First Voices
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The Rainbow
The little people of the jungle had surprised Yobuënahuaboshka with an ambush and cut off his head.
Because of these blows, The Head returned to the land of the Cashinahua.
Although it had learned how to jump around and balance itself gracefully, nobody wanted a head with no body.
“Mother, my brothers, my countrymen,” it complained, “why do you turn me away? Why are you ashamed of me?”
To put an end to this litany and to get The Head off her back, the mother proposed that it transform itself into something. But The Head refused to convert itself into anything that already existed. The Head thought about it…dreamt of it, invented. The moon did not exist. The rainbow did not exist.
It asked for seven balls of yarn, of every color.
It took aim and tossed the balls of yarn to the sky, one after the other. The balls got stuck beyond the clouds, their strands unraveling toward the earth.
Before climbing up, The Head warned:
“Whoever does not recognize me will be punished. When they see me up above there, they’ll say, ‘There is the grand and beautiful Yobuënahuaboshka.’”
Then he braided together the seven strands that hung down and climbed up the cord toward the sky.
That night, a white slash appeared for the first time ever among the stars. A little girl lifted her eyes and, enchanted, asked, “What is that?”
Right away, a red macaw bird leapt up before her, made a quick turnaround, and stuck her between the legs with his sharp tail. The little girl bled. From this moment on, women have bled whenever the moon wishes it.
On the following morning, there glowed in the sky the cord of seven colors.
A man pointed it out with a finger:
“Look! Look! How odd!”
He said this, and then fell down.
And that was the first time that anyone ever died.
Translation ©2023. Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.
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About Eduardo Galeano? click here. For a selection of Galeano’s books, click here.
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