Cáa-Iari
(The lady goddess of herbs)
erva-mate legend
In the great taba on the shores of the sea, the tribe was celebrating a new victory. Enthusiasm had reached its peak. Gathered in a circle, around the bonfires where they roasted the prisoners’ meat, the warriors sang of their prowess in the great battle in which the ferocious enemies had been completely destroyed.
The generous sparkling cauim circulated from hand to hand in large gourds.
Suddenly, between two famous warriors - the young Piraúna, the greatest swimmer in the seas equal to the swiftest fish, and the brave Jaguareté, fearsome as the beast from which he was named - a heated dispute arises.
The fame of being brave and invincible had ignited an implacable rivalry between them. In the memorable battle both had performed prodigies of valor; and each claimed to have slain more enemies than the other.
At the height of his fury, Jaguareté, blinded by hatred and maddened by the libations, takes the club and, with a treacherous blow, crushes his rival’s skull.
The assassin is at cost dominated by the other warriors, tied to the torture pole. His homicidal act had to be redeemed at the price of blood, which gave the victim’s relatives the right to take the life of their killer.
In the midst of the infernal racket, the borés roar, and the voice of old Curuassú, Piraúna’s father, can be heard, asking for silence.
And so spoke Curuassú, who had once been a famous warrior, and who was then no less renowned in councils for his wisdom.
— Curuassú doesn’t want Jaguareté’s blood. It was not he who shed my son’s blood; it was Anhangá, the spirit of evil, who darkened his mood with intoxicating wine, using his arm to take Piraúna’s life. Let Jaguareté live, but leave the tribe and live alone in the backlands.
Untied from the torture pole, the banished received his weapons, and girded his shoulders with the straw uru, containing his hammock and some utensils.
At a gesture from the chief, two warriors accompanied Jaguareté, serious and silent. After leaving the taba, past the last fields of corn and cassava, the warriors turned and remained still. Without looking back even once, the Piraúna killer continued walking, disappearing into the nearby forest.
Years passed; of the outcast, no one else had any news…
The tribe, once invincible, had been routed in many battles and had been driven little by little from the shores of the great sea to the forests and meadows of the interior.
One day, young hunters, chasing their prey, discovered to their surprise a hut standing alone in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by beautiful trees.
They approached; and their amazement was even greater when they saw, suspended at the door of the hut, the arch decorated with toucan feathers, emblem of their own tribe!
At the door of the hut, a man appeared, whose white hair indicated his advanced age, in contrast to his erect and manly bearing. Seeing the new arrivals, his countenance showed a deep emotion, as he immediately recognized, on their weapons, the same badge that, in memory of his ancient tribe, he always wore adorning his bow!
After having fulfilled the duties of hospitality, sharing his provisions with the strangers, and quenching their thirst with a drink they did not know, the host told them his story.
It was Jaguareté, the banished one, whom they had heard about from their parents.
Expelled from his nation’s taba, Jaguareté had entered the virgin forest, inextricable and endless. After having walked for many suns exhausted and hungry, he had fallen in a faint in a place where unknown trees grew.
In dreams, the beautiful goddess Caá-Yaríi, the lady of the herbs, had appeared to him, who had taught him how to prepare a drink with the leaves of those trees, the same as he had served them. Thanks to the wonderful properties of that plant, which had invigorated him and given him new energy, Jaguareté had escaped death and had remained robust and healthy during the countless moons in which he had lived away from his fellow men.
The use of Cáa, the name that the Guarani gave to yerba mate, became one of the habits of the region’s tribes, where it was found in extensive forests, or herbs.
