The
Legend of the Toborochi
It is mid-April. In Central Texas, that means
bluebonnets. In Santa Cruz, Bolivia,
that means the pink blossoms of the toborochi tree.
The
scientific name is ceiba speciose and it is called the silk floss tree in
English. In Argentina, they refer to it
as the palo borracho and paineira in Brazil.
It is found across tropical and sub-tropical South America.
The most
notable characteristic is the swollen trunk.
It also has spikes along the trunk and branches that deter animals from
climbing the tree. Young trees have
green trunks due to high chlorophyll contents, making it able to
photosynthesize when it loses its leaves.
Depending
on the specie, the leaves have five to seven leaflets. Bolivia is tropical, but the tree will often
lose its leaves in July or August, South American winter.
The
flowers, which bloom in April, have a creamy white center and pink tips. They can bloom as early as February and as
late as May. The fragrant flowers are
beloved of bees and hummingbirds.
The
fruit is in the form of an ovoid capsule containing black seeds surrounded by a
mass of cotton-like fiber. That fiber
has been used as stuffing, paper, and as ropes.
In
Bolivia, it is called the toborochi, from the Guarani language, meaning
sheltering tree. And that is where the
legend comes in.
According
to the Guarani legend, when the world was young, evil spirits liked to torment
and murder humans. When these evil
spirits discovered that the beautiful girl Araverá was
pregnant, they decided to kill her. She
was the daughter of the cacique Ururuti, had married the god, Colibrí. They had heard a prophecy that Colibri’s son
would punish them and kill them. So,
they harassed her and chased her from village to village.
She
became tired and hid in the trunk of the toborochi tree. It was there that she gave birth to a
son. The large trunk gave her room to
rest. The thorns protected her from the
evil spirits. Her son did eventually
destroy the evil spirits.
Araverá never
left the shelter of the toborochi tree.
It was there she died and was buried.
Each spring she comes outside in the shape of a fragrant flower that is
loved by her husband, Colibrí, the hummingbird.
Santa
Cruz is filled with beautiful toborochi trees.
Here are a few from my neighborhood.
The really fat one stands at the entrance to Espiritu Santo school, a
lower elementary school a block from my house.
To me it seems appropriate that the fattest one around is sheltering the
school for little ones.
Two
blocks away is this beauty in front of the Pompeya chapel.
I cannot
express to you the beauty of these trees.
Pictures don’t do them justice.
You’ll have to come visit some April to see for yourself.
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