Kwamuti

Kwamuti is the grandfather demiurge of the origin myth, the carver who brings the first human beings into existence by shaping them from wood. Among the beings he makes is the woman he gives to the Jaguar, who becomes the mother of the Sun and Moon, so that the transformer twins are his grandsons and all subsequent generations descend from his handiwork. The figure is shared across the Upper Xingu, where the Kalapalo know him as Kwatïngï; sources differ over the precise Mehinaku form of his name, but agree in casting him as the primordial maker whose noble wood links the demiurges, the mourned dead, and the living chiefs said to be of the same substance.

Children

• Mother of the Sun and Moon

Domains

• creation
• wood carving

Powers

• carve the first people from wood

Relations

• child: Mother of the Sun and MoonEllen B. Basso, A Musical View of the Universe (1985) (secondary)

Sources

• Kwamuti is the demiurge grandfather who carves the first people from wood, including the mother of the Sun and Moon; the Kalapalo call him Kwatïngï: Ellen B. Basso, A Musical View of the Universe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985) (secondary); Aristóteles Barcelos Neto, Apapaatai: rituais de máscaras no Alto Xingu (São Paulo: EDUSP, 2008) (secondary)