Kashiri

Kashiri, the moon, is a benevolent yet ambivalent deity. In the central Asháninka myth he comes to a girl kept in menstrual seclusion, introduces her people to cultivated manioc, and takes her as his wife; she conceives the sun but is burned to death in bearing him. Thereafter Kashiri is said to have carried off and eaten his young kinsmen, and when threatened he rose into the sky. Although he is the father of the sun and reckoned a god, the moon ranks below the solar deity because his appetites draw the people toward death: he is a devourer of the dead, and his phases are read against this hunger. He is honored in a Festival of the Moon.

Children

• Pavá

Domains

• celestial moon
• agriculture manioc

Powers

• bestows cultivated manioc on humankind
• devours the souls of the dead

Epithets

• Kashiri — the MoonWeiss, Gerald. 1975. Campa Cosmology. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 52(5). (primary)

Relations

• child: PaváWeiss, Gerald. 1975. Campa Cosmology. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 52(5). (primary)
• lover: the Moon's brideRojas Zolezzi, Enrique. 1994. Los Ashaninka: un pueblo tras el bosque. Lima: Fondo Editorial PUCP. (secondary)

Sources

• Kashiri, the moon, appeared to a secluded girl, gave the people manioc, took her as his wife, and fathered the sun; the mother died in giving birth to the sun.: Rojas Zolezzi, Enrique. 1994. Los Ashaninka: un pueblo tras el bosque. Lima: Fondo Editorial PUCP. (secondary); Instituto Socioambiental. 'Ashaninka.' Povos Indígenas no Brasil. pib.socioambiental.org. (secondary)
• Though father of the sun and a god, the moon holds a lesser rank because as a cannibal he feeds on the dead.: Instituto Socioambiental. 'Ashaninka.' Povos Indígenas no Brasil. pib.socioambiental.org. (secondary)