Kerana

 

The primary figure in most Guaraní creation legends is Tupã, the supreme god of all creation. With the help of the moon goddess Arasy, Tupã descended upon the Earth in a location specified as a hill in the region of Aregúa, Paraguay, and from that location created all that is found upon the face of the earth, including the ocean, forests, and the animals. It is also said that the stars were placed in the sky at this point.

Tupã then created humanity (according to most Guaraní myths, the Guaraní were naturally the first race of people to be made, with every other civilization being born from it) in an elaborate ceremony, forming clay statues of man and woman with a mixture of various elements from nature.


  Mural in Keraná Hostel, Encarnación, Itapúa

After breathing life into the human forms, he left them with the spirits of good and evil and departed.

The original humans created by Tupã were Rupave and Sypave, whose names mean “Father of the people” and “Mother of the people”, respectively. The pair had three sons and a large but unspecified number of daughters. The first of their sons was Tumé Arandú, considered to be the wisest of men and the great prophet of the Guaraní people. Second of their sons was Marangatú, a benevolent and generous leader of his people, and father of Kerana, the mother of the seven legendary monsters of Guaraní myth (see below). Their third son was Japeusá, who was from birth considered a liar, a thief and a trickster, always doing things backwards to confuse people and take advantage of them. He eventually committed suicide, drowning himself in the water, but he was resurrected as a crab, and since then all crabs are cursed to walk backwards much as Japeusá did.

Among the daughters of the Rupave and Supave was Porâsý, notable for sacrificing her own life in order to rid the world of one of the seven legendary monsters, diminishing their power (and thus the power of evil as a whole).

Several of the first humans were considered to have ascended upon their deaths and become minor deities.

Kerana, the beautiful daughter of Marangatu, was captured by the personification or spirit of evil called Tau. Together the two had seven sons who were cursed of the high goddess Arasy, and all but one were born as hideous monsters. The seven are considered primary figures in Guaraní mythology, and while several of the lesser gods or even the original humans are forgotten in the verbal tradition of some areas, these seven were generally maintained in the legends. Some of them are even believed in down to modern times in some rural areas. The seven sons of Tau and Kerana are, in order of their births:

  • Teju Jagua, god or spirit of caverns and fruits

  • Mbói Tu’ĩ, god of waterways and aquatic creatures

  • Moñái, god of the open fields. He was defeated by the sacrifice of Porâsý

  • Jasy Jatere, god of the siesta, only of the seven to not appear as a monster

  • Kurupi, god of sexuality and fertility

  • Ao Ao, god of hills and mountains

  • Luisón, god of death and all things related to it