Tasorintsi is the great creator-being of Matsigenka cosmology, the maker of the Matsigenka people and of everything wholesome in the world. The name is bound to the verb of blowing or breathing: Tasorintsi is the one who calls beings into existence by blowing upon them, and the same breath animates the shaman's cures. The tradition sometimes speaks not of one Tasorintsi but of several such beings dwelling in the upper layers of the cosmos. In the founding narrative the world takes shape through a contest between Tasorintsi and his adversary Kientibakori, each striving to create as many beings and things as they can imagine; Tasorintsi brings forth the true people, the pure saankarite spirits, edible plants, game, and the good visionary medicines, while his rival produces only what is dangerous and inedible. Sources differ on the boundary between Tasorintsi as a proper name and its use as a reverent title, and later Christian usage has adopted the word for the God of scripture.