Tupã (mythology)

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Tupã (also Tupave or Tenondete) is the word for God in the Guarani language, including the Guarani creation myth.^[1] Tupã is considered to be the creator of the universe, of humanity and of the spirits of good and evil in Guarani mythology referred to as Angatupyry and Tau respectively.^[2] Tupã is more specifically considered the creator of light and his residence is the Sun.^[3]

As a post-conquest deity[]

According to Daniel H. Candido and Lucí H. Nunes of the University of Campinas Tupã was "not exactly a god, but rather a manifestation of" god, "in the form of thunder", and that the Jesuit evangelizers of the time would have mistranslated it as an actual divinity. The god in question would be Nhanderuvuçu, cited as the Tupi-Guarani supreme deity, with "Tupã" being mentioned only as a term for the phenomenon of lightning and thunder, described at different times as a "messenger" and "demon", while the term "Nhanderuete" would be more fitting as a comparison to the Christian god.^[4]

Câmara Cascudo has spoken about Tupã being a "work of adaptation of catechism, that already existed in concept for the Amerindians, but as the "sound of thunder" (tu-pá or tu-pã), an unknown (and therefore feared) phenomenon. was of the opinion that "the supreme being's voice was heard in storms", as tupã-cinunga, "the thunder", whose reflection was tupãberaba, "the lightning".

Myths[]

Marriage[]

Before the creation of the human race, Tupã wedded the goddess , 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.^{[citation needed]}

Tupã and Arasy met through a constellation of stars, and it took them years to find one another.^{[citation needed]}

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 . 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.^{[citation needed]}

Personality[]

Tupã was known for his personality. This is how many people remember him. He was a very seductive/sexual god(like most god of gods in mythology). This led to his many children. Tupã and Arasy counselled the humans to live peacefully, too procreate, and to live in love. Tupã then created the spirits of good and evil, Angatupyry and Tau, and left them to guide the people down one path or another and departed back into the heavens.^{[citation needed]}

Further reading[]

• Lapenda, Geraldo (1953). Etimologia da Palavra "Tupã". Biblioteca Digital Curt Nimuendaju.

References[]