Maleiwa
Wayuu · deity · Wayuu traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Maleiwa, also recorded as Mareiwa, is the central creative figure of Wayuu (Guajiro) religion of the La Guajira peninsula. Ethnographers describe him as a demiurge and culture-hero rather than a remote sky-father: born from the body of his mother after she is killed by the Jaguar, he separates and gives form to a cosmos that had been wholly anthropomorphic, brings the Wayuu into being, and institutes their matrilineal clans, to each of which he is said to have given a distinguishing iron brand. In contemporary Wayuunaiki the name Maleiwa is also used to render the Christian 'God', but in the traditional corpus collected by Perrin and Goulet he remains the indigenous maker of the Wayuu and the founder of their social world.
Domains
- creation and origins
- social order and law
Powers
- to differentiate and order the world out of an undivided primordial state
- to make the Wayuu and assign each matrilineal clan its emblem
Epithets
- MaleiwaWilbert, Johannes, ed. Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 7: South America. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1994, s.v. 'Guajiro'. (secondary)
Sources
- Maleiwa (Mareiwa) is the supreme creator and culture-hero of Wayuu (Guajiro) religion: maker of the Wayuu, orderer of an originally undifferentiated world, and founder of their social and clan order.: Perrin, Michel. The Way of the Dead Indians: Guajiro Myths and Symbols. Trans. Michael Fineberg. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987. (secondary); Goulet, Jean-Guy. El universo social y religioso guajiro. Caracas: Universidad Catolica Andres Bello, Centro de Lenguas Indigenas, 1981. (secondary)