Kuksu
Pomo · deity · primordial · Recorded classification
Creator/healing-spirit classed 'deity'. In creation he is Marumda's elder-brother co-creator (de Angulo & Benson); in ritual he is the masked healing-spirit of the Kuksu system (Loeb). Cf. Wintun/Maidu cognates documented by Kroeber.
Domains
- creation
- healing
Powers
- help create the world with Marumda
- embody the impersonated healing-spirit of the dance
- Appear as the Big Head healing-spirit of the dance
Epithets
- Kuksu The first-man and healer spirit of the south, patron of the great Kuksu dance-societyS. A. Barrett, Pomo Myths (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: MarumdaReciprocal of pomo_marumda.sibling — Marumda of the north consults his elder brother Kuksu of the south before each making and remaking of the world in the Eastern Pomo creation.Jaime de Angulo & William Ralganal Benson, 'The Creation Myth of the Pomo Indians,' Anthropos 27 (1932) (secondary)
Sources
- Kuksu, elder brother of Marumda, is co-creator of the Pomo world and the great healing-spirit impersonated in the Kuksu ceremonial dances of central California.: Jaime de Angulo & William Ralganal Benson, 'The Creation Myth of the Pomo Indians,' Anthropos 27 (1932). (ethnography); Edwin M. Loeb, 'The Western Kuksu Cult,' UC Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology vol. 33 (1932). (ethnography)