Moonblood: A Yanomamö Creation Myth as Told by Dedeheiwa

In this myth, the Yanomamö account for the creation of human beings and for their ferocity. The myth is told by the shaman Dedeheiwä. 

Long ago, when people "like us" lived in a village "over there," Moon lived there too, and ate the souls of children. The villagers became very angry, especially because when Moon descended to consume the ashes of children, hanging from the roof in gourds, he crunched and chanted as he gloated over his evil tricks. So the ancestor Suhirina, who was very beautiful and tall, shot the moon with a bamboo-tipped arrow, and Moon's blood spilled all over the earth. Human beings came from this blood: strong and fierce people from the center where the most blood spilled, and weaker people from the Moon's droplets.

You are from true blood, Dedeheiwä tells Chagnon, because there are many of you; my own village is weak, as we are descended from the droplets. It is because of Moon's blood, explains the shaman, that men fight and kill each other.

Moonblood was restored by DER with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Films in the Yanomamö series:

Arrow Game *†

The Ax Fight †

Bride Service

Children's Magical Death *†

Climbing the Peach Palm *†

A Father Washes His Children *†

The Feast

Firewood *

Jaguar, a Yanomamö Twin Cycle Myth

Magical Death †

A Man and His Wife Make a Hammock *†

A Man Called Bee: Studying the Yanomamö †

Moonblood: A Yanomamö Creation Myth †

Myth of Naro, as told by Dedeheiwä

Myth of Naro, as told by Kaobawä

New Tribes Mission

Ocamo is My Town

Tapir Distribution *

Tug-of-War, Yanomamö *

Weeding the Garden *†

Yanomamö: A Multidisciplinary Study

Yanomamö of the Orinoco 

* included on the Yanomamö Shorts compilation

† included in the Yanomamö Films: Remastered, Vol. 1 set