Ñamíri-mahsë

The Ñamíri-mahsë or 'Night People' are the nocturnal personifications that the Sun-Father created and placed in the Dark Region to the west of Ahpikondiá. They are the deliberate counterpart of the Day People, Emëkóri-mahsë: because the Sun created not only the principle of good but also that of evil, the Night People were charged with serving as the intermediaries of witchcraft and sorcery and with punishing humans who abandon the customs of tradition. In the dualistic Desana cosmos they thus balance the beneficent daytime beings, and shamanic aggression is understood as drawing upon their agency.

Domains

• night
• sorcery

Powers

• to serve as the intermediaries of witchcraft and sorcery
• to punish people who fail to follow ancestral custom

Relations

• subordinate to: Sun-FatherCreated by the Sun-Father and assigned to the Dark Region as agents of the punitive, evil principle.Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971). (secondary)

Sources

• Ñamíri-mahsë, the 'Night People', are the Desana supernatural beings created by the Sun to dwell in the western Dark Region and to act as intermediaries of witchcraft and sorcery, the counterpart of the beneficent Day People.: Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971). (secondary); Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Desana: Simbolismo de los indios tukano del Vaupés (Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 1968). (secondary)