Arawa

Arawa is the personified moon in Pokot (Suk) mythology, named as the firstborn son of the creator Tororut and his consort Seta. His name is the ordinary Kalenjin word for the moon and the month, and as a deity he is counted among the wholly benevolent members of the sky-family alongside his sister Topogh the evening star, his brother Ilat the rain, and the Kokel or stars. The lunar personification echoes the more southerly Kalenjin creation traditions in which the sun Asis takes the moon to wife, though in the Suk account the moon is instead the sky-god's son rather than the sun's spouse.

Parentage

• Tororut
• Seta

Domains

• moon and night

Powers

• to give light by night as the moon

Relations

• sibling: Topogh

Sources

• Mervyn W. H. Beech, The Suk: Their Language and Folklore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911).
• Harold Scheub, A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).