Imu
Piaroa · numen · Piaroa traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The Imu are the wild animal-spirits of the Piaroa forest, above all the ancestral peccary herds, made present among the living in the masked dances of the Warime festival. Personifying the untamed forces of the wild and the game on which the hunt depends, they belong to the beings of the creation-time and are drawn into the settled world through the ceremony's flutes, trumpets and painted masks, whose display renews the fertility of the animals. They stand in Piaroa thought for the perilous vitality of the forest that human life must at once draw upon and hold at a careful distance.
Domains
- wildness and transformation
- game and hunting
Powers
- embody the wild peccary herds
- renew the fertility of game
Epithets
- the wild ones — the untamed animal-spiritsMansutti Rodriguez, A. (2006). Warime: la fiesta. Ciudad Guayana: UNEG. (secondary)
Sources
- The Imu are the wild animal-spirits, especially of the peccary herds, embodied by masked dancers in the Warime festival and linked to the creation-time and the renewal of game.: Mansutti Rodriguez, A. (2006). Warime: la fiesta. Flautas, trompas y poder en el noroeste amazonico. Ciudad Guayana: UNEG. (secondary); Boglar, L. (1978). Cuentos y mitos de los Piaroa. Caracas: Universidad Catolica Andres Bello. (secondary)