TAKUTSI NAKAWE

by Mariano Valadez

Once a Huichol called Watakame went to clear some land to plant corn. All day he worked hard felling trees. The next day he came back to plant his corn but to his amazement the trees were standing up again!

Undaunted, once more he cut them down, but the next morning they were up again. He could not find the cause, until on the fifth day he spied an old woman using a crooked stick to set the trees up again. He was very angry! She told him that he was lucky because she was going to save him from a great flood.

Watakame realised that the woman had to be a goddess, so he did as she told him to do, he made a big canoe. Then the flood came and drowned the world. The old woman was Takutsi Nakawe, the Goddess of Growth, and she saved Watakame, a small black dog, and the seeds of the five different colors of maize.

After five years the canoe came to rest on dry land. Takutsi taught Watakame how to cultivate maize. In the evenings when he came back to his cave he would find a pile of delicious little tortillas. Puzzled, he left one morning as if to go to work, but hid behind a tree. Soon a girl ran out of the cave and down to the river. In the cave he found a dogskin which he threw on the fire. The girl screamed and came running back, but it was too late. Unable to return to her skin she became Watakame's wife, the first woman.