Wichí · deity · Wichí traditional religion; continuing · deity
Lawo' (lewó) is the rainbow understood by the Wichí as a vast serpent of the waters, a being that controls rain, storm and flood and lurks in deep river pools and in the mythic palo borracho that once contained the sea. Benevolent water can turn destructive at its will: tradition recalls a community drowned by the torrential rains it sent. As the rainbow it arches visibly over the land, the manifest body of an otherwise hidden master of the waters, and it stands in tension with the trickster Tokwaj, who in the flood myth releases the very waters the serpent guards.
Alfred Métraux, Ethnography of the Chaco, in Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 1, ed. Julian H. Steward, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Washington, 1946.
Rafael Karsten, The Civilization of the South American Indians, with Special Reference to Magic and Religion, Kegan Paul, London, 1926.
Johannes Wilbert & Karin Simoneau (eds.), Folk Literature of the Mataco Indians, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, Los Angeles, 1982.