For further kawaii, I think that the Mboi-Tatá is based on the same constrictor boas that some people keep as pets. It doesn’t inject venom, it sees larger animals as potential prey, and it likes to sleep in burrows, just like the boa.
There’s quite a few other Guaraní myths involving serpents, like the Mboi Tu’i, or “serpent-parrot”. It’s a giant serpent with two legs around the waist, the head of a parrot, and plumes on the head and the neck. It has cursed eyes and a terror-inspiring scream, but it eats only fruits and protects aquatic animals, specially amphibians.
In what I believe to be the Pre-Columbian version of the myth, that serpent-parrot was the second of the Seven Legendary Monsters - the offspring of a cursed couple; their father was the evil spirit Taú and their mother was the most beautiful woman of the tribe, Keraná, who sloped together.
In another story the Mboi Tu’i was actually born as a parrot, and it had free access to The Land of No Evil. However as some mestizos shared him fermented wasp honey (i.e. mead) and the parrot got drunk, it spilled the beans with the mestizos and told them how to enter The Land of No Evil. As a punishment the parrot was partially transformed into a snake, losing the ability to fly and reach the sacred land.
For further kawaii, I think that the Mboi-Tatá is based on the same constrictor boas that some people keep as pets. It doesn’t inject venom, it sees larger animals as potential prey, and it likes to sleep in burrows, just like the boa.
There’s quite a few other Guaraní myths involving serpents, like the Mboi Tu’i, or “serpent-parrot”. It’s a giant serpent with two legs around the waist, the head of a parrot, and plumes on the head and the neck. It has cursed eyes and a terror-inspiring scream, but it eats only fruits and protects aquatic animals, specially amphibians.
In what I believe to be the Pre-Columbian version of the myth, that serpent-parrot was the second of the Seven Legendary Monsters - the offspring of a cursed couple; their father was the evil spirit Taú and their mother was the most beautiful woman of the tribe, Keraná, who sloped together.
In another story the Mboi Tu’i was actually born as a parrot, and it had free access to The Land of No Evil. However as some mestizos shared him fermented wasp honey (i.e. mead) and the parrot got drunk, it spilled the beans with the mestizos and told them how to enter The Land of No Evil. As a punishment the parrot was partially transformed into a snake, losing the ability to fly and reach the sacred land.