The man went to the river to look for water inside a pumpkin. When he returned home, he found the jaguar that had penetrated and was in there, sitting on the ground.
The man, thinking to defend himself, jumped to the place where he kept his weapons to catch the bow and arrows.
The jaguar laughed and said:
“I’m not a fool, Pemón. I know you owe your power to the weapons you have, so I have destroyed them.”
The man then saw that the jaguar was sitting on the remains of his arrows and his shattered axes.
“I have come,” the jaguar continued, “to show you that I am more powerful than you.”
The animal stood up and went outside, leading the man to a nearby thicket. There they hid.
After a while, they heard flapping wings and saw a wild bird that came flying and perched on top of a tree.
The jaguar clambered up the tree silently; He took the paují by the neck and returned to the man.
“Are you able to do that?” He asked.
“Without arrows, or without blowguns, I can’t do it,” replied the man.
They remained hidden. Before long, they saw the mountain move and heard a sound of footsteps. A tapir appeared, walking in a straight line towards them.
The jaguar jumped and fell on the tapir. With a single claw he killed her and then dragged her into the thicket.
“Can you kill a tapir the way I killed this one?” he asked the man.
“No,” he said, “without weapons I cannot do it.”
Then they went to the riverbank.
The jaguar began tapping on the water with its pink tongue.
Attracted, the fish came closer. When it was time, with a single swipe the jaguar took out one of them, hooked in its nails.
“Without the necessary gear, I can’t do that either,” the man murmured.
The jaguar stared at him, and then said:
“Now it’s your turn, Pemón, to also perform three feats. If I cannot imitate you, we will remain friends, but if I carry them out, then I will devour you.”
The moon was in the sky surrounded by clouds, the man looked at it and then said to the jaguar:
“Keep me here, Kaikusé; I’ll be right back.”
The jaguar, suspicious, growled:
“Don’t pretend to run away, because if you do, I will look for you and when I have found you, I will kill you.”
“Don’t be careful,” said the man, and left.
He went into the jungle, and when he was out of sight of the beast, he made a detour and returned home from the back. He went in and looked for a casabe cake. Then he looked at the sky and when he saw that the moon was hiding behind a cloud, he returned to where Kaikusé was, to whom he showed the casabe cake, asking him:
“Do you know what this is, friend Kaikusé?”
“I don’t know,” said the jaguar.
The Pemón said:
“Look at the sky. Can’t you see the moon has disappeared?”
The beast looked at the sky and then at the casabe cake.
“Ah, you caught the moon!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” said the man, and began to eat casabe.
The jaguar, looking at the pleasure with which Pemón ate, said:
“It must be tasty to eat the moon.”
The man gave what was left of the casabe cake to the animal, saying:
“Yes, it’s good; eat.”
At one point the jaguar devoured the entire casabe and licked.
“Too bad it’s over,” he murmured.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the Pemón. “Now another moon will rise.”
“And can I take it?”
“Naturally, in the same way that I took mine.”
“And how did you get it?”
“Very simple,” the man explained. “I climbed on the flakes of a tree and with a jump I reached it.”
The moon came out of the clouds in which it had hidden and began to run across the sky again.
As soon as the jaguar saw it, she was quick and climbed the tallest tree. There he crouched and, staring at his face to sharpen his aim, he finally made the great leap, but he did not reach the moon, but fell headfirst and crashed to the ground against a stone.
The man took the fish and the paují home, and also dragged the jaguar and the tapir to it.