Wanadi

Wanadi is the supreme creator of the Ye'kuana (Maquiritare, So'to) of the upper Orinoco and Caura. Born of the Sun in the heaven called Kahuña, he is the being of great light who, though one, acts on earth through a series of spirit-doubles (damodede). He creates by dreaming, by blowing tobacco smoke, and by singing with the maraca. Across the Watunna cycle Wanadi's emissaries struggle against Odosha, the counter-creator who brings death and evil into the world; finally Wanadi returns to the sky and ceases to interfere directly in human life, leaving humanity in a world contested by his agents and Odosha's demons.

Domains

• creation cosmogony
• sun and light
• shamanic knowledge

Powers

• to bring beings into existence by dreaming, smoking tobacco and shaking the maraca
• to send avatars of himself down to the earth

Epithets

• Kahuña Wanadi

Relations

• enemy: Odosha
• creator of: Kumariawa

Sources

• Marc de Civrieux, Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle, trans. David M. Guss (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980; repr. 1997).
• David M. Guss, To Weave and Sing: Art, Symbol, and Narrative in the South American Rain Forest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
• 'Wanadi,' Encyclopaedia Britannica.