Yiida Buinaima
Uitoto · demigod · Uitoto traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Yiida Buinaima is a water being of the Buinaima order whose metamorphosis, recorded in parallel Uitoto and Muinane versions, explains the origin and manufacture of the maguaré, the paired hollowed-trunk signal drums that summon dances and carry messages between distant communal houses. The narrative belongs to the wider Amazonian tradition of the Tree of Abundance (Moniya Amena): the tree that holds all cultivated plants, which when felled imprints its shape upon the land so that its trunk becomes the Amazon and its great branches the Caquetá and Putumayo. His transformation binds together the origins of ritual sound, cultivated food, and the river system of the homeland.
Domains
- transformation
- music
- fertility
Powers
- undergoes metamorphosis into the tree of abundance
- gives origin to the maguaré signal drums
Epithets
- Yiida Buinaima — the transforming water father'La metamorfosis de Yiida Buinaima'. Boletín Museo del Oro 46 (2000): 40–76. (secondary)
Sources
- The metamorphosis of Yiida Buinaima accounts for the origin of the maguaré signal drums and is linked to the tree of abundance whose felling shapes the Amazon river system.: 'La metamorfosis de Yiida Buinaima. Versiones de los uitotos y muinanes sobre el origen mítico y la hechura del maguaré'. Boletín Museo del Oro 46 (2000): 40–76. (secondary); Galeano, Juan Carlos. 2013. 'Moniya amena: el origen del río Amazonas'. Ecozon@ 4(1). (secondary)