Phaxsi

Phaxsi is the personified moon of Aymara cosmology, honoured as Phaxsi Mama, 'Mother Moon'. Within the pervasive dual structure of Aymara thought she is the feminine celestial principle set opposite the masculine sun Tata Inti, the two together ordering day and night, and her cycle (phaxsi also meaning 'month') governs the agricultural and ritual calendar. She is associated with women, fertility and the timing of planting and harvest.

Domains

• moon and night

Powers

• to govern the moon and the reckoning of the months

Epithets

• Phaxsi Mama

Relations

• consort of: Inti

Sources

• Ludovico Bertonio, Vocabulario de la lengua aymara (1612)
• Hans van den Berg, La tierra no da así nomás: los ritos agrícolas en la religión de los aymara-cristianos (1990)