Abe
Barasana · deity · Barasana traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Abe is the Sun, whose light and heat measure the day and whose passage across the year orders the world. In Barasana star-lore the sun is read together with the Pleiades and with Scorpius, the risings and settings of these constellations marking the turn of the wet and dry seasons and cueing the round of gardening, fishing and ritual. As a burning celestial power the sun stands in complementary tension with Romi Kumu, the sky-woman whose waters and menstrual rains answer the sun's fire, and the two together frame the alternation of drought and flood that governs Barasana time.
Domains
- sun
- time calendar
Powers
- governs day, heat and the ripening of the world
Epithets
- Abe — the SunStephen Hugh-Jones, 'The Pleiades and Scorpius in Barasana Cosmology,' Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 385 (1982): 183-201 (secondary)
Relations
- counterpart: Romi KumuSun and sky-woman are paired as complementary cosmic principles.Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971) (secondary)
Sources
- Abe, the Sun, moves in relation to the Pleiades and Scorpius to regulate the Barasana seasonal, agricultural and ritual calendar.: Stephen Hugh-Jones, 'The Pleiades and Scorpius in Barasana Cosmology,' Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 385 (1982): 183-201 (secondary)