Duginávi, culture-hero of cultivation
Duginávi is one of the sons of the Kogi Great Mother and a brother of Sintana, the first ancestor. In the myths he dwelt in the sky together with the Makú, the 'people of Thunder', and is associated with a stormy, contentious father-figure, the Thunder Lord, against whom he strives. His central deed makes him a culture-hero of agriculture: finding the King of the Vultures, he borrowed the great bird's feather-clothing and in it descended from the sky to the earth, where he began to cultivate crops and taught the growing of food. Kogi and comparative accounts also remember him as a maker of ritual masks and, in some versions, as a jaguar-elder who quarrels with his father, steals his drum, and is driven off toward the arid Guajira. His narratives bind together sky, thunder, the vulture, and the first fields of the Sierra Nevada.
Parentage
- parent: Gauteóvan, the Great Mother
Domains
- agriculture and cultivation
- thunder and sky
Powers
- to descend from the sky and teach the cultivation of crops
Relations
- sibling: Kashindúkua, the jaguar-priest and first curerFellow son of the Great Mother.Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 'The Great Mother and the Kogi Universe.' Journal of Latin American Lore 13(1), 1987. (secondary)
- sibling: Búnkuasé, the shining lord and patron of the priesthoodFellow son of the Great Mother.Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 'The Great Mother and the Kogi Universe.' Journal of Latin American Lore 13(1), 1987. (secondary)
Sources
- Duginávi is a son of the Kogi Great Mother and brother of Sintana who lived in the sky among the Makú (Thunder people) and, borrowing the garb of the King of the Vultures, descended to earth as the culture-hero who introduced cultivation.: Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 'The Great Mother and the Kogi Universe: A Concise Overview.' Journal of Latin American Lore 13(1): 73-113, 1987. (secondary); Preuss, Konrad Theodor. Forschungsreise zu den Kágaba: Beobachtungen, Textaufnahmen und sprachliche Studien. St. Gabriel-Mödling: Anthropos, 1926. (secondary)