
However, they still did not know where the sweet manioc came from. At last one man secretly followed the old woman and saw the tree bearing the fruit. Back at the house, he again asked the old woman whence the substance came; when she refused to tell, he informed her that he already knew where she got it and from which tree it was. He took the others to the spot, and they not only picked all the fruit but dug up all the roots as well. The tree died and fell, and no one had sweet manioc thereafter.
The deer had been coming to the tree, had seen what the men were doing, and had broken off branches of all kinds with slips, which he kept covered in his basket. Dyai and his companions were fishing with timbo in the igarape when the deer came by; slung from his body was his covered basket, which he never let out of his sight. A little way off he sat down and ate. As soon as he had finished and gone away, Dyai went to examine the spot, where he found several bits of sweet manioc, yams, and potatoes. He tried them and thought highly of the deer’s food.
Then he shouted behind him, “We are going home now! Don’t you want to gather the fish we have left in the water?” and pretended to leave with his companions. But he returned secretly and transformed himself into a tree by the riverbank, extending his arms as branches over the surface of the water.
The deer came, saw that many dead fish still remained in the igarape, and entered the water. But his covered basket hindered him, so he finally hung it on one of the branches overhanging the igarape. Dyai made the dead flsh float downstream with the current and, when the deer went after them, seized the basket and made off with it. The deer, seeing this, cried, “So it was Dyai’s arm? Well, I’ll help you anyway! Plant in a new clearing!”
Dyai took the basket to his companions. Opening it, they found that the top was full of a quantity of sweet manioc and yam tubers, and potatoes, and below this they found the slips and seeds of all cultivated plants. They ate the tubers and planted the slips and seeds according to the deer’s instructions.
A benign spirit in human form named Tuinta owned the stone ax, with which he used to knock on tree roots at night. “With what is he knocking?” pondered Dyai. He followed Tuinta until he came to a patch of second growth, where a fruiting wild-chocolate tree was standing. Dyai took the shape of a wild-chocolate fruit beneath the tree. Tuinta came and, seeing the fruit, said, “There is my wild chocolate!” He seized it, but the fruit bit his flnger and would not let go. The spirit realized that he had been tricked, and cried, “Let me go, Dyai!” “No, I won’t!” Dyai answered. “Release me!” “Only if you give me the stone ax!” “No, you shan’t have it! Let me go!” “Only if you give me the stone ax!”
Thus the two bickered for some time, until at last Dyai exerted more pressure on the finger, forcing the spirit to give him the ax. Dyai seized it with both hands, released Tuinta’s finger, and fled, hotly pursued by the spirit. They arrived at a large kapok tree, around which Dyai began to dash in a circle, relentlessly followed by the spirit, until the latter grew tired and Dyai escaped. “Give me my ax!” howled Tuinta behind him. “No, I’ll not give it back!” answered Dyai, already away. Tuinta made another stone ax; even today one may occasionally hear him beating on tree roots with it.
The jaguar Peti had already killed many children. As soon as he would hear a wailing child that had been left alone by its parents, he would take the form of the child’s mother and carry it away, saying, “Put your nose directly against my anus!” Then he would kill the child by breaking wind and would devour it. Dyai assumed the shape of a child. With his carrying sling over his arm, he stationed himself by the side of the path and wept. Peti arrived, took him on his back, and told him to place his nose directly against the anus; Dyai, however, placed it to one side. The jaguar broke wind repeatedly, but in vain. Each time he ran faster and faster. When he passed a house the inhabitants cried out, “Where are you going with Tanati [Our Father]?” Then Peti realized with whom he was dealing and begged him to dismount, but Dyai would not. Peti ran again. He entered the underworld through a mountain cavern, constantly begging Dyai to let him go free.
Dyai ordered Peti to return to the place where they had met. At that place there was a Muirapiranga tree that had a smooth hole in its trunk. Through this, Dyai thrust both of the jaguar’s arms and secured them firmly. From the other side of the trunk Peti grabbed his dance-tube of bamboo [a ceremonial object of the Jaguar clan, being a thick section of bamboo three meters long] with both hands and began to sing. He called for the bat to come and wipe his breech. Other demons of the Jaguar clan arrived and gave him food. At times even today one may hear their racket in a place called Naimeki, on the left bank of the Igarape de Sao Jeronymo, in a patch of second growth next to the abandoned fazenda of the Tukuna Tiberio Tuyuca.
Baia went hunting, leaving his wife and three children at home. A Bae demon came along, carrying arara tucupy fruits, and passed the house. When the woman saw him, she thought, “If he would only give me those fruits!” The Bae read her thoughts at once and asked her to lie with him. Observing that he had no penis, the woman thought, “What in the world can he want with me?” Again the Bae divined her thoughts and, stepping to one side, shouted, “Nyanike nyapenaike u!” And at once his penis appeared, which was this long [1 m.] and this thick [a handbreadth]. The woman died of the intercourse. The Bae devoured her and threw the bones to the edge of the clearing; only her empty skin remained.
The Baes sister arrived. The demon ordered her to sit by the side of the door and covered her with the dead woman’s skin. Then he went away; but not very far from the house he climbed a tree from which he could see anyone passing by. Baia’s eldest son, who had seen everything, went to meet his father on the path; however, the latter already knew what had taken place. With his blowgun he went to the tree in which the Bae was sitting and shot one poisoned dart after another at him, but the demon only murmured, “What a lot of deer flies!”
