Makunaima (Macuxi recension)

Macuxi · demigod · mythic prehistoric · demigod

Makunaima (Macuxi Makunaimî) is the most widely attested figure of the Carib-speaking peoples of the Guiana Highlands. Among the Macuxi he is remembered as a son of the Sun and brother of Insikiran and Anikê; his deeds include the discovery and felling of the world-tree Wazaká, whose petrified stump is Mount Roraima, the release of cultivated plants, and a long series of trickster episodes in which he transforms people and animals into the rocks of the savanna. Colonial and ethnographic sources note his ambivalence: he brings fire and food plants but also hardship and disease. His name was famously borrowed by Mário de Andrade for the 1928 Brazilian novel Macunaíma.

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