Mebuyan

Mebuyan is the goddess of the Bagobo underworld, Gimokudan, the land of the dead beneath the earth. Sister of Lumabat, she refused to ascend to the sky; seating herself in a rice mortar and scattering rice, she sank down through the ground to the world below, over which she rules. Her body is covered from head to foot with breasts, at which she suckles the spirits of infants who die before they can eat, keeping them until they are grown; she also bathes the souls of the dead in a black river so that they forget the living and do not return. She is remembered in the observances of death and mourning.

Parentage

• paternal: Tuglay
• maternal: Tuglibung

Domains

• death
• underworld
• motherhood

Powers

• rule the land of the dead beneath the earth
• suckle the souls of infants who die too young
• bathe the souls of the dead so they forget the living

Relations

• sibling: LumabatLaura Watson Benedict, 'Bagobo Myths,' Journal of American Folk-Lore 26 (1913): 13-63. (primary)
• sibling: WariLaura Watson Benedict, 'Bagobo Myths,' Journal of American Folk-Lore 26 (1913): 13-63. (primary)

Sources

• Mebuyan, sister of Lumabat, refused to ascend and descended in a rice mortar to Gimokudan, the underworld, which she rules.: Laura Watson Benedict, 'Bagobo Myths,' Journal of American Folk-Lore 26, no. 99 (1913): 13-63. (primary)
• Her body is covered with breasts at which she suckles the souls of dead infants, and she bathes the souls of the dead in a black river.: Laura Watson Benedict, A Study of Bagobo Ceremonial, Magic and Myth, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 25 (1916): 1-308. (secondary)