A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
After a drinking feast, a man visits a pond to cool himself and meets Amanna. She persuades him to enter the water, promising protection from drowning. Below the surface he finds houses, numerous inhabitants and young women offering drink; Amanna takes him instead to her father, who welcomes him. His mother follows his tracks to the pond, assumes he has drowned and mourns. The man eventually visits home but conceals where he has been.
He returns repeatedly to Amanna and they have three children. His younger brother suspects his association with the Okoyumo people and questions him during another drinking party. Later, when Amanna accompanies her husband to his mother's house, the brother renews the question. Irritated, the husband identifies Amanna and her people aloud. She immediately retreats to the pond; he follows, and her relatives kill him underwater for revealing her identity. The published account gives her departure and his death, without describing the children's later lives.
Origins & earliest records
The located historical witness is Amanna and her Talkative Husband, section 192, printed pp. 251–252 in Walter E. Roth's 1915 Guiana collection. Roth marks the account Carib and places it within a chapter on water spirits. He provides no named narrator or defensible date for the story's oral beginning.
Records & interpretation
The complete public-domain episode was inspected through its underwater ending. It names Amanna and the Okoyumo people, describes the submerged household and specifies three children. Roth's adjacent generalizations about water spirits span several peoples; this profile confines Amanna's actions and marriage conditions to her own explicitly marked account.
In the literature
“Amanna had borne him three children”
Section192, printed p.252
Amanna’s three children remain behind when their parents visit the human family.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
An inquiry into the animism and folk-lore of the Guiana Indians
Section 192, Amanna and her Talkative Husband, complete printed pp. 251–252.
- 02
An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-lore of the Guiana Indians — Amanna and her Talkative Husband, Carib-labelled section192
Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,1915; selected Cornell scan. Preface dated Pomeroon,June1913 explains A=Arawak, C=Carib, W=Warrau source labels. Named episodes read in full; individual contributors not named in these headings.
Family, evolution & connections
Amanna’s three-generation family — Roth §192
Amanna and Her Talkative Husband, pp. 251–252.
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- Amanna’s unnamed father
- Three unnamed children with her human husband
Explicit father–daughter and mother–children statements. No names or sexes are supplied for the three children or grandfather. The husband’s other relatives are not included; the children’s later fate is unstated. The tree does not generalize to every Okoyumo.
Amanna’s unnamed father in §192
Amanna takes the human visitor to her father, who welcomes him and asks her to care for him. The story does not name this father or identify the entire underwater population as his descendants.
Amanna’s three unnamed children in §192
Roth’s account explicitly states that Amanna bears three children to her husband. They remain underwater when the couple visits his mother; the text does not give their names, sexes or later fate.
Amanna’s human husband in §192
The narrator calls the man Amanna’s husband and later describes his disclosure of her name and people. This is a story-specific marriage, not evidence that all Okoyumo have human spouses.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
An inquiry into the animism and folk-lore of the Guiana Indians
Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,1915; selected Cornell scan. Preface dated Pomeroon,June1913 explains A=Arawak, C=Carib, W=Warrau source labels. Named episodes read in full; individual contributors not named in these headings.
- Amanna, a woman of the Okoyumo people, invites a man below a pond and protects him from drowning. He sees houses and inhabitants and is welcomed by her father. His own mother believes him drowned until he visits, but he repeatedly returns to his water-spirit wife despite her dependence on him.
Section192, printed pp.251–252, underwater welcome and repeated returns
- Amanna bears the man three children. They leave the children underwater when visiting his mother. Pressed by his drunken younger brother, he identifies Amanna by name and people. She immediately returns to the pond; he follows and her friends and relatives kill him for the disclosure.
Selected Carib-labelled account; the underwater settlement is narrative testimony, not a documented physical site. No unnamed father or husband assigned an invented proper name. The source does not say Amanna personally kills him, that the three children die, or that she is his human mother. The particular ending is retained without copying taboo word lists in the following sections.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- ResearchRoth 1915: Amanna and her Talkative HusbandResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.