Bélgica Dagua, "Wayusa woman, her husband Capuchin Monkey, and sister Little Tinamou."

There were two women: one was the Guayusa woman, when she was still human, and the other, the Partridge woman, who had also once been a person. One of the sisters married a machín monkey; her husband was a machín monkey. He built a large house. There lived the single sister and the Guayusa woman with her husband, in that house. While they lived there, she used to wake up very early: by two in the morning she was already awake. When she woke up early, she would mold clay cups, pots, and plates; that’s what she did. In the mornings she prepared food and fed her husband; afterward she went to the chakra to work. The single sister stayed at home; sometimes she went along and other times she didn’t. Sometimes she went alone, she was used to going alone. Her husband always stayed home. He didn’t go to the forest to hunt, nor go walking, nor did he know how to fish. She brought cassava and potatoes from the chakra; she cooked them to feed him. He ate everything, and afterward, he went back to sleep. That’s how their days went by. As time passed, the machín monkey passed his laziness on to the younger sister. “You’re a lazy animal, and you’re making me lazy too,” she said. “If I were my sister, I wouldn’t want someone so lazy with me.” They were arguing, and after fighting, he said something to her. The brother-in-law, the machín monkey, said to her: “Let me bite your breasts — let me bite your breasts.” When the sister came back from the chakra in the afternoon, she told her. “Sister, your husband, that lazy old man, wants to make me lazy too. He said: ‘Let me bite your breasts... let me bite your breasts,’ he wants me to become lazy like him.” “Why do you let him do that, if he’s your husband?” she said. “I’ll hit him.” The sister said nothing; she just listened in silence. When she went back to the chakra again, he once more passed his laziness to the sister-in-law. During the quarrel, someone said, “Your wife has spoiled you into being lazy.” “¡Taw, taw, taw!” She hit him. As she kept hitting him, he quickly covered his head with his hands. He covered his head with his hands and suddenly ran away. “¡Shikiriy!” cried the machín monkey as he fled into the forest. “I am a machín too!” When her sister came back from the chakra, she asked: “Where is my husband?” “You’re asking me about your lazy husband? I hit him and sent him away.” “Where could my husband have gone?” she thought, crying with sadness. A week after he left, she was already beginning to forget him. Then they began to hear: “Hu, hu, hu!” —that’s what they heard. “Ah! There’s your husband, the one you missed. There comes your lazy husband!” she said. They looked up and saw him coming, his hands now full of hair. “Who could that be?” his wife wondered. “Look! My husband has turned into a monkey!” cried his wife, weeping. She kept staring at him. “Puru, puru, puru!” he began to shout. And suddenly — “Zam, zam, zam!” — he shook the branches of the trees. Then he said to his wife: “Even if you love me and miss me, I will not live with you again.” “I will live in the jungle now,” he said. As he spoke, his sister was watching him closely. “What are you looking at? You shouldn’t look at a lazy man,” she told her. After hearing those words, he left. She stayed home alone, but sometimes went walking toward the forest. One of the sisters never went out; she always stayed home. The other, instead, went alone to the chakra every day. She still woke up early, as before, to weave pots and cups. Every morning she got up before dawn. Before going to the chakra, she covered everything with leaves. Each morning she did the same; it wasn’t just a one-time habit, but her daily custom. Every morning she rose before dawn. When her sister left, she came back hungry from the chakra. One day she said: “Sister, I’m going to live with my husband.” That’s what she told her. “With whom will you live, if there are no humans here?” While they were at home, they saw a canoe pass by. “¡Tuluk, tuluk, tuluk!” —something was making noise—. There were no people. What could it be? “All right,” she said. Her sister came with him, and suddenly she jumped into the river. Only the canoe remained floating; it drifted upstream. “What person could that be? He didn’t show himself.” Then she told her sister: “Sister, I’m in love with someone. He talks to me and says he wants to live by my side.” “It’s true, sister.” When they looked inside the canoe, they saw a white catfish; he had been bringing her fish. They went down to the river to get the white catfish. “Now, sister, let’s eat. Where could he be bringing so much fish from?” They left the canoe there and only took that. But when they came back, they found more fish again: another white catfish, a mota. In the canoe, he used to leave her gifts of fish. She never fished; it was he who brought them. And after all of that, she spoke. “Sister,” she said, “my husband wants to come live with me.” “Then you’ll marry a good man, a hard worker,” she replied. “Then bring him with you,” she said. “Our house is about to fall apart; let him help us fix it. You’ve found yourself a good husband, sister.” Her sister told her that. Then he came; they were already living there. The house remained unfixed, just as the machín monkey had left it when he built it. The house was full of holes, and when it rained, water leaked everywhere. She protected her things by covering them with macaw feathers. She used the feathers to cover her things so that, when it rained, the clothes wouldn’t get wet. The roof of the house was already rotten and barely protected them from the rain. While they slept, the roof collapsed and fell right beside them. When she saw the collapse, her sister said... “The animal of your husband turned out to be lazy.” “You called my husband lazy, and he left us building a house.” “Look, your husband doesn’t even know how to build a house. In what house are we going to live now? Look what you’ve done!” “Now I’ll hit your husband too. You hit mine, now I’ll hit yours.” When she began to hit her —“taw, taw, taw!”— she was hitting her sister. He was sleeping over there; when he woke up, he ran to hit her, and then he jumped into the river. “¡Tupuwh!” “Muth!” He went farther upriver, and when he surfaced, he took the form of a dolphin. “No one will ever catch me. I will live in the river, for I am a dolphin.” He went away along the river, while his sister, sitting on the shore, said sadly: “Sister, you are a good and hardworking woman. If a woman is lazy, when they cook and drink this plant, you will make her a hardworking woman.” “You are hardworking; become the guayusa. You must live here, sister. I, to be with my husband, will go live on an island.” “I will become a partridge,” she said. “You stay here, in this wide space among the mountains.” After those words, her sister stayed living in the mountains. The other sister chose to live in the flat lands near the rivers. “I will wait for my husband where the water is clear and few plants grow,” she said. “When I say ‘cucuana,’ he will rise from the depths to see me.” “The bujeo?” “Yes, the bujeo. When you become the guayusa tree, your husband, the machín monkey, even if he wanders in other places, when he sees your leaves he will say: ‘That is my wife,’ when he sees the leaves of the guayusa.” “Your husband, the machín monkey, will come to visit you from time to time,” she said. “Mine, when he hears my voice say ‘cucuana,’ will rise from the bottom of the river to see me. That’s why I will stay here, waiting for him.” She remained living in the flat lands of an island, and since then, the islands have been full of partridges called cucuana. “Is the machín monkey the husband of the guayusa?” “Yes, the machín monkey is the husband of the guayusa.”