Poseyemu
Poseyemu, 'Sun Youth,' is the great culture hero of the Tewa and one of the most widely known figures across the Pueblo world. Born of the Sun and a maiden of the pueblo, he grows to be the first and greatest shaman, able to speak with the powers of the sky, and he teaches the people ceremony, cultivation, and law; Tewa tradition credits him with instituting sodalities such as the Kosa clown cult. Traditions tell of his departure or overthrow and his pledge to return, a promise that carried political force: during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 Spanish authorities recorded rebels acting on the mandate of a lieutenant of 'Po he yemu.' In colonial and later accounts he is repeatedly conflated with Montezuma and, in mission contexts, with Jesus, forming what scholars have called a Pueblo mythological triangle. Sources differ on whether Poseyemu was purely a mythic being or the memory of a historical leader of the ancestral migration into the Rio Grande valley.
Parentage
- parent: The SunSon of the Sun; hence his name 'Sun Youth.'Bayliss, Clara Kern. 1909. 'A Tewa Sun Myth.' Journal of American Folklore 22(85): 333-335. (primary)
Domains
- culture hero
- healing
- prosperity
Powers
- teaches the people the arts of living
- promises to return to his people
Epithets
- Sun Youth — youth or child of the SunParmentier, Richard J. 1979. 'The Mythological Triangle,' in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 9: Southwest. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 609-622. (secondary)
Relations
- parent: The SunSon of the Sun; hence his name 'Sun Youth.'Bayliss, Clara Kern. 1909. 'A Tewa Sun Myth.' Journal of American Folklore 22(85): 333-335. (primary)
Sources
- Poseyemu, 'Sun Youth,' is the pan-Pueblo Tewa culture hero and son of the Sun who taught the arts of living and whose promised return was invoked in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.: Parmentier, Richard J. 1979. 'The Mythological Triangle: Poseyemu, Montezuma, and Jesus in the Pueblos,' in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 9: Southwest, ed. Alfonso Ortiz. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 609-622. (secondary); Bayliss, Clara Kern. 1909. 'A Tewa Sun Myth.' Journal of American Folklore 22(85): 333-335. (primary)