wattipa

Yao (South America)

Noun

wattipa

1. 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.

Further reading

• de Laet, Johannes (1633) Novus orbis seu descriptionis Indiæ occidentalis, Libri XVIII, page 642
• Montanus, Arnoldus (1671) De nieuwe en onbekende weereld, of, Beschryving van America en ’t zuid-land, page 546