Dupade chajire dapesudi erãpe ga ueradéjna
Ecarai teaches us about the beginning of the world:
Dupade looked at the earth he had made, and it was beautiful.
That’s how you and I are, too. When someone makes a garden, after it’s finished he looks it over and finds it beautiful.
But Dupade said: “I haven’t planted a garden yet.” So, he planted things. He planted the picadéode trees. He planted the esodie trees. He planted things for food all over the world. And he looked at his garden, and saw plants coming up and producing fruit. But he said to himself: “I’ve finished planting the things in my garden, but what is lacking is people to eat it!”
God made the animals first:
But you know how it really was. Dupade made his garden for us humans that inhabit the earth, Ayoreos and Cojñone. He said: “I’ll make the animals.” He did, but these animals that he made were just animals and they couldn’t speak. They couldn’t reason.
Afterwards God made a man in his image:
But then Dupade made up his mind to make something else. He took some of the dirt and he formed it and made a special man-like thing from it, as you have probably already heard from don Juan and others. He kept perfecting it: he formed a place for it’s eyes, for ears, and for hands. And then he said: “Now it would be good if it had life in it.” So, he blew into it’s lips. And it was changed from a figure made of dirt into a human being. But you know that Dupade made this human being so that it would do what he asked it to do, and that it would obey him.
God saw it wasn’t good for the man to be alone so he made a wife for him:
He said: “It wouldn’t be good for this person to be alone and not have the benefit of a companion.” He knew none of the animals could be a wife for the man he had made. But then, Dupade put the man to sleep, that first man Adam, and soon he was sound asleep. Dupade took a piece of his rib and from it made a woman. And then he said to our father, the first man: “I’ve just finished making you a wife.” No, he didn’t call her a wife, but said, “I have just finished making a companion for you, someone who will stay with you and you will help each other with your work.” It’s true that women were made to help their husbands.
Disobedience entered the world:
But you must know that disobedience was to enter the world, and the people were not going to listen to Dupade.
After they were made, Dupade took them into his garden and said to them: “This is my garden. Eat whatever you want from it. Here’s the esodie I planted,” he said. “Here’s the palm fruit called ijnaque quedéjnanie,” he said. “Eat some of this fruit from the picadéode trees,” he said. “But do not eat this other fruit, I forbid you to eat it.”
But we don’t know the name of the fruit that Dupade told them not to eat; the fruit that, if we humans should eat it, we would die. Dupade said to them: “Eat. But don’t eat this one fruit that is in the middle of my garden.”
One of the fruits in Dupade’s garden was forbidden:
But you know that our mother, the first woman, ate the forbidden fruit, and that is how disobedience entered us humans. Death also came into us when she ate the fruit.
You heard the teachings of don Carlos when he said: “Death lusts after us humans and wants us to follow it to our demise.”
And so, they ate the fruit that Dupade gave to them and they were happy. They were happy until Satan entered the snake and changed himself into a handsome young man, like I told you about yesterday. And that young woman didn’t fear him, because this was a good-looking young man.
Satan tempts Eve:
Now he speaks to her and says: “Eve, here’s some of the things that Dupade gave for you to eat.”
But she said: “There’s one fruit that Dupade has forbidden us to eat. Dupade has forbidden it and that’s why we can’t eat it.”
But Satan said: “Eve, I think that Dupade is lying to you. It’s because he doesn’t want you to know everything. That’s why he told you not to eat it. He’s holding it back from you, so that you won’t know things.”
And then he said to our mother, the first woman, “Why don’t you eat it?”
But she said: “I’m not going to eat it. Dupade told me not to eat it.”
But she couldn’t keep resisting the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit. It’s obvious that her cravings were leading her forward toward the fruit.
And Satan said: “Why are you so afraid all the time? Won’t that fruit taste good?”
Now, you know, when fruit is very ripe it becomes very appealing!”
The fruit was just hanging there, tempting our mother Eve.
She said: “Here they are. And I am going to eat them.” But then she said: “But if we eat this fruit, we’ll die just like Dupade said.”
Satan calls Dupade a big liar:
But Satan said: “Dupade is a liar. Can’t you see he is holding the fruit back from you because you will know things like he does if you eat it.”
But Dupade was truthful, and in one sense so was Satan, for if we wouldn’t have eaten that fruit then we wouldn’t have been ashamed. We’d be happy with each other. We wouldn’t get anger. We wouldn’t have been embarrassed of being naked. But we did eat it, and Satan found a way to enter us and we learned to sin.
And Eve said: “O.K. I’m going to eat it.” She picked the fruit. She tried it and is was delicious. But then she said to her husband, our father, the first man, “Come here. Eat some of this. It’s true that it tastes very good, and Dupade must have deceived us when he forbade us to eat it.”
When they ate the fruit, they knew they were naked.
They ate it. But then they said: “We’re naked!”
Then her husband looked at himself and said: “That’s right, we are naked.” The fruit that they ate caused them to know they were naked; and right away they were embarrassed. And the man said to his wife: “Come on. Let’s make some skirts.”
They found some very large leaves and made skirts from them for themselves. Probably they used leaves like those of a banana plant, because they were very large. They sewed them together and made skirts.
It was late afternoon when they heard Dupade calling. He said: “Adam, I’ve come to see you!”
But Adam said to his wife: “Come here. Let’s go. Dupade has arrived.”
They hid on the other side of the trees. And they said: “Dupade won’t see us here. We’re well hidden.”
