Elal

Elal is the great culture-hero of the Tehuelche, sometimes compared to a figure combining Heracles and Prometheus. Son of the cannibal giant Nóshtex and the cloud-maiden Teo, he was torn unborn from his mother when his father, warned by Kóoch that the child would surpass him, sought to kill him; rescued by a tuco-tuco and later carried across the sea on a swan, he reached the Patagonian mainland at the mountain now called Chaltén. There he shaped the land, mastered fire and invented the bow, fashioned the first Tehuelches (the Chónek) and instructed them in hunting, ritual and moral conduct. To win a wife he underwent the deadly trials set by the Sun and Moon and took their daughter, ancestress of the Tehuelches. When his work was done he gathered the people to take his leave and departed eastward over the sea on his swan, shooting arrows that raised islands as resting places along the way. He presides over the third of the four mythic ages.

Parentage

• parent: Nóshtex
• parent: Teo, the cloud-maiden

Domains

• culture heroism
• fire
• hunting and the chase
• creation of humankind

Powers

• to shape the surface of the earth and divide undifferentiated reality into ordered, differentiated forms
• to fashion the first Tehuelches and endow them with the arts of life
• to bring fire to humankind and to invent the bow and arrow for the hunt
• to raise islands from the water with his arrows as resting-places on his sea journey

Epithets

• ElalBórmida, Marcelo & Alejandra Siffredi. "Mitología de los tehuelches meridionales." RUNA: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre 12 (1969-70): 199-245. (secondary)

Relations

• enemy: NóshtexElal's own father and lifelong antagonist; the giant tries to kill the unborn Elal, who in turn brings about the giant's death.Bórmida, Marcelo & Alejandra Siffredi. "Mitología de los tehuelches meridionales." RUNA: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre 12 (1969-70): 199-245. (secondary)
• slayer of: NóshtexIn the cycle Elal ultimately destroys the cannibal giant who had sought his death.Bórmida, Marcelo & Alejandra Siffredi. "Mitología de los tehuelches meridionales." RUNA: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre 12 (1969-70): 199-245. (secondary)
• enemy: MáipThe murderous wind-spirit Máip opposes Elal, assailing the hero with cold and snow as he descends the mountain.Siffredi, Alejandra. "Algunos personajes de la mitología tehuelche meridional." RUNA: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre 11 (1968-69): 123-131. (secondary)
• subordinate to: Xaleshen, the SunElal must submit to the deadly trials set by the Sun, Xaleshen, in order to win the Sun's daughter as wife; this directed bond reflects the suitor's subjection to the bride's father in the myth, not a permanent hierarchy.Siffredi, Alejandra. "Algunos personajes de la mitología tehuelche meridional." RUNA: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre 11 (1968-69): 123-131. (secondary)

Sources

• Elal is the central culture-hero god of the Tehuelche, 'the Son', born of the giant Nóshtex and the cloud Teo, who escapes on the swan, shapes the earth, brings fire and the bow, fashions the first Tehuelches and teaches them, then departs eastward over the sea.: Bórmida, Marcelo & Alejandra Siffredi. "Mitología de los tehuelches meridionales." RUNA: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre 12 (1969-70): 199-245. (secondary); Wilbert, Johannes & Karin Simoneau, eds. Folk Literature of the Tehuelche Indians. UCLA Latin American Center Publications. Los Angeles: University of California, 1984. (secondary); "Tehuelche Religion." Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005 (Encyclopedia.com). (secondary)