Ilanguipuca, the Great Mother
Lenca · deity · Lenca traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Ilanguipuca, the 'Great Mother', is the earth goddess of the traditional Lenca religion, associated with the land, the forests, the rivers and lakes, and above all with the fertility of the maize and the crops. She is the consort of Itanipuca, the 'Great Father' of the sky, and with him forms the primordial creative pair. The institution of their cult is attributed in the Cerquín legend to the culture-heroine Comizahual. Like her husband she is documented through Spanish-language ethnography of an originally polytheistic, animistic and naualist tradition rather than through a surviving native-language scripture.
Domains
- earth land
- fertility agriculture
Powers
- to make the earth and its crops fertile
Epithets
- IlanguipucaAnne Chapman, Los hijos del copal y la candela: ritos agrarios y tradición oral de los lencas de Honduras, 2 vols., Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1985-1986. (secondary)
Relations
- spouse: Itanipuca, the Great FatherIlanguipuca the Great Mother of the earth and Itanipuca the Great Father of the sky form the primordial divine couple of the Lenca cosmogony.Anne Chapman, Los hijos del copal y la candela: ritos agrarios y tradición oral de los lencas de Honduras, 2 vols., Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1985-1986. (secondary)
Sources
- Ilanguipuca, the 'Great Mother', is the Lenca earth-and-fertility goddess, wife of the sky-god Itanipuca and co-creator of the world.: Anne Chapman, Los hijos del copal y la candela: ritos agrarios y tradición oral de los lencas de Honduras, 2 vols., Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1985-1986. (secondary); Doris Stone, 'The Northern Highland Tribes: The Lenca,' in Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 4, ed. Julian H. Steward, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1948, pp. 205-217. (secondary)