Cassava Lord
Taíno · deity · mythic perennial · Recorded classification
Male supreme deity. His name parses roughly as 'spirit of cassava (yuca) and of the sea (bagua), without male progenitor'. His mother is Atabey; he is sometimes said to live atop the highest mountain. The zemi (cassava-bringing) cult objects belong in materialCulture, not as figures.
Parentage
- parent: Mother of Waters
Domains
- cassava and agriculture
- sea and fertility
Powers
- give cassava and make the crops grow
Epithets
- Yúcahu Bagua Maórocoti spirit of cassava and the sea, without male progenitorRamón Pané, Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios (c. 1498) (primary)
Sources
- Yúcahu Bagua Maórocoti is the supreme Taíno deity, the immortal masculine spirit of cassava and the sea, who has a mother but no male begetter and is the principal zemi.: Pané, Ramón. Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios, c. 1498. (primary); Stevens-Arroyo, Antonio M. Cave of the Jagua: The Mythological World of the Taínos, 1988. (secondary)