Nhakpoti
Nhakpoti, the Star Woman, is the giver of agriculture. A young man who admired a bright star found that she came to him in the night as a woman; taking her as his wife, he hid her at first among the household's stored gourds. Distressed by the primordial diet of wild mushrooms and rotten wood, she returned to the sky and came back bearing maize, teaching the people to clear gardens, plant, and eat cultivated food. In her ascents she is thrown skyward by a bent sapling that springs upright like a catapult. Tellings vary: some name only maize, others add manioc, sweet potato, yam and banana, and accounts from Gorotire make her the daughter of Rain, while other versions treat her simply as a star of the sky. Through her the Kayapó account for the origin of horticulture and the passage from foraging to garden life.
Parentage
- parent: RainAccounts from Gorotire name Rain as her father.'Gorotire,' in David Levinson (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 7: South America (1994) (secondary)
Domains
- cultivated plants
- sky
Powers
- brings cultivated plants to humankind
- passes between sky and earth
Epithets
- a mulher-estrela — the star womanAnton Lukesch, Mito e vida dos Caiapós (1976) (primary)
Relations
- parent: RainAccounts from Gorotire name Rain as her father.'Gorotire,' in David Levinson (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 7: South America (1994) (secondary)
Sources
- A star descended to marry a Kayapó man and brought cultivated plants, above all maize, to a people who until then ate only wild foods.: Terence S. Turner, The Fire of the Jaguar (HAU Books, 2017) (secondary); Anton Lukesch, Mythos und Leben der Kayapó (Vienna, 1968) (primary)
- In accounts recorded at Gorotire the Sky Woman is the daughter of Rain and provides manioc, sweet potatoes, yams and bananas.: 'Gorotire,' in David Levinson (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 7: South America (1994) (secondary)