with Covered Eyes: Amerindians and the Arts of Seeing in Wilson Harris and Steve McQueen

The Yekuana people, Carib speakers living around the Paragua River in Venezuela, who in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries undertook breathtaking journeys to Kijkoveral and Georgetown and were known to Richard Schomburgk1 as “Maiongkong”, tell in their creation epic Watunna of the first man Wanadi and his dark brother Odosha, an embodiment of evil, deception and death. In the third phase of creation Odosha pursues Wanadi from the centre of the universe in Kushamakari to the edges of the material world. At each stage of the journey Wanadi creates diversions to hold Odosha up; first there are rapids in the rivers stocked with game, then entire cities full of riches designed to make Odosha think he has found Wanadi and entered heaven. Thus he creates the village of Angostura, populating it with a race of whites called Iaranavi. When this fails to deter Odosha he creates Amenadiña (Georgetown), from which traders will later bring the murderous Kanaima. Finally, when Odosha continues his pursuit, Wanadi constructs his ultimate creation Kahu Awadiña, a city of mirrors and glass at the edge of the universe: