Magamaog
Si Magamaog is the great culture-hero of the Tao, a benevolent deity reckoned among the beings of the sky who descended to instruct the ancestors in the arts of survival. Tradition credits him with teaching the people to cultivate wet taro in irrigated terraces, to build the plank boats whose prows and hulls are carved and painted with ancestral motifs, to work silver and gold into the ceremonial ornaments worn at launchings, and to observe the taboos and rites of the flying-fish season. In some accounts he acts alone; in others he is one of several teaching deities. His gifts define the twin pillars of Tao livelihood, taro horticulture on land and flying-fish harvesting at sea, and his instruction is recalled in the etiological songs performed at house- and boat-launching feasts.
Domains
- agriculture and cultivation
- boatbuilding and craft
- metalworking
Powers
- teach the cultivation of wet taro
- teach the building of the plank boat
- teach the working of silver and gold
Epithets
- Si Magamaog — Magamaog (with the honorific name-marker)Benedek, Dezso (1991), The Songs of the Ancestors, Taipei: SMC Publishing. (secondary)
Relations
- companion: The Sky GodCounted among the benevolent sky-deities.Benedek, Dezso (1991), The Songs of the Ancestors, Taipei: SMC Publishing. (secondary)
Sources
- Si Magamaog is the Tao culture-hero credited with teaching taro cultivation, boat-building, silver and gold working, and ceremonial observance.: Benedek, Dezso (1991), The Songs of the Ancestors, Taipei: SMC Publishing. (secondary); Kano & Segawa (1956), An Illustrated Ethnography of Formosan Aborigines, Vol. I: The Yami. (secondary)
- Accounts vary on whether Magamaog acts alone or as one of several teaching deities.: Wei Hwei-lin & Liu Pin-hsiung (1962), Social Structure of the Yami, Botel Tobago, Academia Sinica. (secondary)