Kashindúkua, the jaguar-priest and first curer

Kashindúkua is one of the sons of Gauteóvan, the Kogi Great Mother, and the first ceremonial priest (máma) destined to heal humankind. The Mother appointed him a great curer, able to pull sickness from a sufferer's body as though it were a solid thing, and gave him the ability to put on the shape of a jaguar so that he could see disease and devour it. In the myths, however, the jaguar-sight that let him consume illness also led him to see forbidden women as prey; his transgression of the Mother's command to do only good is one of the origins the Kogi give for disease, death, and the ambivalent, dangerous character of jaguar-power. He is remembered together with Noána-sé and Námaku as one of the jaguar-ancestors.

Parentage

• Gauteóvan, the Great Mother

Domains

• healing and disease
• jaguar transformation

Powers

• to draw sickness out of a patient's body as a tangible substance
• to transform himself between the shape of a man and that of a jaguar

Epithets

• Máma nebbí

Relations

• sibling: Noána-sé, the jaguar lord
• sibling: Búnkuasé, the shining lord and patron of the priesthood
• sibling: Duginávi, culture-hero of cultivation

Sources

• Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 'Training for the Priesthood among the Kogi of Colombia.' In Enculturation in Latin America, ed. Johannes Wilbert. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976.
• Gómez Cardona, Fabio. 'El jaguar en la literatura Kogi.' Poligramas 18, Universidad del Valle, 2002.