Tutruicá, lord of the underworld and rival creator
Tutruicá, also written Trutruica, is the second great creator of Emberá cosmogony and the owner of the subterranean world, Armucura, a realm reached through water where death has no power. In the creation-contest with Karagabí he models a man and a woman out of clay and, breathing on their foreheads, gives them a life that moves at once; because they are made in the deathless underworld his people do not die. The two gods, in setting the world between them, establish the web of dependence among plants, animals and people that the Emberá express in the idea that hunter and hunted are reciprocal prey. To Tutruicá and his underworld are traced the origin of the jaibaná's shamanic knowledge, condensed in the figure of the tiger mother-in-law Imamá-Pãkðré, and the beginnings of many animals, snakes, bats and peccaries among them, and of cultivated plants such as peach palm, maize and plantain. Some tellings make him, like the high god, uncreated; others a creature of Dachizeze.
Domains
- underworld
- shamanic knowledge
- origin of animals and crops
Powers
- to mould the underworld people from clay so that they live without dying
- to give human shamans command over the spirits
Epithets
- Armucura dachataPardo Rojas, Mauricio. 1986. La escalera de cristal: términos y conceptos cosmológicos de los indígenas emberá. Maguaré 4: 21-46. (secondary)
Relations
- rival: Karagabí, the demiurge and orderer of the human worldTutruicá, maker of the immortal underworld people, contends with Karagabí over which of them is the greater creator; the two settle the world between them, fixing the bond of mutual dependence among plants, animals and humans.Pinto García, Constancio. 1978. Los indios katíos: su cultura, su lengua. Medellín: Editorial Granamérica. (secondary)
- sibling: Karagabí, the demiurge and orderer of the human worldIt is Tutruicá who asks Karagabí to become his brother; the kinship is granted conditionally, Karagabí perceiving that his counterpart covets his power.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
- Tutruicá (Trutruica) is the Emberá creator-god and owner of the underworld Armucura who fashions the deathless underworld people from clay, contests creation with Karagabí, and is the source of jaibaná shamanic knowledge and of many animals and cultivated plants.: Pinto García, Constancio. 1978. Los indios katíos: su cultura, su lengua. Medellín: Editorial Granamérica. (secondary); Vasco Uribe, Luis Guillermo. 1985. Jaibanás: los verdaderos hombres. Bogotá: Fondo de Promoción de la Cultura del Banco Popular. (secondary)