Animal transformer (Calvun’s telling)

Overview

A wealthy man’s son sets out with fine clothes and a horse, then exchanges his possessions with a poor old man and continues on foot. He encounters an assembly of animals and birds, including foxes, skunks, ants and peucos. They give him herbs and promise powers of transformation, extraordinary movement and protection against enemies. He immediately tests becoming an ant and leaping like swift horses. The narrative attributes these abilities to the animals’ gifts, not to inherited divinity.

After seeing a woman at a Cherruve’s volcanic home, he visits a town in the form of a tame little bird. A young woman captures and boxes him. At night he escapes as an ant and repeatedly becomes human beside her, concealing himself when she raises the alarm. Eventually they talk and become lovers. Asked whether he is a god, he says he is an ordinary human. She identifies the woman at the volcano as her abducted sister.

He flies back as a peuco, resumes human shape and kills both the threatening servant and the sleeping Cherruve. The captive refuses to leave. Rather than an uncomplicated willing rescue, the account has him threaten to kill her unless she comes. He becomes a tiger, carries her on his back, returns to human form and spends the night between the two sisters.

A further episode sends him to herd a rich man’s livestock. He brings them near the forbidden shore, where another Cherruve kills three animals. In peuco form he approaches with a knife and kills it. Throwing its body into the sea revives the monster; he kills it again and leaves it lying instead. He refuses the employer’s offered daughter and departs with a saddled horse, which he gives to another poor man.

The final section takes him back to the volcano, where a distant gunshot wounds and kills him. His death is retained beside the earlier promise that enemies could not kill him. Lenz calls parts of the sequence disconnected and its conclusion forced; his note identifies the unnamed shooter as a Cherruve on Calvun’s authority. Neither a resurrection nor a reconciliation of the several Cherruve encounters is supplied.

Origins & earliest records

Calvun (Segundo Jara), Las trasformaciones, in Lenz, Estudios araucanos VII no 5,249–257. Lenz states that he arranged the text with Calvun from Chiappa’s notes.

Records & interpretation

Complete bilingual episode and accompanying notes read; original printed 256–257 and 260 inspected for the endings and editorial qualifications. This is evidence of a recorded narrative, not independent verification of supernatural events.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Estudios araucanos, VII: Cuentos míticos

   Rodolfo Lenz; narrative by Calvun (Segundo Jara), using Víctor Manuel Chiappa’s recording · 1897

   VII no 5, Las trasformaciones, 249–257, complete 44 sections and notes; arranged by Lenz with Calvun using Chiappa’s notes. Collected title 1895–1897; precise individual telling date not supplied.

Family & connections

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textInternet Archive: Lenz Estudios araucanos original collected volumeResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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