Piai'mã
Macuxi · numen · mythic prehistoric · Recorded classification
Piai'mã ('great shaman') is the ogre of the Makunaima cycle shared by the Macuxi, Taurepang and Arekuna of the circum-Roraima region. A cannibal giant who carries victims off in his basket, he kills and cuts up Makunaima, who is restored to life by his brothers; the heroes in turn trick and destroy Piai'mã, and in some tellings the powers and chants of shamanism derive from him. The figure entered Brazilian literature as the giant Piaimã of Mário de Andrade's Macunaíma.
Domains
- shamanic power
Powers
- to hunt and devour human beings
- to wield the original arts and chants of the shaman, later taken from him by the hero brothers
Relations
- enemy: Makunaima (Macuxi recension)Piai'mã hunts the hero brothers, kills and dismembers Makunaima (who is revived), and is finally destroyed by fire in his own house.Theodor Koch-Grünberg, Vom Roraima zum Orinoco, Bd. II, 1924 (secondary)
Sources
- Piai'mã is the man-eating giant and archetypal 'great shaman' of the circum-Roraima Carib cycle, adversary of Makunaima and his brothers and the source from whom shamanic knowledge passed to humans.: Theodor Koch-Grünberg, Vom Roraima zum Orinoco, Bd. II: Mythen und Legenden der Taulipang- und Arekuná-Indianern, 1924 (secondary); Lúcia Sá, Rain Forest Literatures: Amazonian Texts and Latin American Culture, University of Minnesota Press, 2004 (secondary)