Anhangá

For the shield bug, see Anhanga (bug).

Anhangá or Anhanga (Tupi: Anhang<añánga;^[2] Sateré-Mawé: Anhang/Ahiag Kag^[3] or Ahiãg;^[4] French: Agnan, aignen) is an "Evil Spirit" figure present in the cosmovision of several native groups from Brazil and Indianist literature.

Aygnan (Anhangá) in the forms of birds and beasts, and other oddities, in Léry Histoire d'vn voyage (1580 edition).^[1]

The spirit is believed to torment the soul of the dead, manifested in nature as tempestuous noises. It also constantly afflicts the living, with torment which feels like beating, appearing in the forms of birds and beasts and other strange beings (also as armadillo, the pirarucu fish, etc. according to modern collected lore). It particularly afflicts hunters with madness and fever, especially if they target females (does) with young, as it is a guardian of wildlife game in the open field (or the forest, according to modern sources), and as such, usually appears in the guise of white deer with fiery eyes. People also feared the presence of the Evil Spirit during funerary rituals, where the virtuous dead are supposed to journey to the elysian Land Without Evils.

Nomenclature

Anhanga the "Evil Spirt"^[5] is sometimes styled Anhan,^[6] and transliterated in French sources as agnan,^[7] aignan, aignen, aygnan, etc.^[8][9][a]

Etymology

A suggested etymology of Anhanga is anho "alone" + anga "ghost, spirit".^[11]

Bantu false cognate

Those of African banto descent in Brasil thought Anhanga might derive from their mother tongue due to coincidental similarities,^[12] but this is an instance of folk etymology and false cognate. Black hunters in Brazil "naturally" reinterpreted Anhanga in terms of words in their Imbundo language, namely n'hanga for "hunt" and ri-nhanga "hunter".^[13]

Aliases

The Anhan is the same as Jurupari in certain contexts,^[14][15] or else, Jurupari is the spirit's name prevalent among the Northern Tupi.^[6]

It is also otherwise known as Kaagere.^[16][b]

Accented spelling

As for the spelling anhanga vs. anhangá, writer Machado de Assis explained how the diacritical mark placement and change in pronunciation evolved:

The original spelling was the unaccented anhanga and the authentic pronunciation stressed the beginning syllable (paroxyton). Later, the accented form anhangá that stressed the last syllable (oxytone) came into frequent use in 17th century poetical works.^[18]

In Tupinambá culture

The Tupinambá people believed that Anhangá could take many different forms (cf. § Animal forms). Anhangá (Agnan)^[c] are believed to be the tormenters of dead souls.^[20] As much as he was a threat to the dead, he was an often-seen, ubiquitous and constant tormentor the living as well,^[21] who could also have their bodies and souls punished (beating them, etc.^[23]). The mere memory of the suffering inflicted by Anhangá was enough to torment them. The Tupinambás were said to fear this malignant spirit more than anything else.^[24]

This Evil Spirit would be one of the biggest concerns for those preparing the burial ritual, when it came the dead soul to journey to the Land Without Evils (aka Guajupiá [pt]^[d]). Food offerings would be made alongside a fire to warm the body. Food was offered to sustain the dead as well as to ensure Anhangá would eat the food instead of the dead.^[26] The fire, meanwhile, had the goal of not only providing warmth, but also protection to the dead, as it would keep Anhangá away.^[27] The living would also encourage the dead already placed in their round dug-out burial pit (i.e. who had already reached Guajupiá^[28]) to not let their fires go out.^[29] It is emphasized that only souls of the most virtuous (those who had killed and eaten many enemies) ascend to the high mountain where lies this Elysium, whereas the souls of those who did not defend their realm wind up with Anhan, the tormenting devil.^[21][30]

The missionary André Thevet writing in the 16th century records that the natives while traveling over water believed that the noise of tempest or hurricanes heard were caused by "the souls of relatives and friends", associated with the agnan.^[31][5] Thevet stated that the reciting of the Gospel of St. John had assuage the natives' Agnan attack or episode, and he performed this recitation on a number of occasions.^[32][33][34]

The "red devil" (Portuguese: anhangapitã, Spanish: añangapitanga) has been regarded as synonymous with the carbuncle creature and the teiniaguá by some authorities, namely lexicographer Daniel Granada, and Augusto Meyer after him.^[35][36]

In Mawé culture

A young sataré-mawé with a rite of passage instrument.

To the Mawés, the Anhangá (Sateré-Mawé: ahiãg) is portrayed as a demon, follower of Yurupari (Jurupari).^[37] These creatures are known and feared for being able to take various forms to fool people, curse, possess, kidnap, kill and eat them.^[37] Anhangá either can't swim or is afraid of entering the water out of fear for Sukuyu'wera, the water protecting spirit, his enemy.^[37]

Protector of animals

Pampas deer. Anhangá appears in the form of deer of white or red color.

