Myths, Symbols and the Concept of Immortality among some Amerindian Societies

Abstract

R. H. CODRINGTON, an English missionary among the Melanesians at the end of the nineteenth century, observed that the Melanesians were aware of a certain spiritual force or energy: 'This mana is not fixed in anything, and can be conveyed in almost anything; but spirits, whether disembodied souls or supernatural beings, have it and can impart it'.' The Carib-speaking Akawaio have a word akwa which is an abstract force that manifests itself as light and is symbolised by the sun. Another word, akwalu, expresses the concept of spirit, the vital energy of all living things. The suffix -lu means 'a kind of', therefore akwalu means 'a kind of light/spirit' that is in a person or a thing.2 In a large number of South American Indian tongues the words for soul, shadow, image and vitality are synonymous. In Witoto the word komeke has the meaning of heart, chest, memory and thought.3 ReichelDolmatoff has studied this quality in some depth.4 In the language of the Desana the quality of vital energy is expressed by the word bogd or pogd. To smell is vihiri, but vihiri bogd is a very acute sense of smell. To see is inydri, but exceptionally good sight is inydri bogd. A stream of light is called gohsiri bogd. Sounds are also interpreted in terms of bogd. A sound that changes in intensity and tone (e.g. a buzzing insect or an arrow) is called behseri bogd. A fly forms its own circle of bogd. Edible ants (insects that are of a phallic character because of the yellow flesh and therefore constitute a food of the 'male' type) are collected in funnels made of