Tupã (mythology)

Tupa (also Tupã, Tupave or Tenondete) is the name of the supreme god in the Guaraní creation myth. Tupa is also the word in the Guaraní language that means "god".[1] Tupã is considered to be the creator of the universe, and more specifically the creator of light. His residence is the Sun.[2]

Myths

Marriage

Before the creation of the human race, Tupã wedded the goddess Arasy, the mother of the sky whose home was the Moon. According to the myth, Tupã and Arasy descended upon the Earth one morning after their wedding, and together they created the rivers and the seas, the forests, the stars and all the living beings of the universe. It is said that the location they stood while creating these things was atop a hill in Areguá, a small city in Paraguay near the capital of Asunción.

Tupã and Arasy met through a constellation of stars, and it took them years to find one another.

Creation of human race

After the creation of all the things in the earth, Tupã set to creating the first human couple on the earth. For his creation, Tupã used a mixture of clay, juice extracted from yerba mate, blood from the Short-tailed Nighthawk, the leaves of several kinds of plants, and finally a centipede. He made a paste of this mixture, using the waters from a nearby spring that would become Lake Ypacaraí. From this paste Tupã created a pair of statues in his image, and left them in the sun to dry and filled them with life. The newly created humans were placed in front of the gods, and the woman was named Sypave (literally "mother of the people") by Arasy, and the man was named Rupave (literally "father of the people") by Tupã.

Personality

Tupã was known for his personality, and this is how many people remember him. He was a very seductive/sexual god. This led to his many children. Tupã and Arasy counselled the humans to live peacefully, to procreate, and to live in love. Tupã then created the spirits of good and evil, Angatupyry and Tau, left them to guide the people down one path or another and departed back into the heavens.

Notes

  1. ↑ Specters of the West and the Politics of Translation by Naoki Sakai, Yukiko Hanawa
  2. ↑ COLMAN, Narciso R. (Rosicrán): Ñande Ypy Kuéra ("Nuestros antepasados"), 1929. Online version
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