THE LEGEND OF THE MACAWS
This story was narrated to me by the Wise Elders, guardians of Memory in a distant mountain wasteland. According to an ancient legend transmitted generation after generation in which the Genesis of the Cañari People is described.
For a long time human beings forgot respect for Pacha Mama or Mother Earth, destroying nature and killing each other, theft, laziness, and lies had perverted their hearts. As punishment for that behavior, the Gods Tutelaries unleashed a great deluge, for many moons the waters swallowed everything, crops, animals, houses, most of the people drowned, except for two young men who had always respected the Earth and the Sacred Spirits of their Ancestors, They managed to survive in a remote cave in a mountain known today as Huaycañan, a mountain that magically rose as the level of the flood increased, after forty days the rain stopped, the two brothers with great difficulty tried to feed themselves with the few roots they could collect.
One day in the cave that served as their refuge, after wandering around they found exquisite fruits and corn chicha, after the surprise, they tried to find out who their benefactors were and hid to see what was happening, great was their amazement when contemplating the arrival of two large Macaws with the faces of women who brought food for them, they were present before the birds which in the act were transformed into two beautiful girls, who had been bewitched by a demon that perished in the flood, this He had put a curse on them transforming them into birds, but this was what saved them, since they flew to the top of the enchanted mountain.
The brothers fell in love with them and with the blessing of the Andean Gods they formed an extensive family that would give rise to the Cañari people, people of temper and warrior spirit who maintained a totemic cult of the macaw and the snake, settling and having as areas of influence in Ecuadorian territory what are currently the provinces of: Cañar, Azuay, El Oro and Morona Santiago.
At present there is a serious risk of the destruction of the Material and Intangible Cultural Heritage of this culture, due to the globalizing and alienating processes of the western model of society imposed since the colony, which does not respect or value the knowledge, beliefs, and traditions of the native Indian peoples.
70% of its population has lost the use of the kechwa language, imposing Spanish as a language, there are few communities that maintain the indigenous socio-cultural clothing and practices, it is urgent to work with grassroots organizations and Decentralized Autonomous Governments to start an Agenda of Rescue, Enhancement of Social Value, Safeguarding, Promotion and Dissemination of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of the Cañari People, since more than a myth they are a reality that gives shape and nuances to our Ecuadorian Multiethnic and Intercultural Identity.
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