as many of you may remember, i am researching 'nanduti' which is most commonly translated to mean 'spider web' from the guarani language. it in fact does not mean spider web since there is another term for that--nandu renimbo or the thread of the spider--but most likely refers to the whiteness created by the spider. this difference may not seem significant since the whiteness created would obviously be the spider web, but the idea is that it culturally describes the visual and aesthetic essence and not the physical space of the spider web. anyway, in studying nanduti, one of my missions is to seek out the inspiration of the weaving which, according to legend, is a specific black spider that weaves perfectly round spider webs in tree clusters in the forest. anyone that has ever met me knows that i abhor spiders and permitted them to cohabitate my room in guatemala to keep away the flies but otherwise refuse to even consider being in their presence. so, taking up the task to actively search them out was quite a personal triumph. i'm not just looking for spiders but also a bunch of other animals that are represented in the weavings and, in doing so, finding all sorts of surprises along the way....
An amazing spiderweb I found floating above my head in an "espinillo" or spine tree. it took a lot of searching and a lot of neck cranage to get the camera to actually get a good picture of a spider web. if you've never tried to take a picture of a spider web, give it a whirl and you'll realize just how hard it is!the most popular creation myth of nanduti is that a poor indi an wanted to marry the daughter of the chief but the chief demanded the most precious and unique gift from the potential suitor to win her hand and so the poor indian didn't have a shot. he withdrew to the forest to think and try to find something, anything, that would please the chief and win his beloved. he ran across one of the most perfectly symmetrical, round, spider webs and was awed to amazement at the beauty of it that he tried to grab it and in taking it down, ruined the weaving. in desperation he returns to tell his mother of the incident and she accompanies him in another journey into the forest and when they find another spider web, she cuts her long white hair and uses her own locks to imitate the weaving of the spider web which they then take to the chief as an offering. the unique gift surpassed all others and the poor boy triumphs in winning the hand of the maiden and his mother then turns to teach all the women in the tribe how to make the beautiful weaving that we now know as nanduti--inspired by the spider web.
this tree is covered in another type of spider web that was incredibly interesting to find. in one of the creation legends of nanduti, it talks about how a young indian, seeking a wedding present to give to his wife, goes out to hunt and disappears. when the widow-bride finds him years later, his bones are covered in spider webs as if it were his death shroud. jealous of the fact that the spiders were with her beloved when he died and not her, she runs back to town and then back to the forest with a needle and thread and starts to imitate the spider webs that covered her beloved's remains and that is how the first weavings of nanduti came about. that is just one of the versions but it was the first time i've actually seen a spider overtake a tree like this and it really brought the story to life.
While not as commonly known to pertain to the spider family, these 'garrapatas' or ticks are 8-legged little critters that are most closely related to mites and therefore arachnids, not like 6-legged insects. one of the photos i have dreaded having to take, these were freshly plucked from a neighboring cow and collected just for me...lucky huh? chiquita then threw them on the ground and stepped on them, squirting out some very nasty pools of cows blood that they had been slurping up. garrapatas are supposedly some of the nastiest bugs because they transmit lyme's disease, rocky mountain fever, and other nasty illnesses. i had no desire to even touch the cup that had been holding the critters for fear that one would take up courage to attach to my hand...
This is the national flor of paraguay--mburukuja or pasionaria or passion flower. it's one of the most unique flowers i've ever seen and later sprouts into a rich, yellow fruit that has soporiphic qualities. also one of the nanduti pictures i have been looking for. i thought that amidst all the nastiness of these bugs i should show the 'softer' side of the paraguay countryside.
this week i came into contact with the largest spider i've ever seen in my life and i honestly didn't have the stomach to get close enough to get a good picture and had to hand the camera over to my friend to take it for me. she had called me incredibly excited saying she had found a huge spider web at her neighbor's house that she wanted me to see. i accepted the invitation, thinking that it was just another spider web, but i had no idea that i would stand face to face with a spider web stretching out three feet across in the middle of a family's patio. i asked how it had managed to create such a web and they said that it had been there for a few days but that just now they had seen the spider and so my friend Alba called me in a panic to get me to come over and get it on camera. I have yet to find out exactly what it is, but it gave me the scare of my life. everyone was super calm, climbing on chairs to get closer to it and commenting on how cool the web was. i have to admit it is quite humbling to see a creature like this and the work that it can create with its own thread, spun inside a bulb on its backside. At the same time I was certain that the thing would freak at and jump straight at the blonde and attack me then and there. They say that spiders are far more afraid of us than we can be of them, but i reached a pretty high level of fear in that encounter... i now have the thing mounted on a piece of syrofoam and tucked into a box that i got to carry around with me today to scare all my neighbors. i laughed my head off becuase i would tell them that i had a little present that i wanted to offer them and then i would just open the box and they would stop and stare at the thing. paraguayans are markedly reserved in general and it was interesting that nobody screams or shies away or reacts strongly like i do when something grosses me out. they would simply freeze and ask how i got it while staring and analyzing every part of the dead creature. i should take a photo with something on the side for comparison to show the size, but the thing stretches out to a goodm 6 inches, it's backside a full inch long and 1/2 inch around. don't ask me how i've suddenly become a spider collector...and along with the gigantic ficus boar that i grabbed the other day and the dragon fly hanging on my wall, and the consant invasion of little beetles that fall on my bed at night as they congretate around my flourescent light, i'm practically becoming an entomologist!
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