Kuwai-inyai

The Kuwai-inyai, the 'people of Kuwai', are a tribe of shamanic bee-spirits who appear in the curing chants of the Hohodene and the Wakuénai of the upper Guainía. In the primordial narrative they heal the younger brother Kuwaikaniri of the deadly sickness that had come upon him, and so establish the pattern of reversible death that living shamans invoke when they sing over the ill. As beings of the sacred sound-world of Kuwai they belong to the great complex of spirits whose music orders health, growth and danger in the Baniwa cosmos.

Domains

• healing

Powers

• cures deadly sickness in the primordial world

Relations

• ally: KuwaikaniriThey heal Kuwaikaniri of deadly sickness in the curing chants.Robin M. Wright, The Kuwai Religions of Northern Arawak-Speaking Peoples (2017). (secondary)

Sources

• The Kuwai-inyai are a tribe of shamanic bee-spirits who cure Kuwaikaniri of deadly sickness, appearing as the archetypal curers in Baniwa and Wakuénai healing chants.: Robin M. Wright, The Kuwai Religions of Northern Arawak-Speaking Peoples (Boletín de Antropología, Universidad de Antioquia, 2017). (secondary)