Cherruve’s daughter (Calvun’s telling)

Overview

A young man seeking work climbs to a Cherruve’s volcanic house and becomes its swineherd. He and the monster’s daughter become lovers. When their relationship is discovered, her father demands an extensive maize field by the next day. She tells the young man what to say before sleeping; he wakes among the mature crop. Lenz explains the speech as a request but expressly notes that no recipient of the request is named. The telling therefore does not identify a deity or summoned workforce performing the labour.

The second task is a pool containing many kinds of waterbirds. Again she supplies the words, he sleeps and the populated lagoon appears. The Cherruve marvels at the birds’ different voices. Lenz retains Calvun’s translation while acknowledging difficulty with the corresponding Mapudungun sentence. The daughter then proposes flight on her father’s remarkable horse, described as a horse-pig that covers a league at a stride. The couple take two mounts after disabling the other horses.

The Cherruve’s wife pursues them. A great mist called up by the daughter and then a great volcano fail to stop her. With capture near, the daughter directs a paired transformation: she becomes a duck and her companion a burning candle carried above her on the water. The pursuer passes without recognizing them and turns back. They recover human form and reach an Indigenous town on foot. The text’s intervening statement about the horses being taken away is explicitly uncertain in Lenz’s translation; it does not supply a secure account of who took them.

The escape is temporary. Later the Cherruve sends for his daughter, and she is taken from her husband. He remains alone with the great quantity of silver that the text says she apparently left him. It supplies neither a final rescue nor a reunion. Her father, his pursuing wife and the daughter have distinct narrative roles; the supernatural abilities of one are not automatically assigned to all three.

The tale was recorded by Víctor Manuel Chiappa, then corrected and translated by Lenz. His note calls it European in origin and points to comparative discussion. That attribution belongs to the editor; the recorded version remains Calvun’s Pehuenche-language telling, with its own task sequence, duck-and-candle escape and separation at the end.

Origins & earliest records

Calvun (Segundo Jara), La hija del Cherruve, in Lenz, Estudios araucanos VII no 6,257–260; Chiappa recording with Lenz correction and translation.

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 6, La hija del Cherruve,257–260, complete 17 sections and notes; recording by Chiappa, corrected and translated by Lenz. 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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