Noána-sé, the jaguar lord

Noána-sé is one of the jaguar-ancestors of the Kogi, named as a son of the Great Mother and counted among the Jaguar Lords who dwell in the upper levels of the Kogi universe and who are linked with the Makú, the people of thunder. He appears above all in the mythic trilogy of jaguar-men, alongside Kashindúkua and Námaku: beings who could put on the jaguar's shape in order to see and devour disease, but whose abuse of that transformation, against the Mother's command to do only good, is one of the Kogi explanations for the coming of illness and death into the world. Where Kashindúkua is developed as the exemplary curer, Noána-sé stands as a companion figure in the same complex, embodying the dangerous, predatory pole of shamanic power.

Parentage

• parent: Gauteóvan, the Great Mother

Domains

• jaguar power
• thunder and sky

Powers

• to take on the shape of a jaguar

Epithets

• Makú Noána-seReichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 'The Great Mother and the Kogi Universe.' Journal of Latin American Lore 13(1), 1987. (secondary)

Relations

• sibling: Kashindúkua, the jaguar-priest and first curerRemembered together with Kashindúkua and Námaku as the trilogy of jaguar-ancestors.Gómez Cardona, Fabio. 'El jaguar en la literatura Kogi.' Poligramas 18, Universidad del Valle, 2002. (secondary)

Sources

• Noána-sé is one of the jaguar-ancestors of the Kogi, a son of the Great Mother counted among the Jaguar Lords, remembered with Kashindúkua and Námaku in the mythic complex explaining sickness, death, and the ambivalence of jaguar-power.: Gómez Cardona, Fabio. 'El jaguar en la literatura Kogi.' Poligramas 18, Universidad del Valle, 2002. (secondary); Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 'The Great Mother and the Kogi Universe: A Concise Overview.' Journal of Latin American Lore 13(1): 73-113, 1987. (secondary)