Kikkirdiryai
Guna · demigod · Guna traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Kikkirdiryai is the sister and companion of the culture hero Ibeorgun. Where Ibeorgun instructs the men in law, ceremony and the ordering of the village, Kikkirdiryai is remembered as the founder of women's customs, and above all of the great girls' puberty festival (inna suid), the elaborate chicha ceremony that marks a young woman's coming of age and remains one of the central rituals of Guna life. She embodies the gendered complementarity that structures Guna society, in which male and female institutions are established by paired brother-and-sister culture heroes.
Domains
- womens rites and puberty
Powers
- institute the women's puberty ceremony
Relations
- sibling: IbeorgunErland Nordenskiold, An Historical and Ethnological Survey of the Cuna Indians, ed. Henry Wassen (Goteborg, 1938). (secondary)
Sources
- Kikkirdiryai, sister of Ibeorgun, established the women's customs and the girls' puberty ceremony.: Erland Nordenskiold, An Historical and Ethnological Survey of the Cuna Indians, ed. Henry Wassen (Goteborg, 1938). (secondary); Mac Chapin, Pab Igala: Historias de la tradicion kuna (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1989). (secondary)