Amaru

Amaru is the primordial woman of Baniwa myth, spoken of as a formless water-serpent and the first female being. Through a shamanic, purely cognitive union with Nhiãperikuli she becomes the mother of Kuwai. When the men hold the sacred instruments that are Kuwai's body, Amaru and the first women (the Amarunai) seize them and flee, provoking the creator's long pursuit; in the course of that chase the world opens up a second time and the ancestral music of Kuwai is left in every place of importance. Her act establishes the mythic charter both for the women's temporary possession of ritual power and for its recovery by the men, and it anchors the strict separation of the sexes around the sacred flutes.

Children

• Kuwai

Domains

• primordial femininity
• ritual music

Powers

• seizes the sacred flutes for the women

Relations

• spouse: NhiãperikuliHer union with Nhiãperikuli, from which Kuwai arose, was cognitive and shamanic rather than carnal.Robin M. Wright, The Kuwai Religions of Northern Arawak-Speaking Peoples (2017). (secondary)

Sources

• Amaru is the primal female being, a formless water-serpent and the first woman, mother of Kuwai, who with her female followers stole the sacred flutes from the men.: Robin M. Wright, The Kuwai Religions of Northern Arawak-Speaking Peoples (Boletín de Antropología, 2017). (secondary); Robin M. Wright, Cosmos, Self, and History in Baniwa Religion (University of Texas Press, 1998). (secondary)