#afroecuadorian

What Happened to The Black People in Ecuador? | The 18x Femicide Rate

They built a republic from a shipwreck. They created two distinct cultures: marimba on the coast, bomba in the Andes. Furthermore, they wrote novels that the academy ignored and won Olympic gold that the nation cheered.

Today I am going to tell you a version of a myth from my country that my great-aunt used to tell me. I hope it translates well to English.

My great-aunt was Afro-Ecuadorian. She was one of those persons responsible for making me fall in love with History.

At the time of the "Age of Discovery", as in other Latin American countries, not only indigenous peoples (natives) were used as slaves, but large ships from Africa brought black people for the same purpose. But on two occasions these ships crashed on the Ecuadorian coasts and those who were captured were free. In the first incident, they went inland. And on the second occasion, they settled on the coast. My great-aunt was a descendant of the second group. "Our people were free from the start and always will be." she used to say. 

One of her favorite myths began with an African princess so beautiful and fierce that when she was taken prisoner, she threatened her captors saying “I have teeth between my thighs. Try it and I will devour you”. Her courage made their Gods proud, who crashed the ship and only the Spanish died. She led her people along the coast of Ecuador and met a beautiful indigenous warrior who fell in love with her and helped her people get to a place where the Spanish wouldn't find them. Thanks to his courage and dedication, the princess married the warrior. But it was too late when she realized that she had married a native God of destructive who pretended to be a human to conquer her.

Here my great-aunt used to say “White people often say that he was Satan and not a God. But white people turned to a native God in Satan, so they aren't a reliable source.” She refers to the "Tío" ("Uncle"), a God of the pre-conquest era who was in charge of the Underworld and the Spanish turned him into a demon and eventually, a protector of the iron mines call "Tío".

Among the children of this princess with this God, la Tunda was born.

The version that my great-aunt told me was powerful: La Tunda is an alluring black woman with a beautiful voice that enchanted men and women. She lives in the mangrove swamp, in the water. Her appearance is similar to a siren, but lower limbs are tentacles. When on land, her two legs are made of many twisted mangrove roots that she hides under her long skirt. La Tunda eats shrimp and looks for young men and women to take them to their domains under the sea. When someone heard the Tunda's sing, they fell 'atundados' (like entrance). The 'atundamiento' is like a spell where the person can no longer live without the Tunda and can only eat from her shrimp. To save the person, the family must go to the forest and play drums, while giving the person coconut water to drink. Although it's very difficult to achieve this because the person who falls in love with la Tunda usually runs away with her and disappears into her domain under the sea.

La Tunda is also said to take lost or abandoned boys and girls because she cannot have children by herself. She takes care of them.

Another myth of la Tunda is that when it rains when there is sun it's because la Tunda is furious because one of her lovers was taken from her.

My great-aunt used to say “Many say that La Tunda is an ugly black woman and that she smells bad, like spoiled shrimp. But I'm sure that's the version that the Spanish began to tell when they found out about a black woman, free, independent, and who seduced men and women.”

There are many versions of la Tunda. Most of them cross with Christianity (she's a demon, for example) or sexism ("A woman so ugly that she had to wear a disguise to get a man").