Ta-nati coveted Ta-e while she was yet a girl, but she rejected him. Then he transformed himself into a flower by the wayside. Ta-e plucked the flower, smelled it, and merely because of this became pregnant. She was quite astonished, because she had had sexual relations with no one; at last, however, she realized that Ta-nati had impregnated her. When after five [sic] months she gave birth to a boy, Ta-nati addressed her from afar: “Do you see? You did not wish me but you shall always have my son!” [Nothing has been recorded concerning the son.]
Ta-nati was the wisest of all men. With his magic arts he used to kill the dyureu (demons with tails like barrigudo monkeys), a more ancient race than men. They resolved to kill Ta-nati. They tied him to a stake, put out his eyes, and left him exposed to the sun. “We want to see if he is really tupana [god]!” they said. Tanati recovered from this. They crucified him with nails and pierced him with arrows, but he again recovered. Then they strangled him with a rope passed round both his neck and the stake to which he was bound, and this time he died.
They laid the body of Ta-nati in a coffin, and afterward killed his chickens and sheep. But while they were seated at the table, the roast chicken suddenly sprang up and cried: “Ta-nati is alive!” whereupon the pieces of the butchered sheep joined one another and bleated: “It’s a lie!” When the dyureu went to look, the coffin with Ta-nati’s body was already at a hand’s height from the ground and was rising rapidly.
The dyureu tried to pull it down by a rope passed round it, but the coffin rose without stopping, carrying the dyureu hanging from the rope. Because of this they are also in heaven. Since then, nothing has been heard of Ta-nati; today he still lives in heaven, but far away from all the others. The road to Ta-e’s house is partly overgrown by the jungle; the other path, however, which leads to the habitation of the dyureu is a broad, fine road of sand. The dyureu dunk the arriving souls into a pot of boiling pitch, so that only their fingertips peep out. Afterward they remove them and weigh them, repeating this until the soul has become light enough to appear before Ta-e. She, however, still scolds the soul before admitting it.
[Background: The most important personage of the upper world is Ta-e. Nothing is known of her origin. She is apparently as ancient as the heaven in which she lives, and is immortal but definitely not omnipotent, nor omniscient, nor infallible. Overburdened with tasks, she may involuntarily cause damage to men through her mistakes. Nothing material in the world was created by her, nor does she govern anything. Prayers are not directed to her, nor does she receive sacrifices. She has nothing to do directly with the culture-hero brothers, who equal her in importance, or with the spirits of the trees or the demons (Naa) of the lower world. No shaman is in communication with her. Nevertheless, for the Tukuna she is a figure of great importance and respect, because of her inseparable connection with the notion of sin and subsequent punishment, in life or after death, since she is the mistress of that part of the human soul called “naae.” With the other part of the soul, called “nachii” (shade of the deceased), she has nothing to do.Ta-e does not represent a divine justice that tots up the sins and good deeds of the soul. She takes into consideration only three categories of crime: incest, infanticide (including voluntary abortion), and murder through witchcraft. She does not bother with such trifles as theft or a hot-blooded killing. Incest is a transgression of the law of exogamy which she established when she taught the first men to which clan each belonged, making them taste the jacuruxy broth; this was the only time, however, that she intervened in the work of the culture heroes. Incest is the only crime for which Ta-e eventually punishes the sinner, by madness while he is still living. After death an infanticide ascends to heaven with the child’s corpse held crosswise in her mouth, where Ta-e judges her. When the soul of a sorcerer appears before Ta-e, she treats it in the same fashion as she does that of an infanticide. The gravity of a sin depends upon whether it was committed thoughtlessly and with some extenuating circumstances, and whether it was repeated. If there are extenuating circumstances, the sinner is purified by one of the chareruma, which licks him from toe to crown. However, even if the naae of a perverse and stubborn sinner slips past the tarita gate, it is torn to shreds by the chareruma or rejected by Ta-e, who orders lightning to cast it down on the earth again, or even sends it below to the underworld (napi), where it is transformed into a tiny frog (nugu), with whose death it vanishes.]