Yube Nawa Ainbu
Cashinahua · numen · Cashinahua traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The anaconda-woman belongs to the yube nawa, the anaconda people of the deep waters. In the myth of the origin of the vision vine she appears to a human man, wins his love, and leads him beneath the river to live among her kin, where he takes on the anaconda body and learns nixi pae. She is also bound to the origin of kene, the dense geometric designs painted and woven by Cashinahua women, which are held to be the pattern of the anaconda's skin and are received in vision from the snake. In her the seductive and the perilous are inseparable: intimacy with the water people is the source of design, song and vision, yet it also carries the risk of dissolving into their world and never returning to human form.
Domains
- vision vine
- kene design
- water world
Powers
- teaches the labyrinth designs
- owns and grants the vine of vision
Epithets
- yube nawa ainbu — woman of the anaconda peopleLagrou, Elsje Maria. 1998. Cashinahua Cosmovision. PhD thesis, University of St Andrews. (secondary)
Relations
- spouse: YubeThe anaconda-woman who leads her human husband into the water and the anaconda condition.Lagrou, Els. 2018. 'Anaconda-becoming.' Horizontes Antropologicos 24(51): 17-46. (secondary)
Sources
- The anaconda-woman is the snake-wife who draws the human man into the water world, where he acquires the vine of vision; she is associated with the origin of the kene labyrinth designs.: Kensinger, Kenneth M. 1973. 'Banisteriopsis Usage among the Peruvian Cashinahua.' In M. Harner (ed.), Hallucinogens and Shamanism. New York: Oxford University Press. (primary); Lagrou, Els. 2007. A fluidez da forma. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks. (secondary)