Wahma of Korobona’s lake

Overview

In Brett’s Legend of Korobona, two sisters enter a forbidden lake despite their brothers’ warnings. Korobona shakes a rod of charmed wood and thereby releases a water spirit restrained by another power. A humanlike figure seizes her while permitting the younger sister to leave. He requires Korobona to share his underwater home for a time. The story later calls this being Wahma.

After her return, watchers describe the spirit alternately as an immense snake among trees, a man by the shore and a figure human above but serpentine below. Korobona goes back to investigate despite her sister’s entreaty. Approaching in serpent form, he shows only a seedlike head and a tail resembling floating scum; when she stoops closer, he captures her again. The second child consequently shares part of his father’s form.

Im Thurn’s1883 condensation instead makes a projecting tree stump seize the woman and become her husband. It does not retain Brett’s distinction between the charmed rod and the being bound beneath the water. The two presentations therefore support a relationship with the lake and a supernatural father, but they should not be combined into a single supposedly exact mechanism. Neither establishes a universal Warao water-spirit taxonomy or the biological origin of a human community.

Origins & earliest records

Brett’s Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana (1880 catalogue date), with the surrounding Warau narrative frame naming McLeod. English verse and missionary commentary mediate the account; no exact interview date is supplied here.

Records & interpretation

Complete selected Brett narrative and its McLeod frame53–55 read, alongside the complete im Thurn1883 folk-lore chapter371–388. Im Thurn acknowledges extensive dependence on Brett; differences between the two presentations do not establish independent oral performances.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana

   William Henry Brett, collector and literary adapter · 1880

   Complete Legend of Korobona64–74; McLeod narrator frame53–55. Closing narrator frame86 also read: six-day journey and return near Barima.

2. 02

   Among the Indians of Guiana

   Everard F. im Thurn · 1883

   Folk-lore chapter371–388; comparison passages377–379.

Family, evolution & connections

Korobona and her two children — Brett’s account

Korobona, pp. 64–74, in Brett’s English verse presentation; surrounding frame names McLeod.

Explicit maternal relationships; Wahma’s fatherhood retained only for the boy. The first girl’s death is an editorial guess. Her father is not assigned. No marriage is inferred from captivity, and the narrative’s origin claim is not verified ancestry of modern communities. Unnamed maternal aunt and four uncles are described separately, without invented parent generations.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textBrett: Warao narrative in English verseResearch access: 2026-10-05
2. Primary textIm Thurn1883: attributed comparative presentationResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.