Aymara folk art & legends

Aymara folk tale:  The Fox and the Goose.  Eight of these legends are depicted on buildings in Putre.  

The fox and the goose 

Once upon a time the goose was swimming with her kids, as all the geese lived in the middle of the lake.  The fox passed nearby and was watching them.  “Why are your kids so pretty?”, the fox mom said to the goose mom.  “It's easy”, said the goose, “put them in the oven and count 1,2,3, and later take them out, they will stay pretty”.  The lady fox went home to her kids, heated up the oven, put her babies in the hot oven, counted to 3, opened the oven, and saw that her babies were burned and dead.  

The fox was infuriated, and wanted to eat the goose, and went to the lake where the goose lived and said to her   “Goose!  Why did you lie to me!  Come, I want to talk to you!”, but of course the fox wanted to eat the geese.

Meanwhile the goose mom was weaving her fabric and heard the call of the vicuña, the goose mom said “I’m coming, right away!”  The fox thought "I am going to drink all the water from the pond in order to eat the goose mom and her kids, and she began to drink water from the lake until she was very swelled up and could drink no more.  Meanwhile she was walking the fox mom said “Oh Please don't poke me little cactus, little paja brava!”    In a moment of carelessness, as she walked slowly, the fox poked herself by accident with sharp grass spike, exploded the water and she died.

The Puma, the Caracara, and the Condor and 3 sisters

The Puma, the Caracara, and the Condor

Once upon a time there were 3 sisters that were going to get married.  The condor married the middle sister, the caracara married the youngest, and the puma wed the oldest.  The condor carried his wife to live in the cliffs, the caracara to the top of the hill, and the lion took his wife to live in his cave, and the husbands all carried food to each of his wives.  

One day the puma was bringing a leg of an animal to his wife, when he met the caracara, and the puma, laying a trap, told the caracara "Take this leg of meat to my siser in law!".  The caracara flew with the leg on his shoulder and the meat flattened him on the ground.  The puma ate him when he fell down.  But the caracara was still alive, and the caracara flew out the puma’s behind and the puma died after that.   

The condor carried entrails to his wife, but she was getting very bored with so much tripe.  One day the caracara came close to the cliffs and found the wife of the condor and asked her  “Why are you crying?”  She said, “I am bored with living in this place and eating tripe all the time.  Take me down from here, please!!”  The caracara told her, but you will give me your chuspita (note: small colorful bag in which coca leaves are carried), the condor wife accepted and the caracara took the woman down from the cliffs.

Later on the Condor arrived at his nest, saw that his wife was not there, and went to look for her. Upon seeing that the caracara had the chuspita, he decided to chase him and eat him.  The caracara had to flee from the condor, desperately hid himself in one of the nostrils of a big cow.  The condor stuck his head into the other nostril of the cow so forcefully that when he took his head out he had no more feathers on his neck, the caracara flew out the other end of the cow with the little coca bag.   

From then on, the caracara remained with the colors of the chuspita around his neck, and the condor remained with one part of his neck bare of feathers.