ognize and venerate a maternal spirit of all game. She is the
protector of the animal kingdom against mankind and main-
tains a mother-child relationship between herself and the
beasts. Although she possesses a homogeneous character, she
does not have a definite external form, nor does she exist as
an independent personal goddess. The shaman alone knows
and understands the methods for approaching her. In an ec-
static frenzy, he will feed her sweet manioc when she mani-
fests herself in any one of her various forms (for example, as
a specific type of land tortoise). The Mundurucú also attri-
bute to each individual animal species a mother spirit that
serves as a species protector.
Formerly the Mundurucú held a reconciliation ceremo-
ny at the beginning of the rainy season in honor of the guard-
ian spirits of the game and fish. At the climax of this ceremo-
ny, two men sang songs devoted to the spirit of each animal
in order to call on the spirit mothers. They performed this
act while sitting in front of the skulls of numerous animals
that had been taken in the hunts of the previous year. These
skulls were arranged in parallel rows, according to species,
in front of the men’s house. Additionally, a bowl of manioc
porridge was offered to the mothers of the animals to eat.
When the shaman was convinced that the spirits had arrived,
he blew tobacco smoke over the skulls and then, using a
bamboo tube, proceeded to symbolically suck out arrow-
heads or bullets that had entered the spirits. Through this
action the animals were pacified and the dancing could
begin. Such dances, performed by the men, consisted of pan-
tomimes of a herd of peccary, followed by representations of
the tapir and other animals. This organized presentation by
the Mundurucú was the most pregnant and illuminating of
such ceremonies in the Amazon region.
Hunting dances. The concept of a lord, or master, of
a particular species also plays an important role in the reli-
gious systems of the Carib-speaking tribes of the Guianas.
This is exemplified by the frequent use of the term father or
grandfather when speaking of a certain type of animal. The
Taulipáng and the Arecuná of the inland regions of the Guia-
nas believe that each individual animal type has a father (po-
dole), who is envisioned as either a real or a gigantic, legend-
ary representative of that particular species, and who displays
supernatural qualities. Two “animal fathers” are especially
meaningful for their hunting ritual: the father of the peccary
and the father of the fish. Both of these figures were original-
ly human shamans who were transformed into spiritual be-
ings and became incorporated into the opening dances of the
Parischerá and the Tukui, the magical hunting dances of the
Taulipáng. In the Parischerá, a long chain of participants,
wearing palm-leaf costumes and representing a grunting pec-
cary herd, dance to the booming of cane trumpets or clari-
nets. Performing the Parischerá ensures a plentiful supply of
four-legged animals, just as the Tukui dance guarantees a suf-
ficient supply of birds and fish. Starting with a dance per-
formed by the neighboring Maquiritaré that is similar to the
Parischerá of the Taulipáng, Meinhard Schuster classified the
ritual hunting dances devoted to the peccary, including those
of other Carib-speaking tribes of the Guianas; he concluded
that a relationship existed between these and the peccary
dances of the Mundurucú (Schuster, 1976).
Animal dances devoted to the attainment of game and
fish are found among other tribes of the Amazon area and
the Gran Chaco. Instead of focusing on the controlling mas-
ter of the animals, however, they are often directed at the
soul of the animal itself. Dances in which the animals, or
their spiritual master, are depicted with masks made from
bast fiber, straw, or wood frequently do not belong to hunt-
ing rituals as such. Instead, they are used in conjunction with
rites of passage, especially initiation and mourning feasts.
This applies to the animal-mask dances of the northwestern
Amazon, the tribes of the upper Xingu River, and the north-
western Ge tribes of eastern Brazil.
The jaguar. The predatory jaguar occupies a special po-
sition in the religious practices of peoples inhabiting an ex-
tensive area of South America that stretches from the coast
of Brazil to the central Andes. The religious life of these peo-
ples is dominated by activities related to the jaguar. The trib-
ute paid the jaguar takes a number of forms: in some cases,
attempts are made to pacify or to ward off the spirits of cap-
tured jaguars; in others jaguars are ceremonially killed; in yet
others, the jaguar is venerated as a god.
Among the ancient Tupinamba, the cadaver of a jaguar
was ornamented and then mourned by the women. The peo-
ple addressed the dead animal, explaining that it was his own
fault that he had been captured and killed since the trap into
which he had fallen had been intended for other game. He
was implored not to take revenge on human children.
Among the western groups of the Boróro tribe of the Mato
Grosso, who are included in the eastern Brazil cultural area,
there is a dance of reconciliation performed for the slain jag-
uar. Such dances take place at night and consist of panto-
mimes of the jaguar acted by a hunter who wears a jaguar
skin and is decorated with its claws and teeth. These Boróro
groups believe that the soul of the jaguar will in this way be
assimilated into the hunter. At the same time, the women
mourn and cry emphatically to pacify the soul of the animal,
which might otherwise take revenge by killing the hunter.
The eastern groups of the Boróro tribe attach quite a differ-
ent significance to their rites for the dead jaguar. Here the
ceremonies are held in conjunction with the hunting rituals
that accompany the death of an individual, and in this sense
they belong to mourning rites.
Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the Shi-
paya and Yuruna, Tupi-speaking tribes located on the mid-
dle Xingu River, knew of a cult dedicated to the creator of
their tribe, who was known as Kumaphari. In the beginning
Kumaphari had a human form, but in a state of anger he di-
vorced himself from human beings and settled in the north-
ern end of the world, where he became an invisible, cannibal-
istic jaguar. Through the shaman, who acted as a medium,
the jaguar god occasionally demanded human flesh, where-SOUTH AMERICAN INDIAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW 8581