Chiching-Barching the Beetle

Garo · numen · primordial · numen

Chiching-Barching is the named beetle-helper of the Garo earth-diver creation myth. After Nostu-Nopantu, suspended over the waters on a spider's thread, failed to make anything solid from handfuls of sand, and after a great crab and then a smaller crab were sent unsuccessfully into the deep, she chose the beetle Chiching-Barching, who alone succeeded in bringing back a lump of clay. From this clay Nostu-Nopantu shaped the earth (Mane-Pilte), the large rocks (Mojar) and the small rocks (Dinjar), which Tatara-Rabuga then dried and hardened with sun, moon and wind. Though a small creature, the beetle is an individuated actor essential to the making of the world, and is remembered by name in the recited cosmogony.

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