Once upon a time, there lived a man by the name of Saguaa who was the leader of his tribe. He had a daughter named Tacuaree whom he loved very much. The father and daughter duo were both greatly and deeply loved by the members of the village. Tacuaree, however, only had eyes for a man from another tribe.

Tacuaree decided to follow the man to his village, abandoning her father, Saguaá, and breaking his heart. Tacuaree was deeply saddened when his daughter went to live far away from him.

Days, weeks and months passed. Saguaa did not hear back from his daughter. He began to fear that she was in danger. In the end, he set out to see her. He went to the village that Tacuaree had moved to. When he arrived, he saw that the village lay abandoned in ruins. The village had been attacked by an enemy and the villagers had fled the land. Distraught by what had he saw, Saguaa continued searching for his daughter.

The trail, however, soon ran cold. He could not find her. Sick with fever, Saguaa thought he heard Tacuaree’s voice from where he stood in the forest, and so he placed his ear to the ground and listened. He thought that he would perhaps hear the sounds of stomping feet or any other sounds that could tell him where she had disappeared to. He heard nothing, so he got up, moved on and then stopped again, seeing if the earth knew of her whereabouts. He neither asked for help nor stopped searching.

Months later, his tribe found him dead, still lying on the ground with his ear listening to the earth. They tried to carry him back home, but Saguaa wouldn’t budge. His body was firmly attached to the ground. The tribe’s people had to bury him right then and there.

Some time later, a strange occurrence happened. A plant grew from the ground where Saguaa had died. The plant grew and grew, eventually becoming a tree. When the tree flowered, it fruits looked like the ears of a human being. Its fruits were as black as Saguaa’s skin and were shaped like his ear. They named the tree oreja de negro in his memory.

From that day on, the timbo tree came to represent a father’s endless and eternal love for his daughter. His ear continues to listen to the earth… for he knows that somewhere out there, she is alive.