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Since the beginning of humanity, man has always left a record of everything he finds in his path, influenced by his environment and always curious about everything that happened (cave art, communities and tribes to which he belonged), it is there where tradition and culture are born and therefore the myths and legends which sought to give a precise explanation to what science had not yet achieved. It is important to note that legends are narratives that arise from the collective creation of a people and are enriched by fantastic elements, mixed in turn with its social and historical context, intended to communicate or describe an event, a place, the identity of a community and its cultural heritage. They are those oral stories that were transmitted from generation to generation and today in many communities remain valid.
Here are some excerpts of these legends:
"Yerba Mate" legend. Argentina
"Legend has it that one day the moon and a cloud were transformed into two very beautiful girls. They wanted to go down to earth but when they did, they lost the powers of the gods. They began to walk through the woods, observing the trees, smelling the fragrance of the flowers, tasting the fruits, when they heard the roars of the jaguar. In the trunk of a tree, the beast prepared to jump on the goddesses. The girls closed their eyes thinking resignedly that they would die under their claws when they heard a whistle, a roar and a blow.
They opened their amazed eyes and saw the jaguar lying on the ground with an arrow stuck in his heart and a young Indian approaching the tiger. The goddesses disappeared quickly because they could not be seen by the eyes of any human being. The Indian, happy with his prey, pulled out the knife and cured the animal. Then, he fell sound asleep and dreamed that a beautiful young woman approached him and gave him a plant, telling him that it was in gratitude for having saved Yasí, the moon..."
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The mentioned history has fiction but sustained in the culture of the region, it shows the origin of the "Yerba Mate" (it is a grass of that locality) that was used by the indigenous "Guaraníes" like drink, object of worship and currency of exchange with other towns. "Caá" in the Guaraní language means "Yerba Mate", but it also means plant and jungle. For the Guaraní, yerba mate is the tree par excellence, a gift from the gods.
During the long journeys through the jungle, the conquerors noticed that the Guarani had greater resistance after drinking this sacred drink.
It is said that the conquerors learned about the benefits of yerba mate through the Guaraní, spreading its use from its area of origin to the entire Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
The legend of Lake Titicaca, Bolivia
...Then the men began to climb the top of the mountains, but halfway they were surprised by the Apus. The gods understood that the men had disobeyed and decided to exterminate them. Thousands of pumas came out of the caverns and devoured the men who begged the devil for help. But the devil remained insensitive to their entreaties. Seeing the situation, Inti, the sun god, began to weep. His tears were so abundant that in forty days they flooded the valley. A man and a woman only managed to save themselves on a reed boat. When the sun shone again, the man and woman did not believe their eyes: under the pure blue sky, they were in the middle of an immense lake. In the middle of these waters floated the pumas that were drowned and transformed into stone statues...They then called Lake Titicaca, the "lake of stone cougars".
This fantastic legend impregnated with magic, is based on this huge lake that attracts many travelers also considered the highest lake in the world, being many legends that this lake keeps in its depths and many visitors believe in these ancient stories, rites and mysteries. This immense lake is divided between Peru and Bolivia, characterized by its immensity and beauty even compared to the sea.
The legend of Lake Títicaca is also called the legend of Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo. It is clearly the origin of the Inca civilization that was transmitted from generation to generation, and it is worth mentioning that the Cusco-based chronicler Inca Garcilaso de la Vega published this marvelous story in his work "Los comentarios reales en 1609" (The Real Comments in 1609).
The legend of Chiloé "TENTEN-VILU and CAICAI"-
...Obeying their commands, the waters began to rise, flooding valleys and hills, and burying their horrified inhabitants in the depths of the sea. When all seemed lost, the Goddess of the Earth, Tentén-vilu (from Ten: earth and vilu: snake), appeared. Tentén-vilu began to fight against his enemy, at the same time that he raised the flooded lands and protected its inhabitants, helping them to ascend to the highest parts, transforming them into birds, or endowing them with the power to fly...
