In the Mbyá-Guaraní texts, the core of human language (the 'ayvu' or 'ñe'ẽ porã tenonde') is itself a divine, pre-existing substance that the gods unfold before creating the world. A person's soul is identified with the sacred word sent by a deity, so that naming a child is an act of discovering which divine word has taken up residence in them.
The supreme deity Ñamandu is said to emerge by his own means out of primordial darkness, developing himself along with the attributes of divine wisdom and the flame and mist that form his heart. Creation proceeds not from external material but from the god progressively drawing forth parts of his own body and knowledge.
Cadogan records that the Mbyá maintained a body of sacred texts (the 'ñe'ẽ porã', 'beautiful words') kept hidden from outsiders and transmitted only within the community, distinct from everyday folklore. Access depended on sustained trust rather than payment, indicating that the deepest religious knowledge was deliberately withheld from earlier observers who therefore concluded it did not exist.
The texts are presented in parallel Guaraní and Spanish, treating the indigenous wording as the primary document and the translation as secondary and provisional. This reveals meanings, like ritual metaphors and untranslatable compound words, that a Spanish-only summary would flatten or lose entirely.