wattipa
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Yao (South America)
[edit]Noun
[edit]wattipa
- a kind of spirit with which shamans were said to converse and from which they learned of events in remote times and places, but by which they were also often harmed
- 1633, Johannes de Laet, Novus orbis seu descriptionis Indiæ occidentalis, Libri XVIII (in Latin), page 642:
- […] perſuadent enim ſe crebro cum dæmone ſermones ſerere, quem Wattipam nominant, & res geſtas in longinquis regionibus ab ipſo edoceri, nec non futuras præmoneri: agnoſcunt autem hunc ſpiritum malum eſſe; neque injuria, nam haud raro miſerum in modum ab ipſo flagellantur.
- For they persuade themselves that they often hold conversations with a demon whom they call Wattipa, and that they are informed by him of things done in distant regions, and indeed foreshown things to be: but they acknowledge that this spirit is evil; and not without reason, for not infrequently they are scourged by him in a miserable manner.