Ancestral Anaconda

The origin of humankind is bound to the cycle of the Ancestral Anaconda, from whom the Cubeo take their self-name Pamíwa, the children of the Anaconda. From the Door of the Waters at the far eastern edge of the world the serpent moved up the river-axis of the universe to its centre, a rapid on the Vaupés, and there brought forth people, fixing the characteristic traits of Cubeo identity as it went. As an anaconda-canoe it carried the ancestors and set them down along the great rivers, distributing the clans and endowing each with its spiritual and material culture. The body of the serpent orders society itself: the sibs of high rank descend from ancestors seated at its head, while shamans and servant sibs descend from its tail. In the mythic age the Anaconda beings and the Kúwaiwa were joined in the first marriage, the union from which the Cubeo lineages spring.

Children

• Djurí

Domains

• anthropogenesis
• social order

Powers

• bring forth the ancestral peoples
• distribute the clans as anaconda-canoes

Epithets

• Anaconda-canoa — the anaconda-canoeDel Amazonas ethnographic synthesis of Cubeo origins: 'la anaconda-canoa comenzó a distribuir los grupos humanos' (secondary)

Relations

• spouse: KúwaiwaThe Anaconda beings and the Kúwaiwa are joined in the first marriage.Irving Goldman, Cubeo Hehénewa Religious Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) (secondary)
• companion: MavíchikoriThe death-spirit institutes the marriage of the Anacondas.Irving Goldman, Cubeo Hehénewa Religious Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) (secondary)
• parent: DjuríShamans, including the first pajé, descend from the tail of the Anaconda.Irving Goldman, Cubeo Hehénewa Religious Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004): shamans descend from ancestors seated at the tail of the primal anaconda (secondary)

Sources

• The Ancestral Anaconda ascends the Vaupés from the Door of the Waters to the centre of the world, bringing forth humankind and ranking the sibs from head to tail; the Cubeo call themselves children of the Ancestral Anaconda.: Irving Goldman, The Cubeo: Indians of the Northwest Amazon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963) (secondary); François Correa (comp.), Los Kuwaiwa (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1997) (secondary)