Mount Roraima: Myths, Mysteries, and the Cloud-Covered Tepui of the Gods
Mount Roraima is located on a high plateau at the junction of Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana. It was carved from a single, monolithic, gigantic piece of rock with sides forming a straight vertical line.
Some researchers say Mount Roraima is not a mountain but an artificially created formation. Others say it is a rather unique work of nature. Some just say it’s a scary thing.
The top of the vertical walls is up to 400 meters. The corner-sloping ledge forms a relatively sharp upper and lower line around the perimeter. The height of the ridge reaches 170 meters! The total size of the structure reaches 1,150 meters from its base.
The Pemon (Pemón or Pemong), who are indigenous people living in areas of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana, this fascinating formation must have played an essential role in their rich mythology. The Pemon’s mythic tradition merged into their present Catholic and Christian faiths. In their beliefs, gods reside in the grassland area’s table-top mountains called tepui.
The Pemon people believe the mountains are off-limits to the living, as they are also home to ancestor spirits called mawari.
The word tepui in the local Pemon people means’ House of the gods,’ For centuries, people avoided climbing Mount Roraima for fear of the gods’ punishment. In addition, rumors went about strange creatures that lived on top of it.
In 1912, the first non-native person who visited Roraima to study Pemon myths and language seriously was the German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg.
Important myths describe the origins of the sun and moon, the creation of the tepui mountains that
spectacularly rise from the savannahs of the Gran Sabana and the activities of the creator hero Makunaima and his brothers.
In the language of Pemon Indians, ‘roroi’ means “blue-green,” and ‘ma’ – “great.” Thus, the name “Roraima” is translated from the local dialect and means “big blue-green mountain.”
According to the beliefs of Aboriginal peoples, a stump was left from the mighty tree. This stump was a source of all the fruits and vegetables in the world. Legendary hero Makunayma – literally means “He Works By Night” – also known as “God” (“Great Spirit”) cut down the tree, and the barrel fell to the ground and caused a terrible flood.
Makunaima is the great Creator god of the Akawaio (indigenous people in Roraima (Brazil), Guyana, Venezuela, and neighboring Caribean tribes. Traditional Cariban cosmology has been mixed to some degree with Christian elements after the arrival of Christian missionaries.
Older myths from this region of the world feature Makunaima as a legendary cultural hero who slays monsters. In more recent sources, these heroic deeds are usually ascribed to the benevolent demigod Sigu (or Sigoo) instead of Makunaima. In the Caribs’ beliefs, the great god, Makunaima, is never personified, and mortal man has never seen him.
