Kwatïngï

Kwatïngï is the elder maker of Kalapalo tradition, the being whose craft sets the twin cycle in motion. Longing for grandchildren, he carves women out of tree trunks and animates them, intending them as wives for the jaguar Nitsuegï. From one of these made women are born the demiurge-twins Taugi and Aulukumã, so that Kwatïngï stands as their grandfather and the first cause of the events that shaped the world. His act of carving persons from wood echoes through Xingu ritual, where painted trunks stand for the honored dead.

Children

• The Wooden Woman

Domains

• demiurgic craft
• kinship origins

Powers

• Carves living women from wood

Relations

• child: The Wooden Woman

Sources

• Ellen B. Basso, A Musical View of the Universe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985)