Kun Kaze Yu

The kun kaze yu, or 'smoke man', is the male medium possessed by the Smoke Woman. Smoking strong tobacco until he falls into trance, he becomes the mouthpiece through which she speaks, and so the human instrument of Maring divination. In this office he diagnoses the spirit causes of sickness, transmits the demands of the red spirits, and is consulted at the junctures of the ritual and warfare cycle. The role is not fixed in any hereditary line; a man is known as a smoke man by his capacity to receive the Smoke Woman and to carry her words back to the living.

Domains

• divination and mediumship

Powers

• enters trance by smoking tobacco
• speaks the words of the Smoke Woman

Epithets

• kun kaze yu — smoke manRappaport, Roy A. (1968). Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press. (primary)

Relations

• companion: Kun Kaze AmbraThe Smoke Woman possesses him and speaks through him.Rappaport, Roy A. (1968). Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press. (primary)

Sources

• The kun kaze yu ('smoke man') is the Maring male medium who, by smoking strong tobacco into trance, is possessed by the Smoke Woman and becomes the human instrument of divination, diagnosing spirit causes of sickness and transmitting the demands of the red spirits.: Rappaport, Roy A. (1968). Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press. (primary); Rappaport, Roy A. (1999). Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (secondary)