Akuun ñee (goddess of the temazcal)
Tlapanec · deity · Tlapanec traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Akuun ñee is the goddess of the temazcal sweatbath among the Tlapanec (Me'phaa) of Guerrero and the patron of the hot-cold duality that governs healing and birth. In the Me'phaa creation myth the Sun (Akha'), the Moon (Gon') and the Fire god (Akuun mbatsuun') are born on the bank of a river, and it is Akuun ñee who takes them in and rears them. Her domain, the temazcal, is the Mesoamerican steam bath in which illness is treated and women are attended in and after childbirth, the body's warm and cool qualities being brought back into balance. She belongs to the class of Me'phaa domain gods (whose names carry the element akuun / aku) that stand below the dominant Sun-and-Moon pair.
Domains
- sweatbath
- healing
- childbirth
Powers
- to govern the temazcal sweatbath of healing and birth
- to balance the hot and the cold in body and world
- to rear the Sun, the Moon and the Fire god
Epithets
- Akuun ñeeEncyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8 (G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (secondary)
Relations
- foster mother of: Akha' (the Sun)Akuun ñee rears the Sun, who is born on the bank of the river; she is his foster-mother rather than his natural parent.Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8 (G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (the Sun raised by Akuun ñee) (secondary)
- foster mother of: Gon' (the Moon)Akuun ñee rears the Moon, who is born on the bank of the river alongside the Sun and the Fire god.Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8 (G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (the Moon raised by Akuun ñee) (secondary)
- foster mother of: Akuun mbatsuun' (the Fire god)Akuun ñee rears the Fire god, who is born on the bank of the river alongside the Sun and the Moon.Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8 (G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (the Fire god raised by Akuun ñee) (secondary)
Sources
- Akuun ñee is the Me'phaa (Tlapanec) goddess of the temazcal sweatbath, patron of the hot-cold duality of healing and birth, who reared the Sun, the Moon and the Fire god after their birth on the riverbank.: Dow, James W., and Robert Van Kemper, eds., Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8: Middle America and the Caribbean (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (secondary); Oettinger, Marion, Una comunidad tlapaneca: sus linderos sociales y territoriales (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1980) (secondary)