Ancient Peruvian mythology is rich with creatures, kings, and conquests from prominent cultures like the Incan Empire and Tiwanaku civilization. One of the myths is of a huge, double-headed water serpent with birdlike wings and feet that emerges from underground in times of revolution. This creature, called the Amaru, comes from the spiritual world and is often associated with water (Steele). Danilo Sanchez Lihón’s Spanish children’s book El Amaru, Semidios del agua features this mystical beast (the subtitle Semidios del agua translates to water demigod). Lihón, a Spanish poet and novelist, wrote this book to encourage literacy and reading among Spanish speaking children (Press Release). While he does not give an age bracket, El Amaru is most likely written for children between ages 8 …show more content…
The final plant, the qantu, a flowering Peruvian plant, transforms into a hummingbird. With its remaining strength, the bird flies to the top of the Waitapallana Mountain, where it begs Father Waitapallana to save the land from the drought. With the hummingbird’s death, Father Waitapallana’s grief wakes the Amaru from its sleep at the bottom of a nearby lake. The Amaru arises, fights against the army of the angry sun, and rains torrents and hail onto the land. The drought ends, streams fill, and grass grows (Lihón). Although this is a children’s rendition of a classic Peruvian tale, it maintains the themes of the original: namely divine intervention and the initially unrecognized power of the oppressed against their oppressors. Furthermore, in modern times, it is possible that this story is meant as an allegory for the water cycle, as the sun pulling a water demigod from a lake and causing it to rain down on the dry land could be a personification of evaporation and precipitation. This possible motivation for the book goes hand in hand with Lihón’s goal of improving children’s