Uxe

Cashinahua · numen · Cashinahua traditional religion; continuing · numen

The moon, uxe, is born of transgression and death. In the widely recorded origin narrative a youth visits his sister by night; to learn who her secret lover is she paints his face with genipa dye, and by the black mark he is exposed. Killed and beheaded, whether by kin or by enemies, his severed head asks his mother for cords of coloured cotton, which he hangs from the pole of the sky and climbs to become the moon; the coloured cords become the rainbow, also called Yube's blood and the path of the dead. The moon so made orders the counting of months and is tied to the menstrual blood of women, and the full moon is named uxe badi, moon-sun. Sources differ on whether the youth of this narrative is to be identified with Yube the anaconda: Lagrou records the name Yube for the moon-brother, folding the moon, the rainbow and the anaconda into a single transforming figure, while other recordings keep the moon-origin narrative distinct.

Domains

Powers

Epithets

Sources

Open in the interactive app →