The legend tells that Neuquén and Limay, great friends, were sons of loncos (chiefs) whose camps stood, one to the north and the other to the south.
The young men used to go out hunting together. One day, while they were tracking a guanaco, they heard a sweet voice coming from the Huechulafken (Lago Alto). It belonged to a young girl, so beautiful and lovely that both friends fell instantly in love with her long dark braids and her expressive eyes. It was Limay who dared to ask the girl her name, and so they learned that she was called “Raihué,” a Mapuche word meaning something like “blossom in flower.”
The passionate love for the beautiful girl began to drive the two friends apart to the point that their fathers finally took notice. They then sought a solution that would avoid wounding anyone’s feelings. So the loncos agreed to visit the machi and ask her advice.
The machi warned the loncos about the source of the estrangement between their sons and advised them to put the young men to the test.
Following this suggestion, the chiefs asked Raihué what she would most like to have. The girl said she wished for a conch shell so she could hear the murmur of the waves when she held it to her ear. The loncos then thought the challenge was fair and decided that whichever of the young men first reached Futalafken and obtained that gift would be the one to marry the girl, and in this way the dispute would be settled.
Following the counsel of the gods, the young men were turned into rivers by the machi, so that each one from his own “mapu”—one in the north and the other in the south—might reach the sea after a long and arduous journey.
And everything would have gone according to plan had it not been for Cüref, the wind, who felt offended at not having been consulted. Taking his revenge, he whispered in the girl’s ear that the stars that seduce young men would enslave Neuquén and Limay in such a way that she would never hear from them again.
Little by little, Raihué’s heart withered with anguish and pain at these insinuating messages. Time passed, and as neither of her suitors returned, she made her way to the shore of Lago Alto where it had all begun and offered herself to Nguenechén, the Almighty God, giving her life in exchange for the salvation of the young men. The god granted her wish and turned her into a beautiful plant bearing sweet fruit and fleshy flowers: the michay (calafate).
Cüref, the wind, still unsatisfied, went to tell the young men what had happened to the girl. He blew and blew to divert their course so as to deliver the news to both of them together. And when Limay and Neuquén learned that Raihué had died, they embraced to console each other and joined their waters forever. And the two merged their currents toward the sea, dressed in mourning, giving rise to the mighty Río Negro.