Gagayoma

Tinguian (Itneg) star-goddess; the divine wife of the mortal Aponitolau via the basket-lowering-from-heaven abduction. Mother of the demigod Takyayen by the unique parthenogenetic-finger-birth — Takyayen popped out from between her last two fingers after Aponitolau pricked them at her instruction. The Tinguian-tradition divine-female who reaches down to take a mortal husband, complementing the more common reverse-direction divine-male-and-mortal-female pairings across Philippine traditions.

Children

• Takyayen

Domains

• star goddess
• commander of the stars

Powers

• commanded the stars to come down to earth at her bidding
• descended from the sky to earth, being daughter of the great star and the moon
• threatened to have her companion stars devour the man who refused her

Epithets

• Gagayoma latin · Gagayoma · oralThe star-maiden of the sky-world who descends to the people of the lowlandFay-Cooper Cole, Traditions of the Tinguian (secondary)

Relations

• lover: Aponitolau / Apolinatu (mortal Tinguian husband, also husband of Aponibolinayen) · TinguianTinguian oral tradition (primary)
• mother of: TakyayenTinguian oral tradition (primary)

Sources

• existence: Cole, Traditions of the Tinguian (Field Museum Anthropological Series 14.1, 1915), pp. 65-77 (the Aponitolau-Aponibolinayen-Gagayoma narrative cycle); Wilcken, Ethnographische Parallelen aus dem Philippinischen Archipel (1922), supplementary attestations (primary)