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This Chilean legend talks about "Caicai" and "Trentren", two snakes of "Mapuche" mythology. Caicai lives in the sea and Trentren lives on land. According to the story, when Caicai wakes from his dream and gets angry at seeing how man has been ungrateful with everything that the sea has given him, it is then when he is very annoyed that he hits the water with his tail with great force, creating a great deluge that floods the land. Fearful the inhabitants of the place ran to protect themselves from the fury of the serpent and not to die drowned, then they received the help of Trentren, who ordered the hills to be made even higher to take away power from Caicai. Both fought intensely in a tenacious way, each one wanting to have dominion, one raising the level of the sea and the other the level of the waters until they got tired originating what is currently the landscape of Chile.
CALAFATE ORIGIN Legend
When the "Selk'nam" inhabited "Tierra del Fuego" (land of fire) they were grouped in diverse tribes, two of them were in great conflict, the chiefs of both communities hated each other until the death. One of them had a young son, who liked to walk the fields. On one occasion he met a beautiful girl with intense black eyes and fell in love with her. Unfortunately, she was the daughter of her father's enemy, the only way to see each other was by stealth, but the sorcerer of the girl's tribe discovered them. He saw, however, that he could not separate them and condemned the girl, transforming her into a plant that preserved all the beauty of her black eyes, but with thorns, so that the young man in love could not touch her. But the love was so strong that the young man never left this plant and died next to it.
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This beautiful and sad love story, told by the indigenous people of Patagonia tehuelches and "selknam", tells that it gave rise to a plant that grows in the Patagonia of South America, whose name is "Calafate" is a small purple fruit that comes from a thorny bush that bears the same name. It is native to the south of Argentina and Chile and considered the emblem of Patagonia.
The story, as has been said before, speaks of love between a man and a woman children of the leaders of two enemy tribes, between the two arose an intense and immense love, which leads them to hide by the circumstances surrounding it, is then when they are discovered by the sorcerer of the tribe of the young woman, transforming her into a plant that retained all the beauty of her black eyes, but with thorns, so that the young man in love could not touch her. However, the young man's love was so great that he never left his side dying in the place...
The Legend of The Flower of "Ámate". El Salvador
The story goes that many years ago, too many to know exactly, a humble man, a peasant, set out one day along the paths of the forest, to return home from his work in the fields of land, an occupation that his father had taught him since he was very young and now was his routine. All this man longed for was to take a bath, eat something and rest until the next day to get back to work. Since it had been an infernal heat that day, he decided to drink water from a spring a few yards away from an "Ámate" tree. With his back to the trunk he felt his eyelids getting heavier and heavier, until he couldn't take it anymore and, without realizing it, the tiredness won him over. He knew nothing else until a faint breeze on his face struck him; he opened his eyes and saw only darkness...
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El Salvador is characterized by its magical stories and ghostly or terrifying beings. The "Ámate" is a very well known tree in this country, physically is very different from the others, since its trunk has bad formations and is extremely thick, its branches are also badly formed giving an aspect of claws. The story of the "Ámate" tree and its flower is one of those mysteries that remain unsolved, some people especially the older ones, say that this tree has powers and that its flower gives immense riches to whoever the tree chooses to give this gift, although not everything is as good as it seems, because according to the legend between these fearsome claws hides a secret, nothing less than the birth of a white flower just at 12:00 at night, when falling to the ground the man who takes it in his hands will have the fortune to have love, money and health, however he must first have a fight to death with the devil, who is the owner of the flower, in case of losing against the devil the soul of man would be his, otherwise if the triumph is of man would get what he wanted.
Without a doubt, the culture of each region is exquisite and shows us its identity, its origins and customs, transmitting them from generation to generation through legends full of magic, fantasies and at the same time some realism, a perfect combination to have a vision of the cultural heritage of each region, of its beliefs and riches.
These stories do not lose their validity, as long as there is a transmission of knowledge this tradition will survive in each member of the region, preserving in the memory important events, beliefs, is fundamental for the strengthening of the culture of a population.
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