Sö (the Moon)
Ngäbe · deity · Ngäbe traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Sö, the Moon, is the twin brother of Ñänä, the Sun, in Ngäbe (Guaymí) tradition. In the creation cycle first recorded in the nineteenth century the two are the children of the creator Noncomala and the water-maiden Rutbe, whose birth ends the darkness of the primal world. In the modern bilingual telling from Potrero de Caña in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, the brothers grow up filthy and ignored in the hearth-ashes of their mother, the singer Evia, and later return as imposing men, the moon-brother dressed all in silver, before taking their places in the sky. Sö is the ordinary Ngäbere word for the moon.
Parentage
Domains
- moon
Powers
- to light the world by night as the moon
- to change from a neglected, ash-covered child into a resplendent grown man
Relations
- twin sibling: Ñänä (the Sun)The moon and the sun are twin brothers: in the recension written down in the nineteenth century they are borne together by the water-maiden Rutbe, and in the modern Potrero de Caña telling they grow up together at their mother Evia's hearth before taking their places in the sky.Marian Edwardes & Lewis Spence, A Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology (London: J. M. Dent & Sons / New York: E. P. Dutton, 1912), p. 127, s.v. 'Noncomala' (secondary); 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
- Sö, the Moon, is the twin brother of the Sun, borne by the water-maiden Rutbe to the creator Noncomala, and in the modern Ngäbe telling the neglected boy who returns as a man clothed in silver and becomes the moon.: Marian Edwardes & Lewis Spence, A Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology (London: J. M. Dent & Sons / New York: E. P. Dutton, 1912), p. 127, s.v. 'Noncomala' (secondary); 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); Hartley Burr Alexander, Latin-American Mythology (The Mythology of All Races, vol. XI; Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1920), chapter on the Isthmian region (Guaymí creation and flood traditions) (secondary)