Then Baia uttered a magic formula beneath his breath, so that the demon would let slip the secret of how to kill him, and in fact the Bae did say, “Don’t you know how I may be killed? The white mould on acahy fruits will kill me at once!” Baia went to search for acahy fruits, tipping his darts with their white mould; then he again shot and struck the Bae’s foot. At once the foot began to melt like hot resin, then the leg, and then the other leg, the body also, and the arms. The pieces dripped down to the ground, and the Bae said each time, “There goes my foot! There goes my leg!” and so on. Finally, his head also melted.
Baia returned to his house and asked the woman [the Bae’s sister], “Your relatives are numerous?” “Yes,” she replied. “What is the drink that they like best?” “They like a drink made of wild-chocolate fruits.” Then Baia said, “Wild chocolate!” and at once a great quantity of this fruit appeared.
The woman broke up the fruits and filled the jars with the beverage. Afterward he ordered her to go invite all her kin, and they arrived late that afternoon. They had human shape, but large faces and thick noses. They drank and got drunk. After midnight, Baia ordered the woman to take his youngest son to the plantation and pluck his hair, but told her to pluck the hairs out one by one.
As soon as she had gone, Baia told his two older boys to thrust their blowguns through the wall and shut the house. Then he transported himself through the air to the place in the east where the sun rises and the ground glows with embers. Taking a bit of the incandescent substance, he returned to the house shortly before dawn. He threw the fire into the house, which at once burst into flames, while his two sons escaped through the bore of their blow-guns. With the coming of daylight, the house and all the Bae in it were a heap of ashes. Then Baia stamped his foot on the ground, and at once the house reappeared in its old location as it was before.
Meanwhile, the Bae woman in the plantation was plucking the hairs of Baia’s son, one at a time. She repeatedly tried to suck out the child’s brain through the now bald spot, but Baia had foreseen this and had magically hardened the boy’s skull. At last she finished her task and returned with the child to the house. When she arrived, she found no trace of the Bae. “Where are my relatives?” she inquired. “They finished all the drink and have gone off,” replied Baia, and ordered her to sweep the house. The woman began to sweep, and soon found a charred hand in a corner. “Is this not a hand of my brother?” she asked. “No,” answered Baia, “it is the paw of a Barrigudo monkey.” Then he ordered her to wash the jars, but compelled her to fetch the water first in a strainer, then in a burden basket. At last he made a large burden basket waterproof by lining it with resin and attached a tumpline of thin tucum fiber to it. “My deceased wife,” he informed the woman, “did not suspend the line from her forehead but from round her neck!” The woman followed his advice, but when she returned with the heavy basket filled with water, the cord was almost cutting through her neck. “Help me take off this basket!” she cried. “Just stand it one more instant,” replied Baia, stepping behind her and jerking the cord, which cut through her neck. Her head fell to the ground.
Baia transformed himself into a deer and fled, pursued by the head. He arrived at a steep slope on the edge of which there was a termites’ nest, which he knocked over. It rolled down the bank while he sprang to one side and concealed himself. Hearing the noise of the rolling termites’ nest, the head pursued it, thinking it was Baia, and finally came to a halt beside it, all the while looking about attentively. Baia returned to the woman’s body and saw that the severed neck had already grown to a finger’s width. Two days later the base of the skull had formed again. Other Bae visited the headless body and fed it through the severed neck.
Then Baia again transported himself to the east to bring more of the red-hot sun mass. On his return, he tied caiaue palm fibers over his genitals, because all the Bae have very thick hair on their pubes. Perceiving his approach, the body inquired: “Are you a relative of mine?” “Yes!” Then let me touch you!” She touched him and was convinced that it was really a Bae who had arrived. “Open your neck, I want to feed you,” commanded Baia, but as soon as she opened her gullet, he threw in some of the fiery substance, and her entire body went up in flames. With the rest of the incandescent stuff, Baia went to where the head lay. It bad already grown a new neck and shoulders. Transformed into a small bird, he flew directly above the head, which was attentively glancing about, and let fall upon it the fiery substance, the incandescent sun-mass, that he held in his claws. The head of the Bae woman was instantly consumed by the flames.
Baia went to search for the bones of his wife, killed by the Bae, recomposed them, and stamped his foot on the ground, whereupon the woman was revived and cried out: “My husband! You have frightened me!” Henceforth they lived together again.
In ancient times the deer was a man-eating jaguar. In order to stop his depredations, Dyai gave him a punch under the jaw that knocked the ascending rami through the top of his skull, where they appeared as antlers. Since then the deer has been inoffensive.
Another dangerous animal in the old days was the anteater. He was as agile as a Barrigudo monkey in climbing and skipping about the tree limbs, so that no one could deal with him, even when he attacked and ate people.
Dyai captured the anteater, broke the creature’s paws backward, and, rubbing its muzzle between the palms of his hands, squeezed it so that it became long and slender with only a tiny opening. Then he ordered the anteater to eat termites.
At last Dyai and Epi decided to part, and so they went away—Dyai to the west and Epi to the east. But Dyai could not readily find the west, and at night he secretly reversed the earth so that Epi remained in the west, while he himself remained in the east. No one ever saw Dyai again.
A long time ago a Tukuna journeyed to the rising sun, where he arrived at Dyai’s house. He entered but did not succeed in seeing Dyai. Wherever he looked he saw only his own image, because the walls of the house were made of mirrors. Dyai sent word for him to go back, since he did not want to see him nor did he wish to be sought out.