Shirley- The Yanomami myths

The Yanomami were an indigenous tribe in south america that had never been contacted until the 1960s.  During this time this anthropologist stayed with the group for various years.  In this time, he learned some of their myths.  One of these myths is how they became so fierce.  The story goes that Peribo the moon was eating the souls of children.  Peribo the moon also ate the children of a person named Suhirina.  Suhirina was so upset about this that they shot an arrow at the moon.  The arrow hits the moons stomach and his bloods starts to pill up in big puddles.  The men were created from these puddles.  The largest puddles created the most war-hungry and aggressive people and they all fought each other and most of them died off.  Where only a few droplets formed are where the less aggressive people originated from.  It is said that if someone is more aggressive than they have moon blood in them.  This creation myth only deals with men.  The women came later in their stories.  It is said that a group of Yanomamo were foraging in the forest when they came across a fruit tree.  They were picking the fruit when they noticed that one of them had a pair of eyes.  Along with this, it had a very large vagina.  All the men procreated with this fruit and created many daughters.  Then the yanomamo procreated with these daughters, creating the women in the yanomamo myths.  This is interesting because it shows a very sexist approach in primal religions.

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