Akuun ñee (goddess of the temazcal)
Tlapanec · deity · Tlapanec traditional religion; continuing · deity
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 ñee
Relations
- foster mother of: Akha' (the Sun)
- foster mother of: Gon' (the Moon)
- foster mother of: Akuun mbatsuun' (the Fire god)