Omama

Also Known As: also Omamë, Omam, Omai; Omawë in the older ethnographic collections
Region/Culture: South America
Mythos: Amazon Mythology, Native Brazilian Mythology, Venezuelan Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Omama made the present forest and the sky above it, fathered the Yanomami, and buried the hot mineral substances that would destroy the world if they were brought back into the light.
Role in Mythos: Omama is the creator and lawgiver of the Yanomami, the maker of the forest called Hutukara and the origin of the xapiri spirits that shamans work with.
Relation to Humans: The Yanomami descend directly from Omama and his wife, and the rules of their society are held to be his instructions rather than anyone’s invention. He is not present or petitioned like a god who listens; what he left behind, the spirits and the buried metals, is what people deal with now.

The ground underfoot is the back of a sky that fell. It came down in the first age onto a forest that was never solid enough to hold, crushed the people living beneath it, and pushed them into an underworld where they became the aõpatari, ancestors with an appetite for meat. What was left settled, greened over and became the floor of the world. The Yanomami still call the forest the old sky.

Omama had to build the replacement. He and his brother Yoasi came into existence alone, with no father and no mother, and there is no story about where they came from, which is unusual for a creator and worth sitting with for a moment. The forest Omama made this time he called Hutukara, and he made it to last. He raised a new sky over it and pinned it down with metal foundations driven deep into the earth, the way a man stakes a shelter against wind. He made the rivers and the water people drink. He made the wind that moves the leaves. Then he made people, and made them many.

He also made a decision that the Yanomami now regard as the most important thing he ever did. In the beginning, fragments of the sky, the moon, the sun and the stars had fallen to earth, and they were hot. Not warm to the touch but hot in the way a curse is hot, sorcery substances that sicken whatever comes near them. Omama gathered them and put them where they would stay cool, deep under the ground, and packed the earth over them. Below even those he set the father of gold, whose spirit stands as an underground mountain holding the land steady and keeping the anger of thunder and lightning from tearing it open. He buried them the way anyone buries something dangerous: thoroughly, and with the intention that it stay buried.

The Yanomami themselves came out of a fishing trip. Omama went to a wide river with a line, and what took it was not a fish but the daughter of Tëpërësiki, the monster who lives at the bottom of the waters and owns the cultivated plants. She came up out of the current as a woman, Thuëyoma, a water being that allowed itself to be caught in that shape, and the whole Yanomami people descend from her body. Her father became Omama’s father-in-law, which is the sort of relationship that has consequences. Tëpërësiki’s house is still down there in the deep water with the yawarioma spirits, whose sisters seduce young hunters and drive them out of their minds, and a young man who survives that is on his way to becoming a shaman.

Omama did not stay. Before leaving he set out the rules by which the Yanomami live, and he left the xapiri spirits behind to look after them. The xapiri are the images of everything in the forest: mammals, birds, fish, lizards, crustaceans, trees, leaves, vines, wild honey, stone, waterfall, moon, storm, thunder, and also the humbler household ones, the dog spirit, the fire spirit, the spirit of the clay pot. Their mirrors cover the whole extent of the forest, and on them they dance without stopping. A shaman reaches them by inhaling yãkõana, a bitter powder ground from the inner bark and resin of a virola tree, taken for days at a time under the supervision of older men until his eyes die and he can see. He comes back able to summon them, to sing their songs and copy their choreography, and among the things they do together is hold up the sky. This is not a metaphor within the tradition. The last sky fell.

Yoasi worked in the other direction. He was jealous of his brother from the start and his body was covered in white spots. Yoasi only did bad things. Death entered the world through him, along with every other affliction the Yanomami suffer, and the arrangement Omama had made to keep the whites at a safe distance was undone by him too. Omama had set an island aside for them out across the water and meant them to stay on it. Yoasi brought them back, telling them there were no people living in these forests.

What Omama could do was creation on the largest scale, and his power runs through everything the Yanomami touch: the land, the river, the wind, the food plants that came from his wife’s family, the spirits that answer a shaman’s call, the shape of a house and the conduct expected inside it. What he could not do is stay, or stop his brother, or prevent people from digging. His safeguards were physical, and a physical thing can be undone. When the metals and the oil are pulled out of the ground, the heat comes with them and rises as xawara wakixi, epidemic smoke, which is how the Yanomami describe the fevers that arrive alongside mining. If the father of gold is ever reached and lifted out, the shamans say, the props go with it and the sky comes down a second time. Omama built well. He did not build against shovels.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Omama?

Omama is the creator in Yanomami cosmology, the maker of the present forest, sky, rivers and people. He came into existence alone with his brother Yoasi, with no father and no mother. The Yanomami of Brazil and Venezuela descend from him directly and hold the rules of their society to be his.

What did Omama create?

Omama made the forest called Hutukara after the previous one collapsed, raised a new sky and fixed it in place with metal foundations driven deep into the earth, and made the wind and the rivers. He fathered the Yanomami people with Thuëyoma, whom he pulled out of a river. He also left behind the xapiri, the spirits that Yanomami shamans work with.

Why did Omama bury metals and minerals underground?

The minerals are fragments of the sky, moon, sun and stars that fell to earth in the first age, and they are dangerous, hot sorcery substances that cause sickness. Omama buried them deep so they would stay cool and harmless. When mining brings them back up, the Yanomami say the heat is released as xawara wakixi, epidemic smoke, and that disturbing the father of gold beneath them would bring the sky down.

Who was Yoasi?

Yoasi was Omama’s jealous brother, whose body was covered in white spots and who did only harm. Death came into the world through him, along with the other ills that afflict the Yanomami. He is also blamed for leading the whites back from the island Omama had set aside for them, by telling them the forests here were empty of people.

Where does the Yanomami creation story say the forest came from?

The forest floor is the underside of an earlier sky that collapsed, and the Yanomami still refer to it as the old sky. Its inhabitants were crushed and driven into an underworld, where they became the flesh-hungry aõpatari. Omama then built a sturdier forest, Hutukara, on top of the wreckage and raised a new sky above it.