Warner Amazon Expedition, 2009. The search for Yacumama & Mokele-mbembe
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Warner Amazon Expedition, 2009. The search for Yacumama & Mokele-mbembe
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The following represents some of the folklore surrounding the giant snakes of the Amazon Jungle in Peru as told by the local tribes people for hundreds of years. It does not represent the opinion of the expedition team but contributed in supporting some of the research material and eye-witness accounts.
Sachamama: (n) In mythology, the mother of the forests, is a two headed serpent. When she surfaces she becomes the tree of life: one head eats its tail and the other points to the sky.
Mistaken for the Yacumama, the two are similar in strength, length and thickness.
Sachamama lives exclusively on the ground. Sachamama means Mother Tree [or Mother Jungle].
She was a goddess in the shape of a snake with two heads. When she passed on to the heavenly world she transformed into K'uychi.
Literally, spirit mother of the jungle, the Sachamama is a huge eared boa believed to dwell in the same place for a very long time. Vegetation grows on her body and makes the snake easily mistaken as a fallen tree. She may devour the unaware hunter who has accidentally stepped on her body.
This big snake rarely moves, remaining perhaps hundreds of years in the same place. One can even climb on top of her without realizing one is on this dangerous animal. If prey passes by, the Sachamama hypnotizes it, draws it in with its powerful magnet and swallows it. When a person recognizes it, he must leave right away to avoid being crushed by a tree or struck by lightning, because she produces great storms.
When the Sachamama moves to another place, she throws down the trees growing on her back and makes a path by knocking down other trees.
She can make people sleep in order to devour them.
Yacumama: (adj) feminine, magical. (n) A giant anaconda, the mother (spirit) of waters, mother of rivers.
This mythical being lives exclusively in the water. Yacumama means Mother of the Water. This water goddess was portrayed as a snake. When she came to the earth's surface, she transformed into a great river.
She could also pass to the upper world. In that shape she was called. She is a huge anaconda thought to live at the bottom of lakes and rivers. It's the water counterpart of what the Sachamama is on earth.
The Yacumama can dive deep into the water and become a submarine or travel on the surface of the water as a steamboat.
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