God of the Winds
Otomi · deity · primordial · Recorded classification
Otomi/Hñähñu (central Mexico). The Relación geográfica de Querétaro (1582) describes the stone idol the Otomi of Jilotepec called Eday, 'god of the winds', whom they believed to have created the whole universe; it stood in the most eminent place of a sanctuary served by priests. The name is the Otomi word for wind, dähi, turned into a proper name by the personifying prefix e-, and the god's image with its projecting mouth-mask corresponds to the central Mexican wind god Ehecatl, as Pedro Carrasco and David Wright Carr have shown.
Domains
- wind
- creation
Powers
- to create the whole universe
- to raise and command the winds
Sources
- Eday/Edähi ('the Wind') was the wind god and universal creator worshipped with a stone idol and priesthood by the Otomi of Jilotepec and early Querétaro, corresponding to the central Mexican Ehecatl.: Ramos de Cárdenas, Francisco (1582). "Relación geográfica de Querétaro," in René Acuña (ed.), Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI: Michoacán (México: UNAM, 1987). (primary); Wright Carr, David Charles (2007). "Los dioses en las lenguas otomí y náhuatl" (IX Coloquio Internacional sobre Otopames, Xalapa). (secondary); Carrasco Pizana, Pedro (1950). Los otomíes: cultura e historia prehispánicas de los pueblos mesoamericanos de habla otomiana. México: UNAM. (secondary)