The tribe Tsáchila from Ecuador lives in the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. The tribesmen are known to shave the sides of the head and comb the rest of the hair with a mixture of grease which is dyed bright red with achiote seeds. They speak the Tsafiki or Tsáchila language of the Barbacoa language family. THE myth of the origin of Tsachila beings was collected on the Mama-Puma site.
The woman who flooded the land fished with barbasco for the tsáchilas, which were as they are today. Before fishing them, she spent her time counting everyone's hair. We don't know how many she must have counted, but she counted them all. When she finished counting, she threw her hair in the water and when she did, the water pushed up. This is how she killed the tsáchilas. They drowned and she picked up those who perished.
The woman was so tall that the water reached her knees. The waters were not deep. She got up and picked up those who drowned. The waters washed away everything: peccaries, pigs, pigs, wild animals, deer, dogs, humans…. The old woman who flooded did not pick up the thin ones, she only picked up the big ones and to check if they had enough fat, she dipped a pointed instrument into their flesh: to see if they were as she wanted.
On these trajectories, the woman saw a little boy floating on the waters. He was alive, he hadn't drowned because he was clinging to a log. The woman took him with her to serve as her cook. She didn't know how to cook because…. She lived so busy!
She took him home and the boy was grilling everything the old woman picked up: people, dogs, everything. While the boy roasted, the woman and her daughter counted the hair. There were two women: the old woman and her daughter. The two lived by counting the hair and the boy was roasting the fat, the flood waters started to come down and the boy kept roasting.
The waters had not been able to destroy everything. A few guava trees were left standing and in one of them a monkey cusumbo was alive. the cusumbo was very big, so the old woman took it instantly. She put it next to the others to roast it, and so that it wouldn't melt completely, she placed it at one end of the grill.
The old woman loved grease! The boy, for his part, was concerned with roasting the meat well. He pricked it on both sides so it would cook evenly. In the meantime, the old woman and her daughter continued to count the hairs. To the surprise of the little cook, it turned out that the cusumbo was not a cusumbo but the lightning, then the lightning spoke and said to him:
– Cover me a little with the flame, do not let it burn me and flee immediately.
Nearby there were bushes of camacho. The lightning told the boy to run to those bushes because he was going to destroy the old woman and her daughter. The women heard the whispers and almost managed to overhear the lightning and the boy talking, so they asked the boy:
- Who are you talking to ?
-Me ? replied the boy, I was not talking to anyone. I said to myself aloud that it is very hot.
When the women heard this answer, they calmed down and sat down where they were. The women got distracted and the child ran to the bushes of camacho. As soon as he got there, a storm of lightning and thunder began. Lightning and thunder attacked the old woman who flooded the land of the tsáchilas and her daughter. The girl jumped into the water, because there was a lagoon that had formed with the hair they were throwing away. The girl was saved but the old woman died in the same place.
The boy went home and left. Before leaving, he told people.
-When you become clay, I will always be what I am now.
That said, he disappeared. Now, when the sun is shining and it is very hot, there is a whistle. It is said that this child is the whistle. That's what grandparents say.
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