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Oman

huckleberry glove soup

01:51 / 13.07.08

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone here can provide me any information, especially mythology, on this South American deity.

From what little I've gathered he's a repairer of the world and father to the Yanomami in Venezuela/Brazil?

Is this accurate?

Thank you for any insight,

Michael

02:05 / 13.07.08

Hi cgs.

Don't think i can give you any infomation on Oman. Really not my area, but how about giving some more info about yourself. Barbelith doesn't really work that well as a question-answer type of site and i'm sure you'll get far more interesting and beneficial stuff from talking about how you are interested in Oman, and how you came to ask the question in the first place, and engaging with the people on the board a bit more.

huckleberry glove soup

06:11 / 13.07.08

Thank you, ghadis.

I've been doing some research for some fiction I'm writing and it's lead me down a South American path... specifically to the Yanomami (translated=Human Beings)

I came across this post on GodChecker and it intrigued me to say the least:

"Gods from South American Mythology...
OMAN

OMAN: A Do-It-Yourself Creator God.

He's a make-and-mend sort of deity. One day whilst patching up the upper layers of the world and making a third storey, a section he was standing on fell down.

He sighed, shook his head and said 'I'm gonna go fishing'. Which he did. And he caught a woman. Well, a primeval proto-woman — she had one teeny weeny aperture the size of a hummingbird's anus.

So OMAN performed some sexual surgery with the aid of some piranha teeth. You may wince, but it worked. He went on to father all the Yanomami ancestors. Other tribes were just made from river mist and foam, and colored in by a large bird.

Meanwhile, we assume the world is still falling slowly to bits.

Entry last modified on 28 December 2005

VITAL STATISTIX
Area or people: Yanomami of North Amazon
Location : South America
Gender : Male
Category : Deity
Pronunciation : Coming soon
Alternative names : None known
Attributes : Coming soon
Mystic number : 1420 (a) "

Not sure how accurate that may be... attempting to verify.

Most of the research I've turned up since has been valuable in regards to the Yanomami culture and ritual practice, but not so much on the actual thought and mortar theology.

I've just recently joined this board and after browsing some conversation here, I thought perhaps someone might have some insight into the deity or how to go about tracking that information down.

Thank you again for the advice.

-

14:56 / 13.07.08

You might want to search for "Omam" (as in YanOMAMi) as well as "Oman."

museum in time, tiger in space

03:41 / 14.07.08

You might want to search for Omao too - seems to be more or less the same deity.

huckleberry glove soup

21:48 / 14.07.08

Ev, museum, excellent suggestions that both bore fruit. He comes from an oral tradition so I'm sure there are tons of variations in his story.

I'm still hunting for specifics but this has given me a ton more leads.

Thanks all.

23:16 / 14.07.08

We didn't look at the Yanomamo in great depth in the various anthro classes, but this Oman chap is not ringing a bell. Could you post a list of the sources you find as you come across them? The film we saw at school (which is just the same one with Chagnon that everybody sees) was completely fascinating and I'd love to hear what else you find.

huckleberry glove soup

18:22 / 20.07.08

brb,
If there's anything of particular interest to you I might be able to help point you towards it.

Basically the Yanomami were screwed in a glodrush/general plundering (strip mining)of their natural environment in the 80's. They're a shamanic/tribal people of Venezuela/Brazil with villages numbering in several dozen that will oftne cluster together in sort of "war conglomerates" with other tribes in times of stress and warfare. Some of the links above have some versions of varying creation myths associated with the deities.

I haven't really been able to find what I was looking for so I'm going to make it up from a rough understanding. Again, it's oral tradition from a tribal society that stretches across relatively small enclaves of people. I figure I can go with a good faith offshot tribal variation from the bulk of what I've read.