Antumiá, also called Antomía and known as the mother of water, is the most dreaded of the named jai, the malevolent spirit-beings of Emberá cosmology. It dwells beneath the rivers and rises from the water to seize people and drag them down to drown and eat them; the Emberá of the Antioqueño mountains frighten children by imitating its cry, 'antomía-paimá', glossed as black devil. It may show itself as a great snake, as a mountain peccary, or as a black, hairy, dull-faced man, and ordinarily only the jaibaná can see it, though at night its call is heard, likened to a duck's. The jaibaná, who masters the jai, is not eaten by Antumiá, and those under his protection are spared, the being taking at most the fingertips, nose, earlobes and lips; under a jaibaná's command it may also be set to guard a stretch of river or, conversely, to harm an enemy. As a jai its place in the wider cosmos is bound to the underworld of Tutruicá, the source of the spirits.