Gôo
Mnong · numen · Mnong traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Gôo is the indwelling spirit, or brah, of a great sacred stone in the country of the Mnong Gar, and the owner of the forest that bears its name. Georges Condominas took the phrase for his classic Sar Luk ethnography, 'We have eaten the forest of the Stone-Genie Gôo', from the Mnong idiom for swidden agriculture: to clear and burn a tract of forest is to 'eat' it, and the year he studied, the village consumed the forest belonging to Gôo. Cultivating such land binds the community to sacrifice and rites addressed to the spirit, so that Gôo stands as the vivid particular case of the Mnong world of yang and brah, the innumerable spirit-owners of stone, water and forest.
Domains
- stone earth
- forest wilderness
Powers
- owns the forest and its soil
- demands sacrifice for its land
Epithets
- Baw Gôo — the spirit-lord Gôo / the Stone-Genie GôoGeorges Condominas, We Have Eaten the Forest (1977) (primary)
Sources
- Gôo is a named genie of a great sacred stone among the Mnong Gar, the spirit-owner of the forest cleared for cultivation, from whose name Condominas titled his ethnography.: Georges Condominas, Nous avons mangé la forêt de la Pierre-Génie Gôo (Paris: Mercure de France, 1957); Eng. We Have Eaten the Forest, trans. Adrienne Foulke (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977) (primary)