Corabé
White Butterfly:
*Corabé (White Butterfly) was friends with Guiriámia (type of bird) and they considered themselves best friends. They said to each other, “Friend.” They flirted and played around with the young men who liked them. It’s said that the one that really liked them was Caric Ichai, a very young guy. The girls would cut his hair and pull out his facial hair. It didn’t grow back, because they were always pulling it out, that’s why.
Her girlfriends said to Corabé: “Quit playing around with those men who want you. Your skin will get dark. They rub coals from the fire on themselves.”
“My skin won’t get dark. I’ll wash in water and my skin will get clean again,” she said.
Jongongo (frog) didn’t wash it off. She liked the young men, that’s why. But the girls that climbed on them made them get rash. They scratched themselves because it itched. And it just kept on itching and itching, the rash.
Guiriámia went around with Corabé. Bujote (a bird) went around with Frog. Caric Ichai had all the girls wanting him – Guiriámia(Bird), Corabé (White Butterfly), Bujote (Black Bird), Jongongo (Frog), they all wanted him.
The young men hoped that they could get together with Corabé, but she wouldn’t go to them. She just flirted with them. They really wanted her for a fiancée. But Corabé’s little husband was going to be Carujnangue Erusṍrami (Lizard). (Carujnangue is the name of a tree with a slippery trunk, and Erusṍrami is the term for ‘the small one who climbs’.
But they say she got tired of the young men because she was sleepy. So she left. She climbed the Slippery Tree. They looked for her. They said, “She’ll be my wife if I find her first. She’ll be my wife, if I don’t stop trying.” They really wanted her because she was white. None of them could stop desiring her (placing their affections on her.) They’d say, “She’s almost mine! She’s almost mine!”
All of them wanted her. They’d say, “Come on, let’s go. Let’s act like we’re just going somewhere.” They all asked people where she was. They wanted to find her but in vain. There was no chance that she would go to any of them. They were just the ones she flirted with.
Everyone was getting tired and Corabé said: “I’m going to go to sleep now.”
And then she left. She said: “I’m going now. I’m going to climb a tree. I’m going to hide from those guys I’ve been flirting with.”
She knew the men were going to be looking for her. She quickly hid herself. She climbed the tree with the slippery trunk that was way over there. She told her girlfriends what she was going to do. She said: “Whoever reaches me will be my husband, that is if he can find me. I’m going to climb the carujnangue tree and sleep at the top of it.”
Her girlfriends told her words, because the young men couldn’t find her. They said to the young men:“Look for her up in the trees, because she said she was going to go to sleep at the top of a tree.”
The men kept looking and quickly found her. She was at the top of the tree. One of men who found her said: “There she is, but the tree trunk is really slippery.” He quickly tried to climb up, but slipped back down because the tree was slippery.
“There she is. You try to climb it, too,” he challenged the others, “but she’s at the top of the tree!”
They say all the men ran over to the tree. They said, “There she is! But she’s way up there. She’s sleeping in the branches.” Many of them were gathered beside the tree, underneath where she was.
“Her friends told us what she told them,” they said. “She says that whoever gets to her first will be her husband and she will be his wife.”
One of the men said: “I will make an incantation and that will help me find her.”
Another said: “I’ll think about her, concentrate on her, and thoughts of her will always be before me! She’ll be my wife!”
Corabé said: “Even if the one who finds me is ugly, he’ll still be my husband.” After they found her, she said: “My husband will be the one who get’s to me first.”
They cleared out the weeds under the tree.
She said: “Climb up to me. My husband will be whoever gets to me first.”
In vain they encouraged themselves. “I’ll chant when I’m climbing and then I’ll reach her,” they would say.
They climbed but slipped right back down, and kept climbing up only to slip down again. They tried to climb higher than others. They would put hexes on each other and say: “You’re not going to reach her ¡pu jõ! You’re not going to reach her ¡pu jõ!” (They said pu jõ as a hex to keep others from getting to the top.)
Others would encourage their relatives and try to put charms on them so they could reach the top. They would say: “You can do it ¡pu jõ! You can do it ¡pu jõ!”
Corabé would say to them: “Hurry up. The person who reaches me first will be my husband right now.” She reached her hand down to help them up. She would say: “Take my hand, take my hand!” But they would get just so far up and then slip down again; they would slip down to the ground.
