Karagabí, the demiurge and orderer of the human world

Karagabí, recorded in the older Antioqueño ethnography as Caragabí, is the principal active god of the Emberá: the demiurge and culture-orderer who, though born from the saliva of the remote First Father Dachizeze, takes charge of the human world. He models the first people from a rock called Mompahuará and breathes life into their feet, hands and foreheads; in the celebrated creation-contest his stone figures at first only open their eyes and smile while his rival Tutruicá's clay people, made in the deathless underworld, move at once. Karagabí is credited with felling the colossal tree Jenené, whose toppling looses the waters that become the sea and the rivers, and with giving things their names, instituting law and respect for human life. Associated with the upper world and with the moon, and remembered above all as a symbol of justice, he withdraws to the sky once his ordering work is done, leaving humankind in the world he has arranged.

Parentage

• parent: Dachizeze (Tatzitzetze), the pre-existent First Father

Children

• Dabeiba, goddess of rain and teacher of the crafts
• Jino Poto Warra, the hero sent into the underworld
• Jinopotabá, the crab-healer who crosses the three worlds

Domains

• creation of humankind
• world ordering
• fresh water and rivers
• justice and cosmic order

Powers

• to shape the first human beings from the Mompahuará stone and quicken them with his breath
• to fell the great tree Jenené and loose the waters that become the sea and rivers

Epithets

• Papa EgoróPardo Rojas, Mauricio. 1987. Regionalización de indígenas Chocó: datos etnohistóricos, lingüísticos y asentamientos actuales. Boletín Museo del Oro 18: 46-63. (secondary)

Relations

• rival: Tutruicá, lord of the underworld and rival creatorKaragabí, demiurge of the upper and human worlds, and Tutruicá, lord of the underworld, are bound in a primordial creation-contest over who is the greater maker; in some tellings Tutruicá proposes brotherhood and Karagabí accepts only under condition, sensing his rival means to seize his power.Pinto García, Constancio. 1978. Los indios katíos: su cultura, su lengua. Medellín: Editorial Granamérica. (secondary)
• sibling: Tutruicá, lord of the underworld and rival creatorSeveral Emberá tellings frame the two creator gods as brothers, Tutruicá having asked Karagabí to be his brother, a tie Karagabí grants only conditionally.Rosique-Gracia, J., Gálvez-Abadía, A., Turbay, S., Domicó, N., Domicó, A., Chavarí, P., Domicó, J., Alzate, F. A., Navarro, J. F. & Rojas-Mora, S. 2020. «Todos en el mismo pensamiento»: las relaciones del pueblo embera con los sitios sagrados de los resguardos de Polines y Yaberaradó en Chigorodó (Antioquia). Tabula Rasa 36: 201-222. (secondary)

Sources

• Karagabí (Caragabí) is the Emberá demiurge born of Dachizeze's saliva who shapes the first humans from the Mompahuará stone, orders the human world Papa Egoró, releases the waters by felling the Jenené tree, and is the rival creator of Tutruicá.: Pinto García, Constancio. 1978. Los indios katíos: su cultura, su lengua. Medellín: Editorial Granamérica. (secondary); Pardo Rojas, Mauricio. 1987. Regionalización de indígenas Chocó: datos etnohistóricos, lingüísticos y asentamientos actuales. Boletín Museo del Oro 18: 46-63. (secondary)