Rayénari is the personified Sun of the Rarámuri, addressed as 'the father'. In the creation narrative he and the Moon, Metzaka, are at first tiny dark-skinned children who dwell alone in a hut of sticks and mud, possessing nothing and lit only by the scattered glow of the Morning Star; the two are cured by being touched on the breast with little crosses of madroño wood dipped in tesgüino, after which they slowly begin to shine and give light. Grown, the Sun and Moon create the first Rarámuri, lean and swift runners who settle in the mountains the supreme creator had formed. As the Sun, Rayénari guards human beings during the day while the Moon watches over the night; the Rarámuri keep him 'content' through the yúmari and other dances and through offerings of tesgüino, ritual acts understood to avert the death of the Sun and so to sustain the order of the cosmos.