Moon (Mbud)
Apinajé · deity · Apinajé traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Mbud, the Moon, is the junior culture-hero and foil of the Sun. Where the Sun acts wisely, the Moon covets, imitates and fails, and it is through his blunders that imperfection enters the world. In the painting contest he is left with the black of genipap; in the argument over the fate of the dead he insists that people, once dead, should stay dead, and so becomes the author of mortality. Sources differ on the precise transcription of his Apinayé name, but agree on his role as the improvident partner whose errors are woven into the fabric of ordinary human life.
Domains
- lunar cycle
- mortality
Powers
- brings death into the world
- imitates the Sun and blunders
Epithets
- Mbud — the Moon, the blundering companionCurt Nimuendajú, The Apinayé (1939). (primary)
Relations
- companion: Sun (Mãt)Constant companion of the Sun through the world's first age.Curt Nimuendajú, The Apinayé (1939), 'Sun and Moon.' (primary)
- rival: Sun (Mãt)His losing rivalry with the Sun produces death, pain and the black paint.Curt Nimuendajú, The Apinayé (1939), 'Sun and Moon.' (primary)
Sources
- The Moon (Mbud) is the junior Apinayé demiurge whose failed imitations of the Sun account for death, hardship and the black body paint.: Curt Nimuendajú, The Apinayé (1939), 'Sun and Moon' cycle. (primary); Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked: Mythologiques I (1969). (secondary)