Ibeorgun
Ibeorgun is the great culture hero and lawgiver of the Guna, a divinely sent seer who appeared after the earliest world-shaping ancestors to instruct the people in how to live. Tradition credits him with founding the core institutions of Guna society: the political and ritual organization of the village, the gathering house (onmaked nega) in which chiefs chant the law, the ceremonies of naming and life-passage, the use of ritual chants and cures, and the proper conduct of marriage and daily life. Working alongside his sister Kikkirdiryai, who taught the women, he set down the igar, the chanted body of custom and law that the Guna still recite. He is the paradigmatic first nele-teacher, the model against which later prophets and chiefs measure their authority.
Domains
- law and custom
- ritual institution
Powers
- teach the Guna their laws and customs
- establish the gathering house and its chants
Relations
- sibling: KikkirdiryaiErland Nordenskiold, An Historical and Ethnological Survey of the Cuna Indians, ed. Henry Wassen (Goteborg, 1938). (secondary)
Sources
- Ibeorgun is the culture hero who descended to teach the Guna their social, ritual, and legal institutions.: 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), narratives of Ibeorgun. (primary)