Bepkororoti

Bepkororoti is the storm being of the Kayapó, the pre-eminent power addressed by shamans. In the narrative he is a man of common standing, a shaman, who after helping to kill and butcher a tapir is given only the worthless paws while others seize the meat. Humiliated, he shaves and paints himself, takes up his war-club, and withdraws to a hilltop; when his kin approach he strikes, and amid a shattering roar he and his household rise into the sky. There he remains, and his continuing anger is manifest as thunder, lightning, wind and rain. Because the storm can destroy gardens and kill, he is treated with careful respect: a share of honey and comb is left for him at every harvest of wild bees, and curers call on him as the source of shamanic strength. Sources differ on the details of his family's ascent and on whether the rainbow belongs to his household, but agree on his transformation from wronged kinsman to celestial master of the tempest.

Domains

• storms and thunder
• rain
• shamanic power

Powers

• hurls lightning from his weapon
• raises wind, rain and tempest
• confers and sustains shamanic sight

Epithets

• o senhor do trovão

Sources

• Darrell A. Posey, 'Keeping of Stingless Bees by the Kayapó Indians of Brazil,' Journal of Ethnobiology 3(1):63-73 (1983)
• Anton Lukesch, Mythos und Leben der Kayapó (Vienna, 1968)
• Horace Banner, 'Mitos dos índios Kayapó,' Revista de Antropologia 5(1):37-66 (1957)
• Terence S. Turner, The Fire of the Jaguar (HAU Books, 2017)