Aluna, the primordial creative mind
Aluna is the foundational metaphysical principle of Kogi thought: the invisible world of mind, memory and intention out of which the visible world is generated and which continues to sustain it. Reichel-Dolmatoff translates the Kágaba word across a range of senses ('spiritual', 'otherworldly', 'soul') and treats it as the cosmic medium of consciousness in which the Great Mother conceived the images of everything that would later take material form. For the living Kogi it is not merely an abstraction but the thinking, acting life-force that governs fertility and connects the human spirit to the cosmos; the work of the mama priesthood is to attend to events in aluna so as to keep the material world in balance. Because aluna is an impersonal cosmic substance rather than a genealogically embedded person, it stands apart from the family of named ancestral lords while remaining the very medium of the Mother's creation.
Domains
- thought and consciousness
- fertility and life force
Powers
- to hold the originating pattern of every thing before it becomes material
Sources
- Aluna is the primordial creative cosmic-mind or spirit-stuff of Kogi cosmology, the world of pure consciousness preceding material reality within which the Great Mother conceived all forms.: Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, 'The Great Mother and the Kogi Universe: A Concise Overview', Journal of Latin American Lore 13(1): 73-113 (1987). (secondary); Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, 'Los Kogi: una tribu de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia', Revista del Instituto Etnológico Nacional, Bogotá (1950-51). (secondary)