Evia
Evia is the mother of the sun and the moon in the Ngäbe oral tradition of Potrero de Caña, in the Müna district of the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, recorded on cassette by the Ngäbe agronomist Roger Séptimo in 1983 and 1984 and published bilingually with the anthropologist Luz Graciela Joly Adames in 1986. She lives alone with two small sons whose father is unknown; a celebrated singer, she is frequently away at festivities while the boys lie dirty in the ashes around her hearth, until they leave her and return transformed into men of extraordinary build, dressed impeccably in gold and in silver, the sun and the moon of the tale's title. She occupies the narrative place held by the water-maiden Rutbe in the Guaymí creation story written down in the nineteenth century, though the published sources do not identify the two women with one another.
Domains
- song
Powers
- to sing at festivities as a celebrated singer
Relations
- mother of: Ñänä (the Sun)In the Potrero de Caña telling Evia is the mother of the boy who becomes the sun; the tale states that the boys' father was unknown.Roger Séptimo & Luz Graciela Joly Adames, Kugüe kira nie ngäbere / Sucesos antiguos dichos en guaymí (Etnohistoria guaymí) (Panamá: Asociación Panameña de Antropología, 1986), tale 'Ñaglon bata Sö / El Sol y la Luna' (secondary)
- mother of: Sö (the Moon)In the Potrero de Caña telling Evia is the mother of the boy who becomes the moon; the tale states that the boys' father was unknown.Roger Séptimo & Luz Graciela Joly Adames, Kugüe kira nie ngäbere / Sucesos antiguos dichos en guaymí (Etnohistoria guaymí) (Panamá: Asociación Panameña de Antropología, 1986), tale 'Ñaglon bata Sö / El Sol y la Luna' (secondary)
Sources
- Evia is the woman of Ngäbe oral tradition who lived alone with two small sons of unknown paternity; the neglected, ash-covered boys left her hearth and returned as resplendent men dressed in gold and in silver, the sun and the moon of the tale's title.: Roger Séptimo & Luz Graciela Joly Adames, Kugüe kira nie ngäbere / Sucesos antiguos dichos en guaymí (Etnohistoria guaymí) (Panamá: Asociación Panameña de Antropología, 1986), tale 'Ñaglon bata Sö / El Sol y la Luna' (secondary); Roger Séptimo & Luz Graciela Joly Adames, 'Ñaglon Bata Sö (Ñänä botdä Sö)(Ngweana botdä Sö) / El Sol y la Luna', digital edition (Panamá: Asociación de Antropología e Historia de Panamá, 2021) (secondary)