Master of Breath
Muscogee · deity · Muscogee traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Hesaketvmese, the Master (or Keeper) of Breath, is the supreme being of Muscogee (Creek) religion, recorded by ethnographers under many spellings including Hisakitaimisi, Esaugetuh Emissee, and the title Ibofanga or Epohfvnkv, 'the One sitting above us.' In the creation account he dwells upon Nunne Chaha, a hill that is the only dry land amid the primal waters, and there forms the first people from clay, animating them with breath. Closely associated with the sun yet distinguished from it, he is also credited with establishing the celestial Sun and Moon and the four directions that uphold the world. In contemporary Mvskoke usage Hesaketvmese remains the ordinary word for God, and the name is invoked in ceremony and prayer.
Children
Domains
- breath and life
- creation of humankind
- solar sky rule
Powers
- to shape the first human beings from the clay of the primordial hill
- to grant and withdraw the breath that animates living things
Epithets
- IbofangaBill Grantham, Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians, University Press of Florida, 2002. (secondary)
- HesaketvmeseJack B. Martin and Margaret McKane Mauldin, A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee, University of Nebraska Press, 2000. (secondary)
Relations
- creator of: Sister SunIn Creek cosmogony the Master of Breath brings the celestial pair into being, setting the Sun in the sky together with the Moon and the four world-directions.Bill Grantham, Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians, University Press of Florida, 2002. (secondary)
- creator of: Brother MoonThe Master of Breath establishes Brother Moon alongside Sister Sun as part of the ordering of the cosmos.Bill Grantham, Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians, University Press of Florida, 2002. (secondary)
Sources
- Hesaketvmese, the Master of Breath, is the supreme creator deity of the Muscogee (Creek), maker of humankind from the clay of the primordial hill and keeper of the breath of life.: John R. Swanton, 'Religious Beliefs and Medical Practices of the Creek Indians,' in Forty-Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, 1928. (secondary); Bill Grantham, Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians, University Press of Florida, 2002. (secondary)