As attested in 19th century writings (by Couto de Magalhães), Anhangá takes the form of a white deer with fiery eyes^[e] and he is the protector of animals of the open fields (campo), guarding animals against abusive hunting practices in such terrain. Similar guardianship in the bush or forest (mato) is assumed by Cahipora/Cahapora (i.e. Caipora).^[39][40]

However, later commentary regards the Anhanga as the protector of forest animals, e.g. Ferreira's Aurélio Dictionary (1986),^[42] and likewise Simas [pt]'s Brazilian bestiary (2024).^[43] And according to Antônio Houaiss Anhanga was a "genie of the forest and protector of the fauna and flora in Tupi mythology", who "neither devours nor kills. He avenges animals victimized by insatiable hunters".^[44]

According to tradition, the Anhanga will alter the outcome of a chase in the field, by inflicting "fever and sometimes madness" on a hunter who pursues a nursing animal (tr. "animal with young").^[45][40][f]

Couto de Magalhães also supplied a legend from Santarém where a Tupinambá hunter pursued a doe and her suckling fawn. He grabbed the fawn, making it squeal to attract the mother and shot her. Or so he thought. In fact he had been confused by the Anhangá's illusions and had shot his own mother to death.^[46][40]

Câmara Cascudo discussed how the original deer myth as described by Magalhães had transformed in more modern periods:^[47]

The Anhanga is a myth of verbal confusion. The Anhanga that made the savage shake in fear was the Anga, the wandering soul, the phantom, the spirit of the dead. Terrifying. It was incorporeal. It was the evil-thing, the fear without form, convulsive, trapping the shy ones inside theirs ocas [indigenous houses] by the heat of the fire, surrounded by the dark night of the tropics. The Anhanga of with eyes of fire and the body of a deer is a numen, the protector of the species, totemic convention, the Tupi's regional superstition, for it hadn't been transmitted to other indigenous peoples and, through passing it to the ones of mixed-race, had lost his function as a patron of the field hunts. [....] it is logic to think that the initial myth, the ur-mythus, would be only Anga, the soul without a body, spreading fear.^[48]

Animal forms

The description that the Anhanga may appear in the guise of humans or various mammals, fish, reptiles, or birds. Hence there are said to be such subtypes as the mira-anhanga (human-faced), tatu-anhanga (armadillo), suaçu-anhanga (deer), tapira-anhanga (ox), tapira-pirarucu (pirarucu fish), iurará-anhanga (turtle), nhambu-anhanga (inambu or tinamou bird), occurs in Cascudo's folklore dictionary (1s ed., 1954).^[49][43]

An alternate, somewhat detailed description is given by João Barbosa Rodrigues (d. 1909), whereby the incarnation of the Anhanga that appears before humans "is always in the form of a deer, red in color, with antlers covered in hair, with a fiery gaze, a cross on its forehead, known as Suessú anhanga.."^[15]

Colonialism vs. Indianism

Missionary viewpoint

The Jesuit missionary José de Anchieta, in his auto Tupi-Medieval, gives the name Anhangupiara, " a word created from the agglutination of the nouns anhangá and jupiara", to an angel, whose meaning in the Latin translation of the Anchietan Tupi would be the enemy of the anhangás.^[50][51]

Another Jesuit, António Vieira, described "Añangá" in the Sermon on Incontinences (Unchastity), as a duplicitous entity worshiped by the indigenous folk.^[52]

In more modern times, Neo-Pentecostal churches with a strong presence in the Mawé communities reinterpret Anhangá as an announcement of evil and a demonic manifestation, to be fought by prayers and chants.^[3]

In literary context

Anhangá is present in the Indianist works of Brazilian novelist Gonçalves Dias. In the poems "O Canto do Piaga (Song of the shaman)" and "Deprecação (Deprecation)" from his 1846 anthology,^[53] Anhangá is characterized as a cruel and merciless entity, allied with the colonizers.^[54]

In Santa Rita Durão's "Caramuru" (1781), the author presents Anhangá or Anhangás taking the roles of demons, as well as presenting Tupã taking a creator role in the creation of a colonialist myth paralleled to the Biblical Creation Myth.^[55]

In similar vein, the bandeirante Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva, earned the nickname Anhangüera (with the sense of "Old Devil" or "Consummate Devil"), stemming from Anhangá.^[56][57]

See also

• Guarani mythology
• Tupi people
• Animism
• Caipora
• Curupira

Explanatory notes

1. Or Ingange in German transliteration given by Hans Staden in True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil (1557). The notes by list a number of differently spelt transliterations into French or Portuguese.^[10]
2. Barbosa Rodrigues tries to identify the supposedly fabulous deer "Suessú anhanga" with real fauna, the çuaçu kaatinga ('deer of white foliage/forest' or 'deer of the Caatinga') of Sul (the South[?]), scientifically named Cervus simplicicornis by Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger.^[15]
3. Thevet in some places styles the evil spirit as Agnan hypóuchy (var. Hipouchy Aignen, cf, quote). However, Acequeiey Aygan means "I fear the devil Anhanga" while Nacequeiey Aygan means "I do not fear the devil", according to Léry.^[19]
4. This name "Guajupiá" for the paradise is solely attested by Claude d'Abbeville of the 17th century.^[25] Thus, even though Beauclair et al. (2009), p. 1413 interpolates "Guajupiá" in the claims, sources such as Thevet or Yves d'Evereux [fr] do not emply that name.
5. It is contended that the Tapajó people regarded a "white deer with fiery eyes" as one of the principal "deities", according to missionary Johann Philipp Bettendorff [pt] from the late 17c., and this is identifiable with the Anhangá.^[38]
6. A somewhat altered and expanded version tells it as the "forest" hunters who prey on pregnant females and suckling young become the targets of Anhanga.^[43]