Old Mother
Otomi · deity · primordial · Recorded classification
Otomi/Hñähñu (central Mexico). English 'Old Mother' leads; Otomi Zäna ('moon'), the Old Mother Pømbe. A lunar-earth goddess, consort of the Old Father / Otontecuhtli. Spelling Zäna uses the central-vowel diacritic of Otomi orthography.
Domains
- moon
- earth and fertility
Powers
- rule the night as moon and earth
Epithets
- Zǎnä The Moon, the old grandmother-goddess and great mother of the OtomiPedro Carrasco, Los Otomíes (secondary)
Relations
- spouse: Old Fire-and-Death GodThe Otomi primordial couple: the Old Mother (moon-earth) is consort of the Old Father (fire and death).Jacques Galinier, La Mitad del Mundo: Cuerpo y cosmos en los rituales otomies (1990) (secondary)
Sources
- Zäna is the Otomi moon goddess and 'Queen of the Night', embodying Moon and Earth together; as the Old Mother (Pømbe) she is the consort of the Old Father (Otontecuhtli/Šihta).: Carrasco, Pedro (1950). Los otomíes: cultura e historia prehispánicas. México: UNAM. (secondary); Galinier, Jacques (2004 [1990]). The World Below: Body and Cosmos in Otomí Indian Ritual. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. (secondary)