Machi the Co-Demiurge

Machi is a primordial spirit of the Garo (A·chik) creation account. According to the myth first systematically recorded by Playfair, when the cosmos was still water and darkness the supreme being Tatara-Rabuga did not shape the earth himself but issued the command to two lesser spirits, Nostu-Nopantu and Machi, who together brought the world into being. Machi is thus counted among the earliest divine agents, a junior partner to the earth-making mother Nostu-Nopantu, and stands apart from the many nature-spirits (mite) that populate later Garo cosmology.

Domains

• creation of the world

Powers

• to help fashion the earth out of the primordial waters

Relations

• subordinate to: Creator GodMachi shapes the world only at the command of the supreme creator Tatara-Rabuga.Playfair, Major A. (1909). The Garos. London: David Nutt. (secondary)

Sources

• Machi is one of the two lesser demiurge spirits who, together with Nostu-Nopantu, made the earth at the command of the supreme creator Tatara-Rabuga.: Playfair, Major A. (1909). The Garos. London: David Nutt, chapter on Religion (creation of the world). (secondary); Rongmuthu, Dewansingh Shangma (1967). The Epic Lore of the Garos. Gauhati University, Department of Tribal Culture and Folklore Research. (secondary)