Mayari
Tagalog · demigod · heroic age · Recorded classification
Half-divine daughter of Bathala by an unnamed mortal woman who died at her birth. Goddess of the moon, night, beauty, strength, combat, and war in the Tagalog and Pampangan traditions. The most beautiful divinity in Bathala's court per Jocano's Outline. The Pampangan eye-blinding-by-Apolaki tradition supplies the etiology of moonlight's relative dimness — Mayari rules the night with cooler and dimmer light than her brother Apolaki's daytime sun, due to the lost eye. Translated to Kaluwalhatian (the heavenly realm) by her father after her mortal mother's death; received among the celestial court — the apotheosis-by-paternal-translation pattern.
Parentage
- paternal: Bathala
Domains
- moon and night
- beauty strength and combat
Powers
- Duels with bamboo war-clubs
Relations
- sibling: ApolakiFull sibling; shares the same complete attested parentage.
- sibling: TalaJocano Outline (primary)
- sibling: HananJocano Outline (primary)
- sibling: Apolaki (sun-god, half-sibling in some traditions) · TagalogIn the Pampangan tradition, Mayari's sibling-rival in the eye-blinding-and-shared-rule dispute. The sibling-relationship varies across regional traditions — sometimes full-sister, sometimes half-sister via different divine mother.Pampangan tradition; Ramos Philippine Myths (primary)
Sources
- existence: F. Landa Jocano Outline of Philippine Mythology and Notes on Philippine Divinities; Damiana Eugenio Philippine Folk Literature: The Myth (UP Press, 2001); Maximo Ramos Philippine Myths, Legends, and Folktales; Dean S. Fansler Filipino Popular Tales; Pampangan oral tradition (primary)
- parentage: Jocano Outline; Eugenio Philippine Folk Literature (primary)