|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
El Maitén into the stone or Holy Tree
| As a whim of Nature
or a rare gift of gods, nearly 30Km from El Maitén
and in the way to Cushamen Cattle Colony we find, at a side of the way,
a Maitén tree (Maitenus boaria) surging victorious from the
heart of a big rock.
Maybe this rock be fall from the near mount, but nobody knows if the tree seed was into the rock when the Andes appears, or if it surges under the rock, breaking it with the past of centuries. The true thing is that, skipping infinite difficulties, with the pass of time was growing, forming a great tree that calls the atention of visitors and the respect of the country people, who has converted it in a cult object. |
 |
| As a remanent of animist cultures from the first times
of Humanity, usually finds in the holes of the rock gifts that believing
travellers gives to the "Holy Tree" as pay by a favor or a miracle.
Near the curious "tree into the stone" we can find a cave of regular dimensions called "El Chenque" or "Salamanca" where, by relates of old countrymen, meets the witches or those who wants to make a deal with the devil... Other versions indicates that "chenques" were tombs of antique tehuelche or mapuche warriors, as a previous stadium in its travel to the heaven from the hand of Ngenechen (the protector God), while Pillán (the malign God) wants this sites hunting the soul of the dead. Over this rocky formation, a little millenium-aged cypress challenges the Andes winds from the rock, surviving to all the difficulties of time. |