Dachizeze (Tatzitzetze), the pre-existent First Father

Dachizeze, also recorded as Tatzitzetze, Dachisese or Ankore, is the remote, pre-existent high god of the Emberá of the Chocó. Described as without beginning or end and as having made himself, he is the originator of the tiered cosmos of worlds layered above and below the earth, each with its own powers. He does not himself shape or govern humanity; instead the active demiurge Karagabí is said to have been born from his saliva and to have taken over the ordering of the human world. Because he stands at one remove from human affairs, Dachizeze appears in the ethnographic record chiefly as the genealogical and cosmological starting point of the pantheon rather than as a deity of cult.

Children

• Karagabí, the demiurge and orderer of the human world

Domains

• primordial creation
• cosmic origin

Powers

• to bring the layered worlds into existence without himself being made

Epithets

• AnkorePardo Rojas, Mauricio. 1986. La escalera de cristal: términos y conceptos cosmológicos de los indígenas emberá. Maguaré 4: 21-46. (secondary)

Relations

• creator of: Karagabí, the demiurge and orderer of the human worldEmberá origin narratives state that Karagabí was born from the saliva of the primordial being Dachizeze (Tatzitzetze).Pardo Rojas, Mauricio. 1987. Regionalización de indígenas Chocó: datos etnohistóricos, lingüísticos y asentamientos actuales. Boletín Museo del Oro 18: 46-63. (secondary)

Sources

• Dachizeze (Tatzitzetze) is the pre-existent, self-created First Father of Emberá cosmogony, originator of the layered worlds and source of the demiurge Karagabí.: Isacsson, Sven-Erik. 1993. Transformations of Eternity: On Man and Cosmos in Emberá Thought. Göteborg: Department of Social Anthropology, University of Göteborg. (secondary); Pardo Rojas, Mauricio. 1986. La escalera de cristal: términos y conceptos cosmológicos de los indígenas emberá. Maguaré 4: 21-46. (secondary)