The mother of the sun is a mortal woman, unnamed in the recorded narratives, who was kept in seclusion at her first menstruation when the moon came to her. He gave her people manioc and made her his wife; when she conceived and bore the sun, the child's heat consumed her and she died. Through her the solar deity is joined by descent to the moon, and the ambivalence of the lunar figure, giver of food yet bringer of death, is anchored in her fate.