Cidal
Amis · deity · Amis traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Cidal, the sun, is counted among the spirits of the heavens alongside the moon and the sky god. Beyond its place in the celestial pantheon, the sun plays a decisive narrative role in the Amis flood tradition: when the two flood survivors, brother and sister, marry and produce only snakes, frogs, lizards and other malformed creatures, it is the sun that reveals to them the rite by which they may thereafter bear true human children, so becoming the ancestors of the Amis. The solar deity thus mediates the passage from chaotic post-flood generation to properly ordered human descent.
Domains
- sun
- ritual instruction
Powers
- teaches the rite that yields human offspring
Relations
- ally: SeraThe sun instructs the flood survivor and his sister-wife in the corrective rite.Ho Ting-jui, A Comparative Study of Myths and Legends of Formosan Aborigines (1971) (secondary)
- ally: NakawThe sun instructs the flood survivors in the corrective rite.Ho Ting-jui, A Comparative Study of Myths and Legends of Formosan Aborigines (1971) (secondary)
Sources
- Cidal is the Amis solar deity, the sun personified.: Council of Indigenous Peoples (Taiwan), 'Amis (Pangcah)' tribe profile, cip.gov.tw (secondary)
- In the Amis flood myth the sun teaches the incestuous sibling survivors a ceremony so that they bear normal human children.: Ho Ting-jui, A Comparative Study of Myths and Legends of Formosan Aborigines (1971) (secondary)