Child of the Water
Apache · demigod · myth age / first people time · Recorded classification
Monster-slaying twin culture-hero classed 'demigod' (son of a goddess and the Sun). Apache Tóbájíshchíní (cf. Navajo Tóbájíshchíní); in Chiricahua/Mescalero he, not Killer of Enemies, is the principal hero.
Parentage
- parent: White Painted Woman
Domains
- monster slaying
- protection
Powers
- slay the monsters that devour people
- endure his father the Sun's tests
- Endures the Sun's ordeals to be acknowledged as his son
Epithets
- Child of the Water The culture-hero who, with Killer of Enemies, rid the world of the monstersMorris Opler, An Apache Life-Way (secondary)
Relations
- twin sibling: Killer of EnemiesThe monster-slaying twin culture-heroes; their relative prominence is reversed between Chiricahua/Mescalero and Jicarilla tellings.Harry Hoijer, Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts (1938) (secondary)
Sources
- Child of the Water (Tóbájíshchíní), son of White Painted Woman, is the dominant Chiricahua/Mescalero monster-slaying culture-hero who, protected by a blue stone, kills Owl-Man Giant and other monsters.: Morris E. Opler, 'Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians,' Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society 37 (1942). (ethnography); Pliny Earle Goddard, 'Myths and Tales from the San Carlos Apache' (1918) and 'Myths and Tales from the White Mountain Apache' (1919). (ethnography)