Lightning-Maker

Toba/Qom (Gran Chaco). English 'Lightning-Maker' leads; Toba Qasoǵonaǵa (also written Kasogonagá, Casogonagá). The 'ǵ' represents the Toba/Qom velar/uvular fricative. A weather deity; usually feminine in the literature, though gender is variably reported. Distinct from the rainbow / Water-Python serpent associated with the great floods of Chaco cosmogony.

Domains

• thunder and lightning
• rain
• rainbow

Powers

• shoot lightning and send rain
• falls from the sky and must be helped by humans to return aloft

Epithets

• Kasogonaga

Sources

• Métraux, Alfred (1946). Myths of the Toba and Pilagá Indians of the Gran Chaco. Memoirs of the American Folklore Society 40.