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Kòoch the creator of Patagonia (Tehuelche legend)
According to the Tehuelches, a long, long time ago there was no earth, no sea, no sun…There was only a dense, humid darkness. And in the middle of all this lived Kòoch.
Nobody knows why but one day Kòoch, who had always entertained himself, felt very lonely and began to cry. He cried so many tears for such a long time that it was impossible to count them. And his tears created the ocean and the immense sea that you cannot see beyond.
When Kòoch realized that the water was rising and that it was about to cover everything, he stopped crying and sighed. And his sigh was so deep that it was the first wind. It started to blow incessantly, opening a path through the fog and agitating the sea.
Some people say that because of the gusts of wind, the fog went away and light appeared but others say that it was Kòoch who invented the light. They say that wrapped in the darkness in the middle of the water he wanted to look at the strange world around him. He moved through the dark space for a while but since he couldn’t see clearly, he lifted his arm and with a wave made a huge slash through the darkness.
The also say that the movement of his hand created a spark. And that spark turned into the sun. Xàleshen, as the Tehuelches used to call the big celestial being, rose over the sea and illuminated the magnificent landscape. The wind made the immense surface wavy, its gusts twisted each wave until they disappeared under the foam.
The sun made the clouds that then started to wander through the sky, unstoppable, shading the water with their shadows, painting it with huge dark stains. And the wind moved them around at will, sometimes softly and other times so violently that they would crash into each other. The clouds started complaining with roaring thunder and threatening with the menacing glimmer of lightning. Then Kòoch began to create his masterpiece.
The first thing he did was to make a huge island rise out of the water and then he placed animals, birds, insects and fish on it. And the wind and the sun and the clouds found Kòoch’s work so pleasing that they all agreed to make it last: the sun shone and illuminated the land, the clouds let beneficial rain fall, the wind slowed down to let the fields grow…life was sweet on Kòoch’s pacific island. And so the creator was satisfied and left, crossing the ocean. On his way he created more land nearby then he moved towards the horizon from which he never returned.
And that is how things would have continued on the island if it hadn’t been for the birth of the giants, children of Tons, the Darkness. One day, one of them called Nòshtex, kidnapped the cloud Teo and locked her in his cave.
Her sisters looked for the missing cloud far and wide but nobody had seen her. They were so furious that they started a huge storm. The water came down incessantly from high up in the mountains, dragging rocks, flooding the caves of animals, demolishing nests, destroying the earth in huge protest…After three days and nights Xàleshen wanted to know the reason for this anger and appeared among the clouds. After hearing what had happened, that afternoon when he returned to where the sky meets the sea, he told Kòoch the news and Kòoch answered:
I promise that, whoever has abducted Teo will be punished. If they are expecting a child, that child will be more powerful than its father.
The next morning, as soon as the sun had risen he communicated the prophecy to the clouds crowded on the horizon and they later told Xòchem, and the wind that ran to the island and spread the news, telling anyone who would listen. And the rufous-collared sparrow told the guanaco, the guanaco told the nandu, the nandu told the fox, the armadillo and the puma…Later Xòchem blew the message into the giant’s caverns so that everyone would know.
And so Nòshtex heard Kòoch’s words and he was afraid of his little enemy who was already living in the belly of Teo. “I am going to kill them”, he thought, “I am going to kill them and eat them both”. He beat Teo savagely while she was sleeping, grabbed the child from inside her and without looking at his abandoned son on the ground, tore Teo to shreds.
But someone else in the cave had heard Xòchem. It was Terr-Werr, a tuco-tuco who lived in her subterranean house at the back of the grotto. They say she saved the baby secretly, in the same instant the monster raised the child to devour it, she bit him on a toe with all her strength and hid the child under ground before the monster could do anything…
But the hiding place was too precarious. Nòshtex walked through the cave making it tremble with his giant steps, he walked all over the island looking for the child that he had just seen, that same child that would betray him when he grew up.
So Terr-Werr asked the other animals for help: Where should we hide this baby? How can we keep him safe from the giant?
It is said that all the animals had a meeting to talk about the problem. That Kìuz, the plover was the only one who knew about the other land over the ocean that Kòoch had created before he fled to the horizon and he suggested sending the child there. And so the preparations for the secret escape began.
One morning, when Teo’s son and the giant were ready to leave, Terr-Werr took him to the banks of the lagoon and hid him among the reeds. From there he called Kìken, the sparrow. So that he could transmit the message. All the animals were asked to escort the child.
Some like the puma, turned down the invitation. Others like the nandu and the flamingo, got there too late. The fox was so excited to meet the child that when he ran into the giant he couldn’t hide the secret. And so Nòshtex took giant steps towards the lagoon, but the red breasted sparrow, instructed by Terr-Werr, distracted him with his song. That’s why he didn’t get there in time to see the swan swim majestically to the child and take him on his back, or see the swan fly away.
All he saw was a white bird in the sky that, with its long stretched neck and outstretched wings, fly gently to the west. And so in its pillow of feathers off went Kòoch’s offspring towards Patagonia, the land of salvation.
SOURCE: Legends of Patagonia, Editorial Planeta.
(19/10/2005)
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