Myths, Legends and Peruvian Stories (Mitos, Leyendas y Cuentos Peruanos)
Selections and Notes by José María Arguedas and Francisco Izquierdo Ríos
Costa – Leyenda (Coast – Myth)
From Sechura, District of the Province and Region of Piura. Told by Mrs. Josefa Amaya to Avelina Paiva, a fourth-year high school student at the private school “Our Lady of Lourdes” in Piura (Nuestra Señora de Lourdes).
In the District of Sechura, in the desert, some twenty kilometers from the population, there is an immense sand dune, which because of the whiteness of its sand, is called the White Sand Dune.
The dune is very high, [so high] that no one can climb it, [and this is] because people say that it is enchanted.
It is surrounded by fodder and the shepherds who live there say that they always heard a drum playing, but they could never uncover the person who played it. In the center of the dune there are corals and things made out of gold, this is why people want to climb it; and hardly had they climbed five or six meters that they began to sink; and as they become afraid, they did not continue [any further].
It is said that two gentlemen got lost on their way to those places. They had traveled a long way when they realized that they were lost; [and moreover] they were thirsty and could not find a water source anywhere. They continued to walk on and on, trying to find their way when suddenly they saw a river and excitedly walked towards it. When they got there, they had their horses drink from it. The gentlemen carried two tanks with them and filled these up with [the] water. They believed this was the Batán river, which passes near Sechura; but as they were tired, they stayed there to rest and fell asleep. When they woke up, they were surprised to see that the river was a sand dune; and the tanks that they filled up with water were full of sand. These were enchanted; this sand dune was the famous White Sand Dune, and they did not know how they got there.
They say that during the Holy Week there are many of those enchantments [found] around the Sand Dune; they also say that a duckling appears, and they believe that this duckling was a person who climbed the dune out of curiosity and became enchanted. Several times the duckling appears in the rivers, transformed into a golden duckling, and when it encounters a person of good virtue, it’d come out to speak to him, telling him that in such and such a place there is a treasure waiting for him.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Médano – (raised area of sand) sandbank; (sand hill) dune, sand dune
Blancura – whiteness
Forraje – (agriculture) fodder, forage; (acción de forrajear) foraging
Hundirse – (to submerge) to sink; (to fall down) to collapse, to cave in; (to go down) to subside; (to be ruined) to go under, to collapse, to go to the wall; (to become sad) to get depressed
Depósito – (storage facility) warehouse, storage unit, storage facility, store, dump (for waste); (finance) deposit; (military) depot, dump; (vessel) tank; (dregs) deposit, sediment; (guarantee) deposit
Época – (duration of time) period, time, age, epoch; (time of year) season
Patito – (animal) duckling