time, saw that his wife had become a temiche palm. He said 
to himself: “Once the Warao will come to be on this earth, 
they will have to call this palm yawuhi, because that was 
her name as a woman.” 
The etiological intent of this simple narrative is clear: a 
prolific palm bearing fruit practic sally continuously is iden- 
tified with a fertile young woman. Her fertility is mirac- 
ulously caused by the iad of the north, whence also her 
youthful lover puts in an appearance. 
For a Warao listener, the introduction of the northwind 
heralds doom. While the cool nortes in the Delta are certainly 
invigorating winds, they also bring catarrh and other res- 
piratory ailments to the Warao. Furthermore, they blow 
from the direction where Haburi, the culture hero, lives in 
a world mountain-tree. As a youth, he had unwittingly 
seduced his own mother. The association of Haburi with 
the woman’s paramour from the north is most certainly not 
lost on a Warao listener. In addition, Haburi himself had 
been made miraculously youthful and mature through the 
agent of an old frog-woman, who wanted him for a lover. 
Both the youthful temiche woman and Haburi were placed 
into a fateful triangle by virtue of their newly acquired 
sexual prowess. Adultery and incest were the inevitable 
consequences, since the partners of both the temiche-maiden 
and Haburi were infertile and no match. Consequently, the 
woman transformed into a palm as did Haburi into a world 
tree, 
This sacrifice of metamorphosis results in enormous bene- 
fits for mankind: from the transformed woman, the ever 
producing temiche palm; and from the transformed hero, 
the dugout canoe, a sine qua non of human life in the Delta. 
So while the Warao listener can predict the tragedy that will 
inevitably result from the action of the dramatis personae, 
he can also anticipate the great benefits that will accrue to 
him from this primordial drama of the temiche-maiden, the 
old husband, and her paramour from the North. 
The myth also explains why the temiche favors coastal 
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