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Maieta guianensis

Family:

Melastomataceae

Kichwa:

Yuca de Quinde

Yuca de Quinde

Prochilodus nigricans_edited.jpg

Bradley Bennet recorded a Shuar version of the kindi and acangau story in which the sun Etsa gives the hummingbird Maieta guianensis as a compensation for having lost manioc chicha as his primary nutritive gift. It is evidently for this reason that it is called yuca de Quinde. “According to a Shuar legend, etsa (the sun) had 2 sons. One was the hummingbird and the other another type of bird. Etsa gave the other bird the best food but the hummingbird was given only water. To appease this bird, Etsa gave the hummingbird YUCA DE QUINDE.” Bennet, Baker, and Andrade, Ethnobotany of the Shuar of Eastern Ecuador, Advances in Economic Botany V 14, p. 204. In other published versions of the story, the other bird Acangau is given thick yuca chicha while the hummingbird is given thin watery chicha. Because he got used to this watery chicha he became a hummingbird who fed off flower nectar for his chicha. If this is the case then “Yuca de Quinde” or hummingbird manioc would be a wild or useless contrast to alli lumu or cultivated manioc in the same way that taruga lumu or “deer” manioc contrasts to garden manioc.

Talking about Yuca de Quinde

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