Ashnuwerta

Chamacoco · deity · Chamacoco traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification

Ashnuwerta, the Scarlet spirit-being, is the most powerful and ambivalent of the primordial Anaposo in the Ishir myth of origins. Luminous and red as annatto, she both loves the Ishir and presides over cosmic order and hidden knowledge. When the spirit-beings, who had taught the ancestors the arts of culture, grew murderous toward the initiates, Ashnuwerta revealed to the people the secret that the spirits could be killed, and ordained that the men must thereafter impersonate the slain Anaposo in the great initiation, guarding the mystery from women and children. She is remembered as the giver of ritual law and the patroness of the shaman's knowledge. Sources differ on whether she is distinct from the great mother Eschetewuarha or a further name of the same supreme goddess.

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