Editing Setebos (section)

{{Short description|Tehuelche god}}
{{about|the [[Tehuelche people|Tehuelche]] god Setebos who was an [[unseen character]] in Shakespeare's [[The Tempest]]}}
'''Setebos''' (also '''Settaboth''')  was a deity of the [[Tehuelche people]] of eastern [[Patagonia]]. The name was recorded by Europeans traveling with [[Ferdinand Magellan]] during the [[Magellan expedition|first circumnavigation]] of the world (1519–1522), and again some 58 years later by [[Sir Francis Drake]] during his (1577–1579) circumnavigation voyage. The Tehuelche people no longer constitute a coherent community and their language appears to be [[dead language|extinct]];<ref>{{cite web |last1=Domingo |first1=Javier |title=La imborrable obra de Dora Manchado: ¿la última guardiana de la lengua tehuelche? |url=https://www.infobae.com/cultura/2019/01/30/la-imborrable-obra-de-dora-manchado-la-ultima-guardiana-de-la-lengua-tehuelche/ |website=Infobae |date=30 January 2019 |access-date=23 November 2019 |language=es}}</ref> since the name Setebos is not attested in more recent ethnographic studies of eastern Patagonian indigenous peoples,<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Steward |editor-first=Julian H. |date=1946 |title=Handbook of South American Indians. Volulme 1. The Marginal Tribes |series=Bulletin (Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology) ;143 |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000627461 |location= Washington D.C.|publisher=United States Government Printing Office |access-date=10 February 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Droe |first=Anj|date= |title=Tehuelche |url=https://religiondatabase.org/browse/1450 |website=The Database of Religious History|publisher=University of British Columbia |access-date=10 February 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gray |first1=Louis H. |last2=Moore |first2=George Foot |last3=MacCulloch |first3=J. A. |date=1916 |title=The Mythology of All Races |url=https://archive.org/details/mythologyallrac08maccgoog |location= Boston |publisher= Marshall Jones Co.|access-date=10 February 2025}}</ref>
the reports made during the 16th century appear to be the only documented evidence of a god having this name.

However the name Setebos occurs twice in [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare's]] 1611 play ''[[The Tempest]]'', and scholars generally agree that Shakespeare adopted the name after having read a sixteenth-century English account of Magellan's voyage. In the play, Setebos, an [[unseen character]], is described as the god worshiped by the sea-witch [[Sycorax]], the mother of the subhuman [[Caliban]]. Many Shakespearean scholars have explicitly connected the character of Setebos in ''The Tempest'' with the characteristics attributed by the Tehuelche people to their god Setebos.

Largely because of Shakespeare's use of the name, "Setebos" has maintained currency in published works, including poems, novels and plays. In some of these (e.g. [[Robert Browning]]'s ''[[Caliban upon Setebos]]'') Setebos is understood to be the mythical character mentioned in ''The Tempest'', while in others (e.g. Mónica Maffía's<ref name="MM">{{cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=Mónica Maffía |url=https://academiadelasartesescenicas.es/monica-maffia/ |website=Academia de las artes escénicas |access-date=20 February 2025}}</ref> ''Cimbelino en la Patagonia''<ref name=MaffiaMartin>{{cite interview |last=Maffía |first=Mónica |interviewer=Randall Martin |title=Setebos Interviews: director Mónica Maffía |work=Cymbeline Anthropocene |publisher=Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada |location=Toronto, Ontario |url=https://www.cymbeline-anthropocene.com/article/18856-setebos-interviews-director-m%C3%B3nica-maff%C3%ADa |date=May 20, 2022}}</ref>) Setebos is presented both as a Shakespearean character and as the Tehuelche god.

Setebos's physical appearance is described only briefly in the 16th century accounts, and not at all in ''The Tempest'', and in subsequent works, Setebos has been imagined in a variety of different ways, ranging from nearly human, to a tiger-toad [[chimera (mythology)|chimera]], to a bizarre extraterrestrial creature.