Whitesaue suspected that his wives were cheating on him. All day long they baked cakes from finely ground flour, and the husband only got simple dishes made from coarse flour and cassava husks. And so Whitesue began to watch the wives to find out for whom the best food was being prepared. One day he said that he was going hunting, and he hid in a hole not far from the hut.
The women baked cakes from fine flour and, grabbing them, headed towards the grove. They had no idea that their husband was sneaking after them. In the grove the women began to call:
- Niteka! Niteka! Niteka!
They screamed like this until a large crocodile appeared.
The women fed him to his fill with flat cakes and sweet cassava porridge. And then they began to caress and kiss.
Hiding, Whitesaue saw everything and immediately figured out how to kill his wives’ lover.
He built a platform on the very tree under which the women met with the crocodile, cut strong branches of the buriti palm and returned home. There he began making arrow shafts from wood. The wives asked him:
– Why are you doing all this?
“To kill the crocodile,” Whitesue answered. The next day, Whitesaue went straight to the tree on which he had made the platform, climbed onto it, hid and waited for his wives to appear. And they, deciding that their husband had gone hunting, went to the grove early in the morning. And as always, they began to call out to the crocodile:
- Niteka! Niteka! Come eat some cookies! They called and called, and finally their beloved heard and came. As always, he ate the cakes, lapped up all the porridge, and then led the women under the tree to caress and hug them, he did not know that Whitesue was lurking above. And he shot and killed his opponent. The women were taken aback by surprise and could not stop him. Whitesaue descended to earth and whipped unfaithful wives. Then he returned to the village, and the women remained in the grove next to the body of their lover.
In the evening, Whitesaue came for the wives, but they refused to follow him and remained to mourn the dead.
When it got dark, the women lit a large fire and placed the crocodile's body on it; it burned for a long time until it turned to ash. The women collected ashes and ash and did not want to leave the grove for anything. Whitesaue's servants, seeing that his wives were not returning to the village, built them a hut not far from the place where the crocodile was burned. The women lived in a grove and every day they came to a pile of ashes - this was all that was left of their beloved. The time for rain came, and a plant that had never been seen before rose from the wet ashes. The next day, two more unknown sprouts appeared there.
After some time, the Sun and the Moon came to that village, and the women led them to the strange plants that emerged from the ashes of the crocodile to find out what they were called. The Sun and the Moon looked at the plants and immediately recognized them:
“This is capsicum,” said the Sun.
“And this is a pumpkin,” said the Month.
- What is this? – asked one of the women, pointing to the third sprout.
- This is a peki tree. As soon as it grows, flowers will appear on it. And when they fall, the fruits will ripen,” explained the Month.
And so it happened. The tree grew, blossomed, and many fruits appeared on it. Before they were ripe, the Sun and the Moon gathered in their village, but warned the women:
“We’ll be back before the fruits start falling from the peka.” The women waited for the return of the Sun and the Moon so that they would tell them what to do next with the peka fruits.
When the fruit began to fall, the Sun and Moon returned as promised.
– Have you already tasted the fruit? – Month asked the women.
- No, we didn’t even try.
The sun approached the tree and, picking up a fruit from the ground and taking out a seed from it, smelled it. But the fruit had no smell at all.
– There’s no smell of peki at all. Let's make it flavorful.
The sun cleansed several fruits and made them smell good.
“Now,” the Month ordered, “gather more fruits and make sweet porridge.”
“Just don’t try to feast on the fruits,” warned the Sun. – Otherwise you’ll get sick.
Of course, this was said only so that women would not eat the fruits and give up cooking. While the wives of Whitesaue worked, peeled the fruits, took out the seeds from them and cooked delicious dishes from their pulp, the happy Sun and the Moon played berimbau harmonicas and sang along with all the men of the village. They were waiting for new food to be prepared.
When the porridge was cooked, the women put it in pumpkin bowls and took it to the Sun along with the cakes, and the Sun distributed the food among all the people and sang to ward off illness. The men tasted the porridge and liked it very much.
But the fruit continued to fall, and the women again came to the Sun and asked:
“There are so many peki fruits on the ground!” What should we do with them?
– Collect them, crush them and hold them under water. They placed the crushed fruits in long baskets and lowered them into the water. A few days later the Sun said:
- Try to cook porridge from the baking that you kept in the water.
The women prepared the food and they liked it too. And the fruits kept falling and falling, and the women did nothing but crush them and fill baskets that stood in the water.
“Make a drink called tucumaya,” advised the Sun.
The women listened to him and found the drink delicious. To enjoy the new drink to their fullest, the Sun and the Moon, dancing and playing the berimbau, went around all the houses in the village. And people greeted them with joy.
Only in the Whitesawe house it was sad. A warrior abandoned by his wives could not rejoice at the guests.
And so, when the holiday was over, the Sun and the Moon came to the wives of Whitesauer and told them to make peace with their husbands.
“We don’t like Whitesauer,” the women answered. “It’s better if he leaves us alone.”
“But you must love your husband again.” It’s bad to live alone like you,” the Month warned them. “It’s much better with my husband.”
And the Sun went to Whitesauer and advised him to try to make peace with his wives himself. And so Whitesue put on necklaces, earrings, bracelets and went to the women. Seeing him, the wives began to cry and complain that they did not love him.
“I don’t like the way you behave,” said the Month. -You're doing everything wrong. Prepare a treat for your husband. Talk to him. Here's how to do it.
The women prepared the porridge as the Month told them, but they put the husks from the bake in it. The sun saw this and said that porridge cannot be made from the husk:
“Such a treat will only make you sick and you will never recover from your illness.”
Then the women prepared a real meal from the peka pulp. We cooked it and treated it to my husband.
“That’s good,” the Sun praised them. When Whitesue had eaten everything, the women spoke to him. And the fruits of the peka kept falling and falling, and the women again came to the Sun and the Moon, and they could not get enough of how cleverly they managed to reconcile Whitesue with their wives. The women complained that they were tired and fed up with peki fruits. Then the Sun and the Moon climbed the tree, shook the branches, and all the fruits fell to the ground. Having gone down, the Sun said to the women:
“This tree will bear fruit again only by the next rainy season.” And it will always be like this. If it produced fruits all year round, people would not even be able to look at them.
Then the Sun and the Moon said goodbye to Whitesauer and his wives.
“We’ll be back when the peki is ripe.” And you see, help your husband well and never quarrel again.
And they left.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru