Kumariawa

Kumariawa is the mother of Wanadi, brought into being not by birth but by dreaming: Wanadi's second spirit-double, Nadeiumadi, thought her, smoked tobacco and sang her into existence with the maraca. He then dreamed her death so that her rising again would prove to the dying people that death could be undone. As Kumariawa began to climb back out of the earth, Odosha defiled her rising body with filth, the ground closed, and she fell into bones and charcoal, so that the resurrection failed and death became permanent for humankind. Wanadi gathered up her bones and left the world in darkness; in the sky of Kahuña she was at last resurrected and dwells there with him. Kumariawa thus stands at the very origin of human mortality in the Watunna.

Children

• Nadeiumadi

Domains

• death and resurrection
• origin of mortality

Powers

• to rise again from death in the sky after being slain on earth

Epithets

• KumariawaMarc de Civrieux, Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle, trans. David M. Guss (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980). (secondary)

Relations

• slayer of: OdoshaIt is Odosha who defiles and so ruins Kumariawa's resurrection, turning a demonstration of life-renewal into the origin of permanent death.Marc de Civrieux, Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle, trans. David M. Guss (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980). (secondary)

Sources

• Kumariawa is the mother of Wanadi, dreamed into being by his spirit-double Nadeiumadi and ritually slain to demonstrate resurrection; when Odosha spoils her rising, death becomes irreversible for humankind, and she is finally resurrected in the sky.: Marc de Civrieux, Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle, trans. David M. Guss (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980; repr. 1997). (secondary); David M. Guss, To Weave and Sing: Art, Symbol, and Narrative in the South American Rain Forest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). (secondary)