Thousands of years before the first ships carrying Europeans appeared on the horizon, South and Central America, as well as the Caribbean, were lands already inhabited by Indigenous people. Over the centuries, the Indigenous people formed groups and developed their own distinct languages, cultures, and sets of beliefs—and of course, their own myths and legends. After 1492, Europeans—and later, enslaved Africans—brought over their own stories. Some of these stories blended with those told by Indigenous people. The result is the rich rainbow of stories found throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.