Stories written as myths and legends were often written as simple stories, aimed at children to teach them something, with the meaning hidden within them. The Jaguar and the Deer is a cautionary Mayan tale.
Natives when relating this story will tell how the deer went out looking for somewhere to build himself a house, and at the same time a jaguar also was out hunting for somewhere for the same reason. The jaguar found the same place as the deer and thought that he would build there too.
The next day the deer went to the site he had found and thoroughly cleared the ground with his antlers. Later the jaguar went. “It seems somebody is helping me,” said the jaguar who then stuck some big poles in the ground and set up the framework.
The next day the deer went back and when he saw the framework up he said, “It seems somebody is helping me.” Then he covered the house with branches and made two rooms, one for him, the other for whoever was helping.
The next day the jaguar saw the house finished and went into one of the rooms and fell asleep. The deer came later and went to sleep in the other room.
One day the jaguar and the deer went home at the same time. They decided to live together as they had both helped to build the house.
The next morning the jaguar said he was going hunting and went to the woods. Later he brought a large deer home and said to the deer, “Let’s eat what I have caught.”
But the deer did not want to eat, he was very afraid. As a result he could not sleep that night and early the next morning went to the woods, passing a very large jaguar and then later meeting a large bull.
“I met a jaguar who was bad mouthing you,” he said to the bull.
The bull went looking for the jaguar and found him resting. The bull went up to him slowly and then leaped on top of him and gored him. Then the deer went home dragging the dead jaguar.
“Let’s eat what I have caught,” he said to the jaguar when he got home.
The jaguar could not eat. He did not want to as he was very frightened. That night he could not sleep thinking how the deer killed jaguars, and the deer could not sleep thinking about how the jaguar killed deers. Both housemates were frightened.
At midnight as the deer moved his head his antlers struck the wooden wall of the house. The jaguar and the deer were both frightened by the noise, and both ran from the house without stopping. The jaguar and the deer each went their separate ways.
In this story the jaguar represents the Spanish colonists moving onto the deer’s land, or Mayan, that they had prepared. The Mayans soon find out how the Spanish live by killing and exploiting others, this story showing how the two cannot live peacefully together.
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