The Legend of Iguazú Falls (Campfire Story)

On the border between Argentina and Brazil, in the middle of the rainforest, there's a place where a wide river suddenly falls off the edge of the world. Not one waterfall, but almost three hundred of them, side by side, roaring down into a canyon so deep and misty that you can't see the bottom. The biggest is called the Devil's Throat. And on sunny days, there are always rainbows in the spray.

The Guaraní people have lived in that forest for a very long time. And they tell how the falls were made.

Long ago, they say, the Iguazú River ran smooth and calm through the forest, with no waterfalls at all. And in the river lived M'boi, a gigantic serpent, the son of the god Tupã. He was so big that his coils filled the riverbed, and the Guaraní people who lived along the banks were afraid of him. Every year, to keep him calm, they gave him the most beautiful young woman of the tribe, to be his bride. She would go down into the river to live with M'boi, and she would never come back.

One year, the girl chosen was named Naipí. She was the daughter of the chief, and she was so beautiful that when she leaned over the river to look at her reflection, the water stopped moving to look back at her.

But Naipí was in love with a young warrior named Tarobá. And Tarobá was in love with her. On the night before she was to be given to the serpent, while everyone was celebrating and dancing, Tarobá took a canoe and slipped down to the riverbank. 'Come with me,' he whispered. And Naipí climbed in, and they paddled away down the river in the dark, as fast as they could go.

But M'boi felt the canoe on the water. He felt it in his coils and his scales. He knew his bride was escaping. And he was furious.

The great serpent rose up out of the river, and his coils went down into the earth, and he twisted his huge body. With one enormous, terrible twist, he split the ground wide open, right across the river. The earth cracked. The riverbed dropped away. And the water came crashing down into the canyon in a hundred roaring waterfalls, all at once.

The little canoe went over the edge.

And M'boi had his revenge. He turned Tarobá into a palm tree, standing on the cliff at the top of the falls. And he turned Naipí into a rock at the bottom, under the falling water, where the spray beats against her forever. They could see each other, always, across the falls. But they could never, ever touch.

And then M'boi went down into the Devil's Throat, and coiled himself up in the deepest, darkest part of the canyon, and stayed there, to watch them and make sure they were never together again.

But M'boi didn't think of everything. Because on sunny days, when the light shines on the spray, a rainbow appears. And the rainbow always arches from the rock at the bottom of the falls, up to the palm tree at the top. That's the one bridge M'boi can't break. For a few minutes, on every sunny day, Naipí and Tarobá are joined again.

So if you ever visit Iguazú Falls, look for the rainbow. And look for the palm tree at the top, and the rock at the bottom. And listen to the roaring of the water. The Guaraní say that's M'boi, still angry, deep down in the Devil's Throat.

Storyteller tips: tell this one near running water if you can, and let the roar of the stream fill the pause after "The little canoe went over the edge."