How Evils Befell Mankind (South American myth)
**Overview of "How Evils Befell Mankind" (South American Myth)**
“How Evils Befell Mankind” is a myth originating from the Carib people, an ancient civilization recognized for its rich cultural heritage and connection to the Caribbean Islands. The narrative unfolds in a once-harmonious world, where a young hunter named Maconaura encounters a caiman disrupting his fishing. After killing the creature, he meets and marries a beautiful girl named Anuanaitu, who harbors a secret connection to the caiman. The story delves into themes of love, vengeance, and the consequences of violence as Maconaura’s insistence on visiting Anuanaitu's family leads to tragic outcomes, including his own death at the hands of her father, Kaikoutji. This act of revenge spirals into chaos, transforming the peaceful coexistence of the animal kingdom and human beings into a realm of conflict. Anuanaitu, consumed by grief and rage, becomes a powerful figure of sorrow, embodying the myth's message about the intrinsic duality of human nature. The myth serves as a vital cultural artifact, reflecting the social values and environmental interactions of the Carib people, while also illustrating their beliefs about the origins of evil and the profound connections between humanity and the natural world.
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Subject Terms
How Evils Befell Mankind (South American myth)
Author: Traditional Carib
Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE
Country or Culture: South America
Genre: Myth
PLOT SUMMARY
“How Evils Befell Mankind” begins in a world of perfect harmony, where harvests are constant and plentiful and the entire animal kingdom lives at peace with itself and humankind. A man named Maconaura, a young hunter, discovers that a caiman, or crocodile, has been tampering with his fishing nets. Maconaura enlists a cuckoo bird to warn him when the caiman returns, and when he does, Maconaura shoots an arrow through the caiman’s head.
When he returns to the site a third time, Maconaura finds a beautiful young girl named Anuanaitu weeping at the site of the caiman’s murder. Maconaura insists the girl tell him her name and from which tribe she hails, but she refuses; Maconaura takes the girl back to his village to live with him and his mother.
After the girl becomes a young woman, Maconaura proposes, and she reluctantly accepts. After some time, Anuanaitu is overcome with a desire to see her mother. Maconaura agrees to let her return home to visit, but he insists that he accompany her because he never formally asked for permission to marry her. Anuanaitu insists that such a meeting would result in misfortune for both the couple and Maconaura’s mother, but Maconaura insists and accompanies his new bride to her original home.
Maconaura successfully passes a series of tests put forth by his bride’s father, a mysterious tribal elder whose head is constantly cloaked, and he is accepted as her husband by the tribe. After living an extensive period of time with Anuanaitu’s tribe, he longs to return to his mother and his tribe. Maconaura insists his wife accompany him on the return journey, but her father, Kaikoutji, forbid her to go. Maconaura returns home alone.
Maconaura spends a period of time with his own tribe, recounting his travels and adventures; he eventually decides to return to his wife, despite his mother’s misgivings. When he returns to Anuanaitu’s village, she warns him that Kaikoutji is enraged in the wake of recent news he has received. Determined to discover the source of Kaikoutji’s rage, Maconaura goes to visit his father-in-law. When Maconaura arrives at Kaikoutji’s dwelling, the old man kills him by shooting an arrow through his head.
Maconaura’s fellow tribesmen attack Anuanaitu’s village in revenge for his death, sparing no one. It is revealed that Kaikoutji’s head is constantly hidden because he has the head of a caiman. The caiman killed by Maconaura at the beginning of the story was Kaikoutji’s son.
Anuanaitu becomes possessed with rage for the slaying of her own people and her husband, becoming a personification of vengefulness and sorrow combined. She insists that all would be forgiven had her mother been spared in her village’s destruction. Anuanaitu’s cries of rage transform the animal kingdom and the natural world from that of peacefulness to one of conflict and aggression. The world’s newfound evils become permanent when Anuanaitu joins her husband in death by plummeting into a waterfall.
SIGNIFICANCE
“How Evils Befell Mankind” is a myth from the Carib people, the ancient civilization from which the Caribbean Islands get their name. The Caribs, also known as the Kalinagos, are believed to have populated the islands of South America around the twelfth century CE. The myth describes the corruption of a utopian world after violence and revenge interrupt the marriage of a man and his wife.
Scholars have lauded the dramatic vividness of the myth of Maconaura and Anuanaitu and praised the story for offering invaluable insight into the social ideas and cultural customs of the Carib people. Though the tale describes a domestic struggle, it does so by interweaving many intricate aspects of Carib life—hunting strategies, sacred rituals, and the culture’s interaction with the natural world.
It is also important to note that the Caribs considered Maconaura and Anuanaitu to be the father and mother of all humankind. This point is potentially illustrative of their firm belief in humankind’s intrinsic capabilities for potent passion and love and, conversely, for violence and revenge.
The crude justice depicted in “How Evils Befell Mankind” places the liberation of the world of evil on the female sex. Furthermore, Anuanaitu’s revenge is based in the murder of a half beast, half man whose motivation for eating out of the traps of the hunter Maconaura is never fully made clear. The caiman-man may have been the Caribs’ way of illustrating humankind’s permanent connection to the primal self and the natural world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, Hartley Burr. The Mythology of All Races: Latin-American. Vol. 11. London: Jones, 1920. 261–68. Print.
Bingham, Ann, and Jeremy Roberts. South and Meso-American Mythology A to Z. New York: Chelsea, 2010. Print.
Crask, Paul. Dominica: The Bradt Travel Guide. Guilford: Globe Pequot, 2007. Print.
Monaghan, Patricia. Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2010. Print.
---. Women in Myth and Legend. London: Junction, 1981. Print.