Avanyu
Avanyu is the Tewa name of the horned, or plumed, water serpent, an ambiguous and powerful being both feared and revered. His home is in springs, ponds, rivers, and ultimately the underground waters that the Pueblos hold to connect all bodies of water beneath the earth. As guardian and releaser of these waters he governs rain and can send either fertilizing showers or catastrophic flood; his undulating, zigzag body is read at once as the coursing of the river and the flash of lightning. Across Puebloan languages the same serpent is called Kolowisi by the Zuni and Paalolokong by the Hopi. For more than a millennium Avanyu has been carved into the rock of the Rio Grande gorge, and he remains one of the most recognizable motifs of Tewa pottery.
Domains
- water
- weather
Powers
- guards and releases the waters
Sources
- Avanyu is the Tewa horned or plumed water serpent, a being of springs, rivers, rain, and lightning represented widely in Rio Grande rock art and pottery.: Schaafsma, Polly. 1980. Indian Rock Art of the Southwest. Santa Fe / Albuquerque: School of American Research and University of New Mexico Press. (secondary); Parsons, Elsie Clews. 1939. Pueblo Indian Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, vol. 1, pp. 184-186. (secondary)