The Owner of the light, Venezuelan Folklore XIII

The owner of the light

At first, people lived in darkness and only lit with the fire of the timbers. There was no day or night. There was a Warao man with his two daughters who found out about the existence of a young owner of the light. So, he called his eldest daughter and ordered her to go to the owner of the light to bring it to her. She took her mapire and left. But there were many roads and the one he chose took her to the house of the deer. He met him and played with him. When he returned to his father's house, he did not bring the light; Then the father decided to send the youngest daughter.

The girl took the good road and after a long walk she arrived at the house of the owner of the light. He told the young man that she was coming to know him, to be with him and to get light for his father. The owner of the light answered that he was waiting for him and now that he had arrived, they would live together. He carefully opened his torotoro and the light illuminated his arms and white teeth and the girl's hair and black eyes. Thus, she discovered the light and its owner, after showing it to him, kept it. Every day the owner of the light took it out of its box to play with the girl. But she remembered that she had to take the light to her father and then her friend gave it to her. He brought the torotoro to the father, who bore him on one of the trunks of the palafito.

The bright rays illuminated the waters, the plants and the landscape. When it was learned among the peoples of the Orinoco delta that a family had light, the Warao began to come in their curiaras to meet her. So many and many curiaras with more and more people arrived, that the palafito could no longer bear the weight of so many people marveled by the light; nobody left because life was more pleasant in clarity. And it was that the father could not withstand so many people inside and outside his house that with a strong slap he broke the box and threw it into the sky.

The body of the light flew to the East and the torotoro to the West. From the light the sun was made and from the box that kept it the moon arose. On one side was the sun and on the other the moon, but they marched very fast because they still carried the impulse that had thrown them into heaven, the days and nights were very short. Then the father asked his youngest daughter for a small morrocoy and when the sun was on his head he threw it to him saying it was a gift and that he would wait for it. From that moment, the sun began to wait for the morrocoy. Thus, at dawn, the sun went little by little, at the same pace as the morrocoy.


Venezuelan Folklore