Meni
Barasana · deity · Barasana traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Meni is one of the supernatural ancestors of the He world and is bound up with the anaconda from which the Barasana derive. The exogamous phratries are reckoned as the common descendants of the Yebi Meni Anaconda people, so that his name stands near the root of the whole system of descent. In the myth cycle his daughters relentlessly pursue the child hero Warimi, and it is the youngest of them who at last catches the boy when he takes the form of an infant. Meni thus occupies the difficult ground between progenitor and antagonist, a being through whom the ancestral serpent, human descent, and the trials of the culture hero are woven together.
Domains
- ancestry
Powers
- fathers the ancestral anaconda peoples
Epithets
- Yebi Meni — Meni of the anaconda peopleInstituto Socioambiental, 'Barasana,' Povos Indígenas no Brasil, pib.socioambiental.org (tertiary)
Relations
- adversary: WarimiHis daughters pursue the child hero Warimi.'South American Indian Religions: Mythic Themes,' Encyclopedia of Religion (encyclopedia.com) (secondary)
- kin: Manioc-stick AnacondaBoth belong to the class of ancestral He anacondas from which the descent groups spring.Instituto Socioambiental, 'Barasana,' Povos Indígenas no Brasil, pib.socioambiental.org (tertiary)
- kin: RimahinóNamed together among the primal beings of the He world.Stephen Hugh-Jones, The Palm and the Pleiades (Cambridge University Press, 1979) (secondary)
Sources
- The Barasana phratries are reckoned as common descendants of the Yebi Meni Anaconda people, and the daughters of Meni figure in the Warimi myth.: Instituto Socioambiental, 'Barasana,' Povos Indígenas no Brasil, pib.socioambiental.org (tertiary); 'South American Indian Religions: Mythic Themes,' Encyclopedia of Religion (encyclopedia.com) (secondary)