They say that at the beginning of the world there was only darkness.
Two people came out of the darkness: one was called Karusakaibi, the other was his son and was called Rairou.
And as they walked, Rairu tripped over a stone, hollowed out like a pot, and began to scold him. Karu, his father, ordered Rairu to take this stone with him.
Rairu listened to his father, put the stone on his head and carried it. They walked and walked, and the stone began to grow. When he became very large, the young man complained:
“The stone is very heavy, father.”
Karu didn't answer. They moved on. Soon the stone grew so large that Rairu, bending under its weight, could no longer walk.
And the stone, like a huge pot, grew and grew and finally turned into the sky.
Then the sun appeared in the sky.
Here Rairu knelt before his father, who created the sky.
And Karu did not like his son because he knew more than his father.
And then one day Karou shot with a bow, knocked down a leaf from a Tucuman palm tree and sent Raira for the arrow. He wanted to see if Raira would live or not.
Raira began to climb the palm tree, but its thorns turned so as not to injure him. The young man safely descended to the ground and gave the arrow to his father.
Another time, Karu sent his son ahead of him, when he intended to make a clearing, he began to cut down trees and tried to make sure that when they fell, they would kill Raira.
So Karu cut down all the trees around his son, but not one of them crushed the young man, he remained safe and sound.
However, Karu still decided that his son had died. But, returning to the clearing the next day, he met Raira alive. Then Karu told his son that he wanted to clear the area with fire, and ordered him to stand right in the middle of the clearing. Karu decided to burn the young man alive.
And he set the earth on fire from all sides.
Rairu, seeing that he was surrounded by fire, went into the ground, and when the flames subsided, he reappeared on the surface, so that the heat did not cause him any harm.
Karu was terribly angry when he discovered that his son was still alive.
The next day Karu went into the forest.
There he made an armadillo from dry leaves and buried it in the ground, leaving only the tail sticking out, which he generously smeared with sticky tree resin. Then he called his son and suggested:
- Shall we go hunting?
“Let’s go,” Rairu agreed.
They walked for a long time, when suddenly Karu said:
– Look, Rairu, an armadillo! Get him out of the hole! The leaf armadillo was just like a real one, only half buried in the ground.
The young man grabbed the tail and began to drag. The beast resisted, and when Rairu decided to let him go, he couldn’t: his hands were stuck to the resin.
So the armadillo carried the young man underground with him. The satisfied father left. But the next day, passing by the place where the armadillo was, Karu saw his son. Angry, he grabbed a club and attacked Raira. And he begged:
- Don't hit me, father! I met a lot of good people underground! They come here to work for us.
His father stopped beating him and let him go. Then he took something, crushed it in his hands and threw it into the ground. A plant grew from the ground, and when it blossomed, it turned out to be cotton...
Karu collected it, wove a rope, tied it around Raira and lowered him into the hole made by the armadillo.
Along this rope a great darkness of all sorts of ugly people climbed up, then beautiful people began to climb out, but before they all had time to get out, the rope broke and those who were still clinging to it fell back into the hole.
Ryru managed to climb up with the beautiful people. Seeing such a multitude of people, Karu ordered that colored paint be made - green, black, red, yellow - he wanted to mark men and women with it, so that when people multiply, they would form different tribes: Munduruks, Murs, Arars, Pamans, Uinamari, Manateri and all sorts of others. It took Karu a long time to paint everyone, and so some people began to doze off, while others fell asleep completely.
Lazy Karu said:
- You are lazy, and therefore you should be birds, bats, pigs, flies.
And to others, not lazy and beautiful, he said:
– And you will lay the foundation for the human race on earth.
And your children will be powerful!
Then Karu went underground through the armadillo's hole. Since then, this hole in the ground has been called by his name, Karukupi.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru