Kiatsi
Among the Nomatsiguenga, the *Kiatsi* is a master of the depths of rivers and lakes: a long-furred being with a beard "like water snakes," who seizes with them those who pass over the water. He doesn’t attack for the sake of attacking—he has many daughters, and he capsizes boats so the men claimed by them stay below, married. Those who vanish in the swirl don’t ascend to the sky—their soul is "demanded" by the beings of the depths. The *Kiatsi* is neither a monster to defeat nor an accident: he’s a *dueño*, an owner of the aquatic world who takes the living as sons-in-law.
su pelo es largo, sus barbas son largas como las culebras y eso le permite atrapar a su presa, a alguna persona cuando pasa por ahí. Pero este Kiatsi no ataca por atacar, sino porque tiene bastantes hijas.
Kiatsi is a Nomatsiguenga lexeme, attested as such in Mabanga Casantyo’s account. It names one of the masters of the aquatic world—this tier of the cosmovision where the Itimaiti Jokatague-tachari, “the city of the drowned dead,” also resides. Kiatsi rules at the bottom of rivers and lakes. His mark is his body: long hair, and above all, long beards como las culebras, like grass snakes, which he uses to snatch those who pass above him.
What sets Kiatsi apart from a mere predator is his motive. He does not strike out of hunger or malice—no ataca por atacar—but because he has many daughters to marry off. When one of them desires a Nomatsiguenga husband passing by on a raft, Kiatsi stirs up a swell, and the crew capsizes. The men who vanish are those his daughters have requested: they will remain below, wed. Those no one has claimed sometimes escape. Drowning, then, is no accident but a forced alliance; the vanished soul does not ascend to the sky—it is pedida, claimed by the beings below.
Kiatsi belongs to the same family of figures as the Kimosito, who seizes the bather by the foot in the deepest pools. They are the dueños of the water, those who take the living.
Kiatsi is not the tiger of su alma es tigre, where a man shares his soul with the beast and becomes it: there, the same life flows between human and animal; here, the master of the waters does not merge with anyone—he remains an Other, a power that captures and weds. And unlike the more-than-human world as a concept that extends moral community to the living, Kiatsi reminds us that this world, teeming with persons, is not benevolent: to navigate it is to pass over the roof of someone seeking sons-in-law.