You know that if I hide behind a tree no one will see me. As if Dupade, couldn’t see a person hiding in the trees! It’s the same with us, if someone hides his sin, Dupade sees everything, even things that are hidden.
Dupade followed them to their hiding place:
They kept themselves hidden, but Dupade followed them and found them.
Adam said: “Did Dupade lie to us? Someone’s coming, it’s probably Dupade! Why, it is Dupade!”
“Here we are,” they said, but it was just something to say. They were trying to keep Dupade from knowing what they had done – their disobedience. Dupade startled them.
So, they said: “Well, here is Dupade!”
They said, “We’re right over here!”
We know how we act when we’re embarrassed, when we’re afraid someone will find out that we’ve been sinning.
They said: “Here we are. But we hid ourselves because we’re naked.”
But Dupade said: “I think you must have eaten the forbidden fruit. And that is the real reason you were hiding.”
But then Adam said to Dupade: “Dupade, we did eat it. The woman you made for me gave it to me and I ate it. She said to me, ‘Adam, eat this.’”
And it’s true that when your wife doesn’t believe in Dupade, you shouldn’t so along with the things she does that are wrong if you are a believer. If your wife doesn’t believe in Dupade, don’t imitate the bad things that she does.
If this first man had not listened to his wife, then Dupade would not have given him death.
On the other hand, if your wife believes in Dupade, don’t try to keep her from being Dupade’s believer. And if you are a believer, then don’t join in with the bad things your husband does in disobedience to Dupade.
And so it was that they said to Dupade: “We did eat the fruit that you forbade us to eat. And that is why we hid from you.”
Dupade sent them away from his garden:
Dupade said: “I know. You ate it. Go away, far away from my garden. And don’t enter it again.”
They left and were very sad as they went away. There were tears as they went away because Dupade was through with them.
But Dupade wasn’t through with them at all, and he had a plan for them, a way for them to return to his country. He said: “Even if you didn’t have to leave,” he said, “you wouldn’t be permitted to eat freely without working.”
You understand that up till this time, Dupade had allowed them food from his garden that they had not worked for so that they could adjust to their new life, eating, and sleeping.
Dupade cursed them with death and difficult work:
But now he cursed the first man with death, and that is why we all die, because Dupade said we would.
He said: “You will go on eating, but you must first work hard for your food.”
And Dupade told them the truth, for since that time, no one eats without working. I think you all understand that what we Ayoreos used to eat in the woods was not free, we worked for it by hunting. This was because Dupade cursed us. He no long gave us food so that it would keep coming to us free of charge.
Turtles provide us with food. Wild pigs know that we kill them, and they run from us and they don’t stay anywhere near humans at all. If we had not sinned against Dupade long ago, the wild pig and turtles would stay near us, so we could eat them. And our people used to hunt honey, and when they couldn’t locate honey right away, and there was nothing to eat, they were famished, and they’d be very discouraged out in the woods.
It was the same with the Cojñone. Neither the Cojñone nor the Ayoreos can eat without working. And they work hard for their employers before they can eat.
All of this is because Dupade cursed the first man with these words: “You will work hard and sweat will pour out of your bodies before you can have food to eat.”
Dupade cursed the first woman Eva:
And he also cursed the first woman, from whom we all descended.
“I know,” he told her, “that you think about and desire your husband,” he said, “You have sexual desire for your husband,” he said. “But then you will have children,” he said.
He went on with his curse for the first woman. “You will have children, but you will experience pain,” he said. “You will have pain and your children won’t come out of you without pain.”
From this we know that Dupade brought hardship on our forefathers when he cursed them.
Dupade cursed the earth:
Afterwards he cursed the earth. He said to the earth: “You will have thorns,” he said. The only place that didn’t have thorns was Dupade’s garden. There were no thorns in it. But the gardens of the Ayoreos have thorns and stickers. But Dupade cursed the ground and said: “You will have thorns,” he said. “There will be thorny patches,” he said.
And since that time, you have seen how none of the Ayoreos gardens are free of stickers. There’s no place that does not have thorny patches. Thorny patches are all over the earth since Dupade cursed the ground.
And we know that these negative things came upon us, because Dupade disapproved of our forefathers, the first people, because of their disobedience.
Dupade cursed them, but he didn’t stop loving them.
But after Dupade had cursed them, he continued to think about them in heaven. He said: “The people that I made, that I cursed, I love and very much want for myself,” he said. “I love them and want them to follow me and be with me,” he said.
He said: “This is what I’ll do, I’ll send my Son Jesus into the world to tell them that I really love them,” he said.
And that is what really happened; Jesus arrived in the world long ago, but our sin threw him to the ground. And it was because of our sin, that people nailed him to the cross. And that showed that Dupade and we were still enemies. And it was our sin also, the sin of us living today, that was present when Jesus was crucified with the men who were crucified with him. But afterwards Jesus rose from the dead, and because of this you can know that Dupade is not through with us at all and that he still loves us. (1 Peter 3:18)
Key:
Dupade – God
Ayoreos – Ayoré people
Cojñone – People who are not Ayoreos, white people
Picadéode – Trees that produce this kind of fruit.
Esodie – Trees that produce this kind of fruit.
Ijnaque quedéjnanie – Palm tree whose heart is eaten for food.
Ecarai – Rincón de Tigre, Bolivia – 1960.
Transcribed and translated to English by: Maxine Morarie.
