Flood-stopping rock (Brett’s Carib account)

Overview

In the sequence following The First Cultivation, people see the Water-Mother beneath the roots of the felled food-tree. Water surges from the opening, but a rugged rock stops the flow. The rock then speaks as a guardian. It warns that spirits in the neighboring wood will call to the people and instructs them never to answer. While they heed it, they are protected from another flood.

The rock also promises that age need not be final: wrinkled skin and white hair can be shed and youth renewed, like a serpent leaving its old covering. Over time people begin attending to the woodland voices instead. They allow the monkey Yarrekaru to undermine the stone. At night mocking calls announce rising water; the sleepers answer and laugh instead of taking warning. The outraged guardian says it can no longer save them.

A flood follows. Three or four survivors reach a komoo palm whose growth carries it above the water. A footnote gives an intervening episode in which a woman becomes stone while climbing a cocorite palm and blocks those behind her; others attempting to pass also turn to rocks. That episode is explicitly supplemental, not a reason to identify those petrified people with the original speaking guardian. Brett’s language of disobedience and lost deathlessness belongs to his verse rendering, while im Thurn later questions missionary influence on such presentations.

Origins & earliest records

Brett’s Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana (1880 catalogue date). The source presents this material through English verse and explicit editorial commentary; publication does not date the beginning of an oral tradition.

Records & interpretation

Complete selected narrative and adjacent framing read in Brett. The writer’s missionary language and historical generalizations are attributed rather than adopted.

Selected bibliography

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

1. 01

   Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana

   William Henry Brett, collector and literary adapter · 1880

   Complete sequence103–110, especially The Rock and the Wood106–109 and its footnote.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

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

1. Primary textBrett: complete selected narrative and framingResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.