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the girl and the anaconda
A project I haven't touched in a while was to read through some folktales from Amazonia. The other day I got back to it. I'm lucky to have the book in two languages: Spanish (the language it was written in) and English:
The English translation is obviously easier for me to read, but it misses certain details, and the English book fails to give certain information--for instance, the names of the people from whom the tales were collected:
Also, the English sometimes elides over details ("cómo conseguía las palometas, doncellas y sábalos tan deliciosos" gets reduced to "how she always managed to get such delicious fish"). Both books have indexes at the back with the Latin names of the plants and animals mentioned (more extensive in the Spanish version), so you can look up what they look like. You want to know what a palometa looks like? Well, search on "Mylossoma duriventris" (turns out to be Mylossoma duriventre, but close enough) and you will see it!
(here it is--pretty!)
The Spanish version also contains illustrations by Rember Yahuarcani López, an artist of Huitoto ethnicity. Here is one of his anacondas:
In this story, a lonely girl wanders out into a pond up to her waist each day to collect the fruit of the aguaje...
It may have looked like this... I can picture the scene thanks to knowing that "aguaje" is Mauritia flexuosa, often called in English a Moriche palm:
Imagine you're wandering out in the water... the fruit you're collecting, which float on the water, look like this:
They hang in luxuriant bundles from the palm:
... so you're gathering your aguaje fruits, and a handsome young man comes up to you--he's fallen in love with you! And you fall in love with him too... but he is an anaconda.
Your parents and younger siblings are willing to turn a blind eye to your remarkable luck bringing home piles of fish (supplied for you by your anaconda boyfriend), but your older brother is suspicious, discovers the truth.... and shoots your boyfriend!
But *you*, meanwhile, are pregnant! And in the fullness of time you give birth to some healthy anaconda babies! (Anacondas give birth to live young, as it happens.)
(they take after dad)
.jpg)
Thanks to your asshole brother, you are a single mom, but your parents support you and build you wooden cradles for your babies and help you look after them until they're old enough to live in the pond. When the babies cry for you from the pond, you go feed them, or, as the Spanish puts it, you offer them your breast.
Your children are very loving and keep supplying your family with huge piles of fresh fish. Happily ever after? But how about some justice for their poor slain father?
... Hmmm, well, to get my mind off revenge, let me share a link to more of Rember Yahuarcani López's art: here you go
And what the heck: a hot link, via Twitter
The English translation is obviously easier for me to read, but it misses certain details, and the English book fails to give certain information--for instance, the names of the people from whom the tales were collected:
Also, the English sometimes elides over details ("cómo conseguía las palometas, doncellas y sábalos tan deliciosos" gets reduced to "how she always managed to get such delicious fish"). Both books have indexes at the back with the Latin names of the plants and animals mentioned (more extensive in the Spanish version), so you can look up what they look like. You want to know what a palometa looks like? Well, search on "Mylossoma duriventris" (turns out to be Mylossoma duriventre, but close enough) and you will see it!
The Spanish version also contains illustrations by Rember Yahuarcani López, an artist of Huitoto ethnicity. Here is one of his anacondas:
In this story, a lonely girl wanders out into a pond up to her waist each day to collect the fruit of the aguaje...
It may have looked like this... I can picture the scene thanks to knowing that "aguaje" is Mauritia flexuosa, often called in English a Moriche palm:
Imagine you're wandering out in the water... the fruit you're collecting, which float on the water, look like this:
They hang in luxuriant bundles from the palm:
... so you're gathering your aguaje fruits, and a handsome young man comes up to you--he's fallen in love with you! And you fall in love with him too... but he is an anaconda.
Your parents and younger siblings are willing to turn a blind eye to your remarkable luck bringing home piles of fish (supplied for you by your anaconda boyfriend), but your older brother is suspicious, discovers the truth.... and shoots your boyfriend!
But *you*, meanwhile, are pregnant! And in the fullness of time you give birth to some healthy anaconda babies! (Anacondas give birth to live young, as it happens.)
Thanks to your asshole brother, you are a single mom, but your parents support you and build you wooden cradles for your babies and help you look after them until they're old enough to live in the pond. When the babies cry for you from the pond, you go feed them, or, as the Spanish puts it, you offer them your breast.
Your children are very loving and keep supplying your family with huge piles of fresh fish. Happily ever after? But how about some justice for their poor slain father?
... Hmmm, well, to get my mind off revenge, let me share a link to more of Rember Yahuarcani López's art: here you go
And what the heck: a hot link, via Twitter
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I love the fruit hanging from the palm. That's beautiful.
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That is a great anaconda.
Happily ever after? But how about some justice for their poor slain father?
Funny how that one time your older brother went down to the pond to fish without you around, he didn't come back . . .
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So heartstopping! I mean, warming.
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Apparently anaconda females have the habit of occasionally eating their mates--especially after giving birth, and I mean, that sort of thing will take it out of you! A woman needs some nutrition, and if you insist on just lying around, nearby, looking nutritious ...
Anyway, it was making me think as an alternative just desserts, maybe he could get seduced by a female anaconda who decides he makes a better supper than lover.
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Hee. I'm for it.
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Doncha hate it when that happens?
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There was also a note in the Spanish version that "boa" in this region is used to refer to a number of large snakes, including anacondas.