Makonaima

Kapon (Akawaio and Patamona) recension of the Makunaima cosmological figure shared with the Pemon. The cross-tradition counterpart of the Pemon Makunaima (registered separately), preserved in the Kapon recension specifically as the founding-figure of the piaiman shamanic tradition. The Kapon-Pemon shared Wazacá-tree cosmology spans the Pakaraima Mountains across the Guyana-Venezuela-Brazil tri-border zone — the geographical-cultural basis for the Kapon atlas-entry that complements the previously-only-Pemon-anchored region.

Children

• Sigu

Domains

• creator and founder of the piaiman tradition
• fire flood and tree of life

Powers

• Created/brought fire and brought forth diseases
• Felled the Tree of Life, unleashing a great flood

Epithets

• Makonaima latin · Makonaima · oralThe supreme creator “who works in the night,” maker of the Akawaio worldKapon (Akawaio) tradition; Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana (secondary)

Relations

• cross tradition counterpart: MakunaimaThe Kapon Makonaima is the same figure as the Pemon Makunaima, preserved in two cross-Carib-language recensions of the same Wazacá-tree cosmological cycle. The Mount Roraima-region Carib-cultural-zone shares this culture-hero across the Brazil-Venezuela-Guyana tri-border.Butt Colson 1971 (primary)

Sources

• existence: Brett, Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana (1880); Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana (1883); Butt Colson, "Akawaio Migrations and Settlements" (Antropológica 31, 1971); Sanders, Patamuna Origin Narratives (1987); Whitehead, ed., In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia (2004) (primary)