Power-of-the-Shining-Heavens

Power-of-the-Shining-Heavens (Sîns Sganagwai) is, in the ethnography of John Swanton, the highest of all Haida supernatural beings: an impersonal sky-power rather than an anthropomorphic god, dwelling above the world and serving as the ultimate wellspring of the potency held by the many Sganagwai, including the killer-whale beings. Because the power is diffuse and abstract, it is rarely narrated as a character, yet it stands at the apex of the cosmological hierarchy the Haida described to early ethnographers.

Domains

• cosmic order
• sky

Powers

• to grant supernatural power to other beings

Relations

• creator of: Killer Whale BeingsAs the highest sky power, Power-of-the-Shining-Heavens is the source that endowed the killer-whale and supernatural beings (Sganagwai) with their abilities.John R. Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Jesup North Pacific Expedition Vol. 5, Pt. 1), 1905 (secondary)

Sources

• Power-of-the-Shining-Heavens is the supreme sky-dwelling power of Haida cosmology, the diffuse source from which all supernatural beings derive their power.: John R. Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Jesup North Pacific Expedition Vol. 5, Pt. 1), 1905 (secondary); Marianne Boelscher Ignace, 'Haida Religious Traditions,' in Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., ed. Lindsay Jones (Macmillan Reference), 2005 (secondary)