Others would call out hexes and say: “¡Pu o! You’re not going to touch her. ¡Pu o! You’re not going to touch her. ¡Slip back down! ¡Slip back down!”
Some would say, “¡Pu á! grab her! ¡Pu á! grab her!” There were lots of people underneath the slippery tree. But they told them to clear out from underneath the tree to make room for the climbers.
And then the young man that would finally reach her arrived. His name was Carujnángue Erusṍrami. He said, “Get out of my way! I’ll reach her and she’ll be my wife.”
They were jealous because the ugly person reached the top. The “finder” was Slippery Tree Lizard. It’s said he climbed right up that tree because he stuck to it, that’s why. He didn’t slip at all.
Corabé said: “Hurry up!” He reached up and grabbed the young girl’s hand. And he managed to put himself right next to her. They “bit each other’s cheeks” (kissed), and joined together way up high.
The Ayoreos really disapproved of them because the young man was extremely ugly but his wife was very pretty.
Corabé said: “It happened just like I said, whoever reached me would be my husband. Even if it were a child that reached me first, he would be my husband. I gave everyone a chance to be my husband, whoever could reach me first.”
Her husband was really ugly, but she kept her word. She wouldn’t erase her words. She didn’t change her mind. (She had one plan.) No one could say that she had deceived her people.
Samané comments: (It was probably God blessing Corabé long ago. She was the source of all white people who became enemies of the Ayoreos. The Bolivians who are dark like Ayoreos descended from the young women named Jongongo (frog), that is because the young men had sex with her without marrying her.)
Samané goes on with the story:
Carujnángue Erusṍrami (Slippery Tree Lizard) put his tongue into Corabe’s mouth. They say that Corabé said: “I will go anywhere on earth with you, but I can’t find your cheeks to kiss them.” It’s plain to see that she didn’t throw her husband out for being ugly, and that she was *pleased with him, but she wouldn’t kiss him. The Lizard sat upon Corabé’s lap.
But all of the young men disapproved of Slippery Tree Lizard. They said: “Bring him here and we’ll kill him!”
But Lizard’s relatives defended him and so they weren’t able to kill him. They said to Corabé’s husband: “We think it’s best if we leave here and take her with us!”
Samané’s comments about origin of whites, and their contact with Jean Dye and the contact team: (The lizard’s relatives took her off and Corabé’s relatives went with her. They went far away to your country (U.S.A.). Corabé was a beautiful white butterfly and had no dirt. That is why you missionaries don’t have any dirt either. When we first saw Jean Dye, Ejenai looked at how white she was and said: “She probably has a husband somewhere with white skin also. She must be a descendant of Corabe that lived with the Ayoreos long ago. That must be why these white people like us; it’s because their ancestor’s liked us long ago.” Ejenai knew this because he knew that Corabé had been white. Quesei’s grandfather, Esoquedéjnai said: “Let’s go to them. Let’s eat their food. They’re just being good to us, because they descended from us.”
Samané gets back to the story:
Jotójnai pouted about Corabé’s husband. He was really upset. (Ayoré idiom: His insides were not cold at all.) He said: “I’m going to get that husband of Corabe’s, and then we’ll take Corabé and them back with us.”
He said that, but he didn’t do it; he feared Corabé’s husband, because he had a lot of relatives. Corabé felt sorry for her husband because the Ayoreos hated him. Some of them said: “I’ll kill him when they stop to rest.”
Other’s said: “I’ll kill him and I’ll take his wife for myself.”
So the other men watched Corobé’s husband wherever he went, ready to kill him. But his wife knew what they were trying to do, so she said to her husband: “Come on, let’s leave!”
Vocabulary:
*erutodie – climbers (girls who crawl up on men to have sex)
*tabua – context seems to indicate another term for sexual intercourse
*Corabé – small white butterfly
*she was pleased – Ayoré idiom: she didn’t find his stringy parts – the stringy parts of palm heart are not appealing. For Corabé, her husband didn’t have any stringy parts.
Samané – Tobité, Bolivia – 1965.
Transcribed by: Joyce Davis Buchegger.
Translated to English by: Maxine Morarie.
