The Moon
Gimi · deity · Gimi traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The Moon is a masculine celestial being in Gimi cosmology. Sources differ on whether it arose from the first woman's menstrual blood or from a firstborn son whom she hid and secretly nursed until he rose into the sky. In either telling the moon and menstruation are the same substance transposed to the heavens: women's monthly bleeding is read as the moon's continuing intercourse with them, so the lunar being governs the female cycle. The strong incest motif of the cosmogony recurs here, the moon being simultaneously son and phantom lover of the first mother.
Parentage
- parent: First WomanGillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)
- parent: First ManGillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)
Domains
- moon
- menstruation
Powers
- rule women's monthly bleeding
- rise from a woman's body into the sky
Relations
- parent: First WomanGillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)
- parent: First ManGillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary)
Sources
- The Gimi moon is masculine and originates from menstrual blood or from a hidden firstborn; it governs the menstrual cycle.: Gillison, Gillian. Between Culture and Fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands Mythology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. (secondary); Gillison, Gillian. 'Images of Nature in Gimi Thought.' In Nature, Culture and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. (secondary)