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REVELATION OF OUR ELDER BROTHER KAUYUMARITamatsi Kauyumari (Our Elder Brother Deer Spirit) came to his mother Tatei Yurianaka (Our Mother Moist Earth) in the night, as a person, wearing all his shamanic instruments. Yurianaka (below in the orange space) lights a candle (the flame beneath the deer). She removes all his instruments (behind and above her) and then adorns her son in antlers as a deer, the final embodiment of his being. Their words intermingle (blue spots), as she lights the candle. Then Kauyumari vanishes from before his mother and enters his shaman’s basket, tacuatsi (mouth-like figure below deer), reappearing as a winged serpent. The deer-tail (bottom right corner) crowned with an antler represents the great power Kauyumari derives from the tail; for it is with the movement of his tail that he transforms himself into anything or disappears from anywhere. Kauyumari explains to Yurianaka that he is not ready to assume his final form as a deer because he has yet to prove his shamanic powers. As the unifying spirit of the gods, Our Ancestors, he is about to make his pilgrimage to the holy land in the east. Invisible in his shaman’s basket, he will be carried by his elder self, Tamatsi Maxakuaxí (Our Elder Brother Deer Tail), his temple body. Thus, Kauyumari is a dual being, having two sets of antlers, two souls (flowers above his head) and two deer-tails between two reeds (top right) in the hollow of which all the ancestors first took form. Dew gathers amid the “reeds that are greening”, haka ura. It condenses in the top right corner into the cool mist of a dawn. Dew brings new life (pink stars below) to the world. Dew signifies soul for man. It is holy water seen spilling from a bowl (right of center). Tatei Yurianaka tells her son Kauyumari: “You will be going to Pariya, the Altar of Dawn, and how good this is! Yet we, the Ancestors, do not know what to feed you.” But Kauyumari answers that he will eat nothing while on his pilgrimage. Dew and incense will suffice for his cleansed spirit. Drops beneath his shaman’s basket (mouth figure below) and the vapors of copal incense are created from Kauyumari’s breath. He has readied all his sacred instruments, after cleansing himself with grass (bottom left). The black line with four blue feathers above the grass is his wristguard. Kauyumari gathers these in his shaman’s basket along with two tobacco gourds. Kauyumari’s pilgrimage begins at the mouth of Our Mother Ocean, lying under the figure of Mother Earth like a prayer mat. Orange paths lead to the different power spots of Our Ancestors. The gourds, yaquayte, contain the binding heart of shamanic commitment and devotion through personal self-sacrifice. Kauyumari also carries a green string of feathers which he hangs over his back like a cape, wapasari. Feathers like the antlers of the deer are the receptors of spirit messages carried in the wind (one is seen on Kauyumari’s basket in or at the foot of Mother Ocean). They are also attached to an arrow (orange space). Two of its feathers undulate, sending off distant messages. A tobacco gourd, symbol of the plumed arrow’s baggage of memory, hangs at the base of the speaking instrument. From its head, composed of feather down, extends a black vibration of energy connecting to the sprouting reed, original birthplace and source of the power of the plumed arrow, muvieri
Original wool
yarn-painting by José Benítez Sánchez, 24" ×
32", 1975.
Translation and Interpretation by Juan Negrín based on a taped
explanation with the artist.
Photograph: Craig Buchanan ©1976 – 2003 Juan Negrín,
All rights reserved.