Sky Creator
Chuukese · deity · primordial · Recorded classification
Chuukese high-god; name means roughly 'great spirit' (anu 'spirit' + lap 'great'). Recorded by the Capuchin missionary-ethnographer Bollig (1927) and the Hamburg South Seas Expedition reports. Treated as deity.
Children
Domains
- sky
- knowledge and magic
Powers
- bestows magic and knowledge upon humankind
- Teach humankind wisdom, law and craft
Epithets
- Anulap The great god of knowledge and magic, who taught divination and dwells in the skyChuukese (Trukese) ethnography; Bollig, Die Bewohner der Truk-Inseln (secondary)
- Enuunap variant of the name 'Great Spirit'Bollig, Die Bewohner der Truk-Inseln (1927) (secondary)
Relations
- ancestor of: Bringer of ArtsHigh-god and father of Lugeilan the bringer of arts (Anulap > Lugeilan > Olifat); Lugeilan already lists Anulap as parent.Bollig, Die Bewohner der Truk-Inseln (1927); Goodenough, Under Heaven's Brow (2002) (secondary)
- ancestor of: Trickster Fire-BringerGrandfather of the trickster Olifat through his son Lugeilan.Lessa, Tales from Ulithi Atoll (1961) (secondary)
Sources
- Anulap (Onulap, 'great spirit') is the sky/creator high-god of Chuuk (Truk) in the Caroline Islands, husband of Ligoububfanu, father of Lugeilan and source of knowledge and magic.: Bollig, Laurentius. Die Bewohner der Truk-Inseln (1927) (secondary); Lessa, William A. 'Discoverer-of-the-Sun: Mythology as a Reflection of Culture' (Journal of American Folklore, 1966), on Carolinian high-gods (secondary)